The Book of Love by Fionnuala Kearney

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

“Life, is about choices. Some we regret. Some we’re proud of, and some will plague us forever.”

Round of applause for this beautiful piece of art.

This truly is a book of love, in all its beauty, in all it’s pain. It’s the love story of Erin & Dom.

They meet in their 20’s, young and in love, soon enough they’re married. Erin’s dad gifts them a book/journal called the book of love; for them to write down/communicate anything they find hard to say to each other. At first they find it ridiculous, but it quickly becomes a significant part of their relationship.

This book reads like a Nicholas Spark movie (yes the movie not the books because I happen to think Spark’s adapted movies turn out way better than the books) but 5x more realistic. The story alternates between the past (the early days of their relationship) and the present day.

I wanna say this is like The Notebook on steroids even though its nothing like The Notebook (story-wise) but the intensity of the love between these two characters & the longevity of their relationship can only be compared to what I felt when I first watched The Notebook. 100% recommend.

Social Misconduct by S.J.Maher

My rating: 3.5/5 stars

Simply put, Social Misconduct is a book about how social media could quite frankly, destroy your life. When Candace’s phone gets hacked and her personal photos are put on the internet for the world to see – her life is completely turned upside down in a matter of days.

All efforts to find her hacker/fix the problems seem to only make everything worse. And as we all know, on the internet, everything is not as it appears to be. Soon Candace finds herself going to extreme lengths in order to regain some sort of handle on her life.

This book was creepy in a different way, I think it was terrifying because the events in this book are not far-fetched. These are things that can and definitely do happen in this day and age.

One thing I didn’t like about this book was the constant body shaming, and some topics came off as very tone-deaf; the main character also gets more unlikeable as the story progresses and the ending was…I’m not sure how I feel about the ending.

Despite those things though, I must admit that this was definitely a page-turner! 

If There’s No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout

My rating: 4/5 stars

If There’s No Tomorrow is a beautiful and heart-wrenching story about life, love, friendships and grief. I went into this book expecting a simple teenage high school love story centred around our main characters Lena and Sebastian. And I can tell you this is not just some love story, this is much much more. The events of this book are unexpected, unpredictable, and will definitely shock and move you.

It’s YA books like these that made my 17 year old self whole heartedly obsessed with reading. Absolutely loved every minute of this, could have finished it in one day but thanksgiving duties were calling.

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

My rating: 4/5 stars

“And while Canada purports to be multicultural, Toronto in particular, a place where everyone is holding hands and cops are handing out ice cream cones instead of, say, shooting black men, our inability to talk about race and its complexities actually means our racism is arguably more insidiuous. We rarely acknowledge it, and when we do, we’re punished, as if we’re speaking badly of an elderly relative who can’t help but make fun of the Irish.”

This was such a pleasure to read. Koul’s writing is clear, brilliant, straight to the point, sarcastic and funny. Essay collections are rapidly becoming a favourite genre of mine. My favourites in this collection were:

– Inheritance Tax
– A Good Egg
– Hunting Season

I appreciate the insight this book gave me into Koul’s (indian) culture. From the traditional weddings, to the colorism issue, to the varying expectations for men and women etc. A lot of the essays are unique to Koul and children of Indian immigrants, but also touches on the shared experiences with other ‘minorities’.

I laughed and related many times at the things Koul had to endure, the ridiculous rules growing up, the exaggerated disappointment from her parents over things that seem so trivial; the obsessive worrying; experiencing freedom at a much later age than most of your white peers; the dramatics of it all really. I loved it.

There’s something beautiful about shared experiences, knowing that there are people out there who can relate to things you once thought were only unique to you. It’s nice to be seen. It’s nice to be heard. It’s nice to have writers like Koul writing shit like this.