;five books I recommended to everyone this year

It’s a little bit weird for me, to be posting things on the blog back to back. I’m more of a once a week person, it’s much easier on my mental health. I’ll be going back to that in January, unless Shealea or some other awesome person comes up with another thing I can take part with.

More information and the full #Project14Lists can be found here.

As most people in my life know, I will talk about books to everyone. I say ‘to’ instead of ‘with’ because most of the people in my life just indulge me but aren’t actually as in love with books as I am. Thankfully, I do have at least three people who will get as excited as I do over books.

This first list is a list of books I loved so much that I found myself taking photos of quotes to send to friends so I could scream at them about how much I loved them. Or just texting my friends to scream about how much I loved these books and how much they needed to read them.*

*At least two people have already given in to my yelling and either bought a copy of one of these books or borrowed it. Success!

• Phulkari by Harman Kaur.
  I came across her poetry mostly by accident on Instagram, but it spoke to me. I found myself relating so much to her poems – largely cycling back to our shared faith and ideologies, and it is absolutely the reason I have recommended this to everybody I know in my extended family and at the temple. IT IS SUPER RELATABLE AND WONDERFUL.
• From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon.
  I absolutely love Sandhya’s writing and I managed to even convince my not-a-bookworm younger sister to read her work and she’s enjoying it so much. It’s like reading a Bollywood movie, only 10000000000 times less dramatic but also not really. I actually put this in the book box I was curating! And everyone who bought it LOVED IT.
• Forest Of A Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao.
  It’s Snow White but from the Evil Queen’s point of view but also it’s Chinese fantasy inspired but also it’s beautiful prose and chills along my spine. Obviously I’ve recommended it to everyone I know who enjoys fairytale reimaginings as much as I do.
• The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi.
  I’ve been recommending this to everyone since I read it, especially everyone Indian I know. Large selling point to some of them? “There’s this one bit where they talk about the Harnakash story and I had to put the book down to scream in joy.” Look, we get very excited when we see things recognisable to us in stories. Will I be recommending this every time? Yes. Yes, I will.
• The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff.
  I’m still screaming over it being over, so I recommend this to people looking for something a bit different. It’s a cool concept, it’s a different style, and the story is SO GOOD that I think one of the people I recommended this to finished the first two books over a weekend where she was supposed to be working. Whoops? Except not really.

And there we have it. My first list for #Project14Lists. Late to the party and not doing the whole 14, but I’m hoping it’s not that bad. I’m having fun making lists, at the very least.

What are some books you recommended to people this year?