The Reading List

Author: Sara Nisha Adams

Genre: Fiction

Rating: 2 out of 5

Pages: 384

Date Started: 28 January 2022

Date Finished:

(Did Not Finish)

I chose this book because it was available in the local library and had good ratings on Goodreads. This book was about books, so what could stop me from reading this?!

Mukesh, who is recently widowed, tries to connect his wife and his granddaughter through the books. Mukesh's wife Naina was an avid reader and he never knew about her interests and feels guilty that he never asked about the books she was reading. There are many other characters who have different stories and keep finding the same list of books.

I liked the character of Mukesh, who is a typical Indian man at that age. He wants to live his life, yet misses his wife terribly. Trying to connect himself to his late wife and his 8 years old granddaughter through books makes him look forward to the days. I really liked the way the author writes about his feelings of Mukesh towards life and his late wife.

I really tried hard to keep going and a little more than half of the book. I believe life is too short to read something that doesn't hold my interest! The story wasn't going anywhere and kept circling around Aleisha and Mukesh. It was the same routine expressed in different words, and I eventually lost interest and decided to stop reading!

Favorite lines from the book:

• Mukesh wished now that he'd asked her what they were about, what she loved about them, and why she'd felt the need to read the same ones again and again. He wished that he'd read them with her.

• Every reader, unknowingly connected in some small way.

• We found it (the book) under my wife's bed after she passed away. Reading it made me feel closer to her; it made me realize my loss as well.

• I think we have all been a bit of Amir in our lives - self-centered, focused only on ourselves - and we have all been a bit Hassan too, forgotten by the people we love the most. But in the end, the book was as happy as it could be. Amir made the right choice, to do the right thing. (About the book 'The Kite Runner')

• It is good to be kind to people, especially the people you love because you never know what it's like to walk in their shoes until one day you do.