Menopocalypse by Amanda Thebe

Menopocalypse: How I Learned to Thrive During Menopause and How You Can Too by Amanda Thebe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Menopocalypse by Amanda Thebe

This book came highly recommended by many of the fitness coaches I follow. It is about women’s menopause. I know many would instantly click away since it is not relevant to you at all, but if you are a woman who is nearing or in her 40s, or you know a woman who is nearing or in her 40s I suggest you give this review a wee bit time.

It is close to impossible to summarise the book, since I find that a single read through is not sufficient and one might have to go through relevant sections again. But I shall try and enlist the core sections and how they can help.

The author is a personal trainer with 20 years experience in fitness industry. This book is her attempt to demystify menopause for everyone, having gone through the worst set of symptoms herself and thrown into huge chaos.

The book first has a good explanation of what menopause is, the role of hormones in a woman’s life, how they change during menopause and what the effects could be. The experience can be so varied with some just sailing into menopause smoothly and some struggling with a myriad of issues and others somewhere between the two extremes. The author then goes through all the medical interventions possible today including HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy).

The second part of the book is about lifestyle changes. Nutrition, exercise, activity, stress management, mindfulness, sleep and recovery - each of these is explained in depth , with doable action items on each front. What makes this book a real treasure is she actually gives a doable workout program, explains each move with pictures and cues. For those uninitiated in strength training, you are not left at sea with the motherhood instruction “Start strength training”.

Most women don’t know enough about menopause, and even peers talk about it to each other in cryptic whispers. This book blew the lid open for me on what it can be, how I can help myself when I encounter a symptom or change. Many things in the book really resonated with me.

Women spend their entire lives putting themselves last in the list of priorities. Whether working or homemaker, its the same. In the book the author really stresses the importance of placing oneself first at least at this stage of life.

The author repeatedly stresses on the fact that as women, we should take agency over our menopause experience and not suffer silently. Things can be better if we try and find ways by medical interventions and lifestyle changes.

She also says over and over again, work on everything we can control. There are things in our control such has lifestyle, and things not in our control such as hormonal swings. The first CAN mitigate the effects of the second to a very large extent.

If you have read till here and decide to check out the book, please don’t get intimidated by the book cover. Please don’t think its for fitness buffs who what to get big and muscular. Trust me, this book is for every woman who wants to have an informed and empowered menopause experience.

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Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Persepolis 1 and 2 are the first books into my tentative foray into graphic literature.

This set is a delight! Its a coming of age account of the author in the backdrop of the quickly changing situation in Iran. Unfortunately I do not have much insight about the land, its culture and its history but it is something I shall attempt to correct in the future.

The illustrations are so apt, convey enough depth at the same time being light. The beautiful moments of life whether tragedy or humorous are so well etched. I had a smile whenever I picked up either book to read. Its like a pleasant sweet carriage ride on a summer afternoon, the views outside pleasant and sometimes unpleasant.

Highly recommended.

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The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been putting off writing this review because I honestly don't think I can do justice to the spirit of the book. Nevertheless, I shall try.

This is my first book by Matt Haig. There is something about him, else who will come up with such a fantastical, other-worldly idea to convey something basic, simple but not easy.

We live our lives making choices and these lead us down one path and not another. We have regrets about the choices we made and think that if only we had chosen differently, life would have been oh-so-much-better. Something like 'If only I had done better at college, if only I had chosen a different career, if only ...if only...if only.' And what if we get a chance to see how each choice would pan out, and see the consequences, and then, can choose the perfect set of choices for a perfect life, would that not be wonderful?

'Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices...Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?'

Perhaps this book came at a time in my life when I needed it, but the core learning is something we all would do good to be aware of and live by. Hopefully I have piqued your interest enough to make you want to read it.

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Anxious People by Fredrick Backman

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am in love! This book is like a gust of fresh air after a long time indoors, or a cool dip in water in peak summer. Really!

