BOOKWORM
COURTING LOVE
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, Alfred A Knopf, $29.95. Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket.
When her mother passes away, her father enlists his daughters in a quietly brutal training regimen following an aunt’s comment that the girls were growing “wild”. Her father talks to her about Jahangir Khan, the legendary player from Pakistan who remained unbeaten in five hundred and fifty-five matches that he played over five years.
Soon, however, Gopi is the one his focus is centred on. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo. But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her Pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her, Jahangir Khan, in particular. She is in awe. But even as the game becomes her world, as slowly, she grows apart from her sisters, she is acutely aware of the undercurrents.
It was around thus timer that Mona, who had become increasingly touchy and achy and prone to headaches and bad moods, began speculating which one of us Pa was most likely to offer up to Aunt Ranjan.
She imagines what it would be like for her mother were she to come back to the family one day.
If Pa had not changed so completely, I thought, if he hadn’t thrown himself so fully into our new routines, it would be different. Ma would stay and she would get used to us again.
The sisters – Gopi; Khush, 13; and Mona, 15 – hyper aware of the attention that is now on them as girls being raised by a widower, are heartbreakingly careful to “always appear with our hair washed, our nails cut, our clothes clean. We did it instinctively, without conferring with one another...”
And in their attempt to spare their father from the community’s scrutiny, they start taking on more responsibility around the home and in their lives. Until one day.
“It is very nice,” he said. “You did well.”
He said this, but with his eyes and his body – his shoulders, his throat, the white bones visible under his skin – he was telling us that in one day we had exposed him, left him behind, left him wide open to whatever was coming for him.
It’s an indelible coming-of-age story, and elegy for innocence – for the closeness of sisterhood, for the strange ways we come to know ourselves and each other, for the force of obsession and its consequences and a young athlete’s struggle to transcend herself.
It will remind readers of recent biopics of female athletes including Saina (on Saina Nehwal) and King Richard (on Venus and Serena Williams).
DARK CHAPTER
Looking For Jane by Heather Marshall, Simon & Schuster, $24.99. When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she sets out to find the intended recipient.
Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring female physicians, nurses and volunteers operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane.
Set against a cityscape that changes over the decades, the historical fiction brings to life another dark chapter in our history. When young women who sought refuge in a home for unwed mothers were treated harshly and forced to give up their babies.
The novel goes back and forth in time, weaving together the stories of several women.
The miraculous coincidences can appear a bit much – but then isn’t life a series of serendipitous occurrences, too?
And though Angela stokes her cat’s glossy fur instead of stroking it, the writing is luminous, even as it is gut-wrenching.
As she reaches for the doorknob, she can see her younger self layered in a translucent mist underneath, like a ghost; the smooth skin of her hand grasping the door handle, recklessly determined to uncover a dangerous truth. Her older hand, with its protruding veins and thinning skin, turns the knob more slowly, aware that all kinds of things can irreparably break if they aren’t handled with care.
FUNNY GIRL
Sunny by Sukh Ojla, Hodder Studio, $16.99. Sunny is the story of a young woman who is the queen of living a double life.
To her friends, she’s entertaining, upbeat and always available. And self-deprecating, ready to share hilarious and horrifying date stories. But as they begin settling down and start taking long-term relationships and mortgages seriously, she finds herself back with her parents at thirty, playing the role of the perfect daughter. She spends her time watching the Sikh channel and making saag and samosey with her mom, hiding gins-in-a-tin and corner shop treats, sneaking home late after dates.
I envisage my mum sitting in a corner of Pizza Express spying on me and my date, watching us through two holes cut out of the Punjab Times.
She’s well-versed in maintaining this happy facade, but how long can she keep lying to herself about how unhappy she is? When will she be ready to admit to herself that her group of “best friends” has changed, and perhaps not for the better? They are drifting apart and she’s not sure she wants to hang on any longer.
Part Diary of Bridget Jones, and strongly reminiscent of Meera Syal’s Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee.
“I scurry to the front of the taxi rank, hoping the driver waiting there is someone who doesn’t know my dad, for once.”
