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A review by sj_54
The Most Precious Substance on Earth by Shashi Bhat
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
The format made this easy to read, the content made it difficult.
For anyone who keeps an eye on young girls to make sure they get home safe, anyone feeling the weight of making sure others don't go through what you went through, anyone who keeps keys between their fingers... You'll find many moments of this story dangerously relatable.
Format: The chapters are relatively short and each break down a moment in Nina's life - chronologically from 14 years old to about mid-30's - which made the book easy to pick up for quick bursts of reading. But it also made the story feel disjointed - at the start of many chapters the reader is left piecing together what happened in the interim.
Content: I struggle with the label 'coming-of-age' - it felt like Nina never changed, never aged. Stagnation makes sense as a device for the story, but it felt flat after reading the synopsis. The first chapters also feel written by an adult, they didn't come across to me as a teenager's point-of-view at all, so she didn't appear to have aged later on.
The most interesting part of this book is definitely the variety of relationships through Nina's life - friendship, family, and romantic ups and downs. Though not always easy or safe relationships, definitely very real.
A note to those readers that enjoy more action, plot, or page-turners: there is little urgency in this book, the ending has no catharsis but it didn't really matter because the book hadn't been building to any. Which is not a bad thing but is worth knowing before picking it up (personally I enjoy an ambiguous ending!).
Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for access to the eBook ARC.
For anyone who keeps an eye on young girls to make sure they get home safe, anyone feeling the weight of making sure others don't go through what you went through, anyone who keeps keys between their fingers... You'll find many moments of this story dangerously relatable.
Format: The chapters are relatively short and each break down a moment in Nina's life - chronologically from 14 years old to about mid-30's - which made the book easy to pick up for quick bursts of reading. But it also made the story feel disjointed - at the start of many chapters the reader is left piecing together what happened in the interim.
Content: I struggle with the label 'coming-of-age' - it felt like Nina never changed, never aged. Stagnation makes sense as a device for the story, but it felt flat after reading the synopsis. The first chapters also feel written by an adult, they didn't come across to me as a teenager's point-of-view at all, so she didn't appear to have aged later on.
The most interesting part of this book is definitely the variety of relationships through Nina's life - friendship, family, and romantic ups and downs. Though not always easy or safe relationships, definitely very real.
A note to those readers that enjoy more action, plot, or page-turners: there is little urgency in this book, the ending has no catharsis but it didn't really matter because the book hadn't been building to any. Which is not a bad thing but is worth knowing before picking it up (personally I enjoy an ambiguous ending!).
Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for access to the eBook ARC.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Drug abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual harassment, Stalking, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Eating disorder and Fatphobia