This is my first book by Fredrik Backman and I really didn't know what to expect. A few pages in, I was like "Wow! This is a delight!!" Only then did I look up and discover Fredrik Backman is a Swedish author and this is a translation. I am left thinking, if the translation is so good, the original must be so much more touching, and also that the translator Neil Smith has succeeded in reaching readers in another language. Hats off! The only other Swedish author I have read was Stieg Larsson whose Millenium Trilogy I have really enjoyed.

The book is about love and loss, normal everyday moments, mental health, gender and sexuality, infidelity and divorce, death, desperation, alcoholism, ambition, and the need to do the right thing, in short - normal human experiences. It's like a goldilocks zone for each character. Just enough depth to feel for each of them and relate to them and without feeling too heavy because each is a human experience. Funny at so many places that I found myself laughing loudly and then at a blind corner comes a human tragedy, sucked the wind out of my lungs. What beautiful balance!!!

Fredrik Backman is my latest favourite author and this book is easily the best I have read in a long time. So much so, his debut book is waiting on my to-read shelf to be consumed very soon.







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The Vanishing Half - Book Review

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Was not too entranced with the entirety of the book. Loved some parts, didn't enjoy many others.

Its about a pair of twins who split and how their lives turn out. The book spans 1968-1999.

The lack of grief and searing loss at the death of a father.
How little the character of the mother is known. You never get to know her.
The twins, its impossible to know one without the other. And as a reader you end up with exactly that. Not knowing either.
The character of the trans man and crossdressers felt like they were added just to make the cast eclectic. They lacked depth and any relevance.

The whole book felt like it was meant to just tick boxes to meet some criteria indecipherable to the reader.

Liked some interactions, some soft moments, and that held me to complete the book. But then I was just wondering all the while, okay, so, what is the meaning of all this!

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Apples Never Fall Book Review

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, was a bit sceptical aboutthis book matching the standard set.

Have to admit I liked this book VERY MUCH. There were some parts that worked for me and some that didn't.

I liked the whole of the Delaneys, how tennis consumed their life and how everything centred around the sport. The character of each of the Delaney siblings is so well etched, you kinda start relating some parts of some character to someone you know. For me, Joy's story was the best part. Her internal monologues, the universal mommy guilt, her seething resentment tempered with reason.

I don't care much for the non-linear narrative. The then and now keeps one hooked, but the material doesn't need this kind of a tool to engage the reader. I would have wished to know more about Savannah. Such a strong character and so little insight. And then there is this outlandish bit about ONE day's tiny events so many years ago impacting a whole lot.

Like with Big Little Lies,this book too can be adapted for screen.


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Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book I have read in this genre but I do follow the author in her very popular Dear Therapist series in The Atlantic. I love the series and the insights it has to give.

Now that I have finished the book, I am amazed at how honest, transparent and vulnerable the author has been to put out the most raw and potentially insecure parts of her own life. That shows her strength of character and how rooted she is. Another thing that struck me about her was how she shifted her path not once, not twice, but thrice to find her true calling. Starting off as a writer in Hollywood, she then went to med school, and then to becoming a therapist investing years of work in each, excelling at each and figuring out what worked and what did not work for her.

Then there are the lives of her patients. She talks of them from a place of empathy and compassion and is honest enough to say when it is hard to have these with particularly difficult ones. As a reader, I could feel the pain, discomfort, shame that the patients did. There are SO MANY instances where I could relate to something in my own life or something I have witnessed with people in my circle. I shall not mention them all because there are way too many.

There are some things she has written which have stayed in my head. Forgive me for these are not direct quotes, but how I remember them.
- Change and loss travel together. How simple and how so loaded!!
- In the space between stimulus and response, is our choice. We cannot control the stimulus, but can always control the response.
- How we are prisoners in our own minds. Meaningful, positive outcomes come from opening the mind to other possibilities than the narrative we have always taken shelter in.
- How even the world of therapy has succumbed to the instant-results mantra of today. I was surprised though I shouldn't have been.
- There was a part in the book where she went strongly on how we are addicted to our devices. It felt like that part was written for me.

I feel I have to read the book again to understand the technical aspects which she sprinkles throughout in the context of specific instances with her patients or herself. I have to read it again to absorb some more.