It is relatable, moving, warm and honest, exploring family bonds, love and mental health.
I feel so grey, so lethargic...I feel like I’m wearing a very thin mantle made up of all my past rejections.
When she is diagnosed with anxiety and depression, a sense of relief washes over Sunny. That it had a name and wasn’t just my ‘personality’.
Sunny is full of real characters, people you know. Like her mother, pushing her to find a husband, to give “Tindle” a shot, giving into the pressure she feels from the other aunties, but coming out all guns blazing the moment she realizes Sunny is feeling the pressure, too.
Mum’s voice grows louder still. “It is OK. Sunny is OK. I have told you. I don’t need you to worry about my daughter. You just worry about your own.”
DRUGS, DESPERATION AND DEVASTATION
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Bond Street Books, $39.95. The names of three Sackler brothers, all doctors, adorn the walls of many storied institutions – Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, Louvre. They have donated lavishly to the arts and the sciences. The Sacklers, including its present-day members, are billionaires, one of the richest families in the world. But what’s the source of their wealth?
They were not always wealthy. The brothers, Arthur, Raymond and Mortimer weathered childhood poverty of the Great Depression and appalling anti-Semitism. But they had tremendous drive and Arthur had a genius for marketing pharmaceuticals. He devised the marketing for Valium, and in the 1950s purchased a drug manufacturer, Purdue Frederick.
The template that Arthur Sackler created to sell Valium – co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s addictiveness – was employed to launch a far more potent product, OxyContin, says the author. And that’s how the Sacklers went on to build their fortune. OxyContin generated some $35 billion in revenue.
It also created a gargantuan public health crisis in the United States and elsewhere in the world in which hundreds of thousands died. Families were destroyed.
But addiction is good for business. The drug was prescribed by qualified physicians. And taken by their trusting patients for a variety of reasons. And once they were on it, many found it habit-forming, a downward spiral they couldn’t free themselves from.
Patrick Radden Keefe paints a portrait of desperation and devastation. And how easy it is to become of victim of machinations of people in our lives whom we so easily trust.
LET’S DO LUNCH
Late Lunch With Llamas by Mary Pope Osborne, Random House, $7.99. Jack and Annie are whisked away to ancient Peru, during the age of the Inca empire.
There they learn that a baby llama has been stolen. They must face venomous snakes, the emperor’s guards and cross a rickety bridge to save him. This volume of the Magic Tree House, a New York Times best-selling series, promises all the adventure that has enthralled young readers for years.
TEEN REVIEW
By AVNEET KANG
Divergent by Veronica Roth, HarperCollins, $14.99. Divergent is an engaging young adult sci-fi book with a little romance, set in the near future, following a war.
Humanity is divided into five factions based on their core values. Sixteen-year-old Tris has to choose between her family and her true identity. She is required to compete in a difficult initiation process that puts her mental, physical, and emotional health and abilities to the test. She struggles to determine who to trust, and where her romance with a mysterious boy who is more like her than she knows fits in. Tris must also protect a secret which if let out could cause her death.
Although there are many similar books, I found the character development especially unique. Tris, a shy, introverted girl comes out of her comfort zone and becomes a fearless leader. She faces various hurdles along the way, and much loss and betrayal, but never loses her own identity.
There are other instances of this in the book, and Roth accomplishes it in a subtle way making it more effective. I especially liked how Romance was not the main focus, and how it goes deeper than what meets the eye. The relationship between her and Four also adds to her character development.
The plot is fast-paced and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. I read the book in one sitting as every chapter ends on a cliff-hanger. In fact, the book ends in a similar way as well, with the question of “what happens next?” in the back of my mind leading me to read the sequel.
This is an amazing book for those who like plot twists, action, and a little bit of romance. I would recommend this for almost-teens as there is some mature content. It includes lessons that are especially important for teens in today’s society such as not to let society dictate your decisions and to choose who you want to be on your own. Everyone is unique and it’s okay to be different.
• Avneet Kang is a youth volunteer at Brampton Library.