Key take away from the book - the answers are within. Or maybe I have viewed it through that lens.
And looks like we could all benefit from some therapy.




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All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A beautifully written book, haunting poetic prose with a very simple premise. Such few characters. The whole oppressive melancholy expressed in very muted fashion. And at the end it all tied together so well like zigzag puzzle. The blind Marie-Laurie and the brilliant Werner will stay in my heart for very long.



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The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Where do I start. Right at the beginning? The beginning is also at the end. How beautifully life comes a full circle.
I was drawn to Catherine who had to pay the price for being reckless in the rush of youth. I felt searing pain as Cyril grew up painfully shy and largely ignored.

But what hit me the most was the fear of being alone all life, never knowing love and companionship.

They say, the more things change, the more they remain the same. The casual bigotry by people who are not even aware of what they are doing, always being seen as aliens, always being in the defense of one's 'condition' was so hard to read, I had to take breaks, absorb and continue.

Not for a moment is the book depressive, the wry humour and narrative more than makes up for the heavy subject. I loved the way the whole story was narrated from every seventh year events.

A must-read book from my side.



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The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If someone had told me I would get hooked to a Science Fiction book and relate to many many moments in it, I would have laughed. But 'The Martian' caught me in its pincer grip and refused to let go until I had read the last page and closed it with a big 'whoa'.

Page turner? Absolutely yes.

Soppy emotions? Just the right teeny dash of it. I found myself rooting for potatoes to grow, desperate for the protagonist to establish some contact with earth, felt the rickety-bullock-cart type last ride to the one and only chance of coming back home.

Science? Loads of it. The kind  a 15 year old will grasp.

Set far in the future? Well, yes and its the foreseeable future. Not one where people fly around in their personal pods you know?

Stretch of imagination? Totally. What good is SciFi without a huge stretch of imagination!! The best part is all the scenarios and solutions are based on solid and known science.

The style of narration? Super! Simple and not dry and full of attitude. We are actually dealing with one very cool astronaut you see?

I thought this can be made into a great movie. Duh! Just got to know its already happening. I know, I know, I have been an ostrich with its head buried in sand.

And (I HAD to put this here, my Indian sensibilities force my hand) is it only me who finds the name 'Venkat Kapoor' strange?

Go ahead, read this book and enjoy the ride!!!


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In the Shadow of the Banyan

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is rare to come across a book that jolts you and makes you weep. I am more than glad that I came across this one and read it.

This is set in the time of 1975-79 at Cambodia. The period of Khmer Rouge, the killing fields, the systemic breakdown of the fabric of the Cambodian society.

The story is that of a young 7 year old Raami who is forced to flee her home with her loved ones barely packing up what could be a few bundles. It is the story of loss, tribulation, of a seven year old who is forced to understand things that even adults would not want to. It is also a story of dreams, hope, beauty and the human want to survive at all odds.

When her father is taken away by the Khmer Rouge, the young Raami beseeches with him to not go away. She begs him to tell her one last story. If that doesn't break your heart, nothing will.

Her mother's fury at what she felt was abandonment at the hands of her husband.  In just a few lines of a story of a family of birds, the author gets the reader to feel what this woman goes through.

Only when she finally manages to flee her country, not knowing what had become of her father, what his last moments were like, does the child dare to take his name.

There are too many poignant moments like these, too many for me to list down. If you are looking for historical facts, or if you want to understand what the genocide was like, this book is not for you. But if you liked the Kite Runner or The Thousand Splendid Suns, I would seriously recommend this one.

This is one book I am sure to read again and again.



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The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by J.K Rowling

I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. I have read the series thrice and surely think will read again and again in the years to come. I had put off watching the movies for quite sometime and watched them only in an attempt to get my son interested in reading the series. But that is another story.

When I heard that J K Rowling was coming up with a book on a completely different genre, to say I was intrigued would be an understatement. How could the creator of the world of Harry Potter think outside that world!!!

I felt the initial interest in the book would be because it was authored by J K Rowling. It might even make it to the best sellers list, but may still be a not-so-good book. So even when I had got hold of a copy, I pushed off reading it for a few months. I was both right and wrong. Right on understanding the initial interest and wrong to think that it could be a not-so-good book.

So, when I began to read it was with trepidation. And for a long time, hundred pages or so I was lost. A small village of Pagford with this petty politics and average characters. A bunch of kids, a few dysfunctional families and on and on in the same vein. I simply couldn't understand what the whole point of it was. I continued plodding maybe because I did not want to give up on her yet, or my nature to finish a bad movie or book till its end and pronounce it worthless, or she managed to hold the reader in some sublime way.

I do not understand at what point and how, but the story got under my skin. I kept thinking about Kristal and Andrew and Cubby and Kay. I panicked for Kristal when she felt trapped by her circumstances. It is very easy to denounce the addicts and their problems saying it was brought on by themselves. I wanted to hold Parminder by her shoulders and shake her "Look at your daughter!!!" I was completely puzzled with Stuart Walls' actions and never understood why he behaved like a prick.

I could go on and on, but will not summarise the plot here. But I will tell you this. This book makes you think. Think about others and their unique set of circumstances. It will make you pause before you get judgemental of your neighbour. It will make you understand that there is no clear line distinguishing the good and the bad. Its like a giant microscope on a small sample of the human race and shows what you see everywhere. Racism, drug abuse, bullying, the frustrations of the middle class, what obsessive compulsive disorder actually means, what really happens in an abusive household. You will relate these to things that you see around you. The book also shows hope and is not all gloom and doom.

I read in an interview of hers that the initial name of the book was to have been 'Responsibility'. But if you ask me, I would name it 'Empathy'. Or maybe that is my takeaway.

I rate it 4 out of 5 stars. It could easily have been 5 out of 5, but I really needed to plod on those first 100 pages with determination and that cost it one star.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A delightful read. The name of the book sure puts one off. When I picked it up, one of the blurbs read something on the lines of "You want the book to go on and on, don't want it to end". I heartily agree.

The whole book is in the form of letters. No narration, no long rants of anything. Just letters.

If you like fiction, then I would definitely recommend this.



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Room by Emma Donoghue

Room by Emma Donoghue

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is more than "inspired" from a true happening. An awful happening that makes one cringe to even remember it.

But the wonderful part of the book is because the story is narrated by the child. Who did not know that he was a victim, who was not aware that he had to really be "scave" to escape and who is completely bewildered when in the real world.

Zero points if you are looking for an original story, but full points for the treatment.



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Dork: The Incredible Adventures Of Robin 'einstein' Varghese by Sidin Vadukut

Dork: The Incredible Adventures Of Robin 'einstein' Varghese by Sidin Vadukut

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Initially funny, I kept giggling for sometime. But after a while the dorky treatment started grating on my nerves. I plodded on hoping that there would some deviation, some show of genius which I thought I could discern in the first few pages. Nothing like that. It continued being dorky.

It was a HUGE disappointment, given all the reviews and feedback on the book.



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The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Life was very difficult in the medieval times. Whether it was war time or peace time, the common man faced an uncertainty that people of our time and location will find hard to comprehend.



It is not about a person. I cannot say Prior Philip or Tom Builder or Jack or Aliena or anyone to be the central character of the book. Its about all of them. Normal people with normal weaknesses.



I found the first 200 pages difficult to cross, but once the characters were all in, it was unputdownable.



A very very very good read.



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1984 by George Orwell Book Review

1984 by George Orwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


An extreme take on a totalitarian state, where one does not have the possession of one's own mind.

Heartbreaking betrayal and the final surrender, what touched me was the way the mind was made to obey, unthink, and deny reality. This is what torture does perhaps. Is it really possible to break a man's spirit in so irretrievable fashion? It must be. I could feel the hopeless terror of Winston when he faced torture, the bliss of his days with Julia and the fear that thinking logically might mean that one is insane.

Most poignant part was when they lost one another. No connect. Nothing there. No feelings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

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