tess of the d'urbervilles -a pure woman was bizarre on so many levels. it exposes the double standards of the victorian (even the current?) society in terms of gender and hypocrisy of men's ideology on women's virginity. during its publication, tess of the d'urbervilles was subjected to a massive controversy as the author clapped back at the society's view of a woman's purity pertained by her virginity. his subtitle "a pure woman" for the novel gave way to disagreements.

i really admire the objective put forward by the author. however, the entire execution of his whole ideology is utterly problematic. hardy's views on feminism is complex. a noteworthy part of the novel is misogynistic. hardy claims that women are stupid all the while saying that women's worth are not determined by their virginity. at times one feels like the prospect of women not being able to enjoy equal rights as men was just a tool for him to chastise the society. continued usage of the word "lover" for tess' rapist irked me to a great extent.

the tale follows tess durberyfield, going to the d'urbervilles house due to her family's financial struggles and claiming that they have common lineage. however, there she is raped by her so-called cousin, alec d'urberville. after some time, she meets angel clare whom she falls in love with, but tess has to disclose what happened at her cousin's place to angel.

tess of the d'urbervilles, apart from the complex things it represents, is also a story of the commoners. hardy's lush descriptions of pastures and creeks and the ongoings in a typical farm in england are worth the read.

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

know my name instills hope. it breaches the repelling tenet of victim-blaming and rape culture in our society. it is home to people who were betrayed by the system. it is an amplifier of the voices of all survivors of sexual assault. it makes you chew over everything wrong with the societal framework of justice and dignity.

i have this theory that if i anticipate something bad, it will never happen. everyday, when i get out of my home i wonder, will this be the day? will this be the month? will this be the year? will this be the life? where i'll no longer have monopoly over my body. my father is a police officer....you could say that he knows all the demons skulking in the corners. i've never gone to school alone; i've always gone to school in a school bus. he's scared. my mother is scared too. i spend hours in the trial room of a clothing store wondering if what i have chosen is too tight, too short, too...."distracting".

𝘔𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭. -𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘭 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳

reading know my name was frustrating at times. it evoked a string of why's in my mind. why! why was the rapist given concession for his crime! why is the system blind to what chanel has gone through!? why!? why is his swimming career more important than her dignity!? why?

but there were times when i marvelled at the strength of people, at the loved ones who stays with you till you see the light, at the resilience, the hunger to not let your loved ones go through the gravel, alone. i want you to read this book. i want you to know chanel miller. i want you to know what she's gone through. but before all that, i want you to know the girl would do anything for her loved ones, who draws and writes and loves.

Content Warnings

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam

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emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

a passage north is efficient in its illustration of a typical south asian household. being south indian myself, i could relate a lot to the characters. all the narrations- the almost comical lamentations of people during a funeral, the drums, the scratched surfaces of trains...everything fits. a lot of practices followed by the hindus in south india and sri lanka, which i myself had almost forgotten about, has a significant place in this almost three hundred pages long book.

flawlessly has anuk arudpragasam presented the traumas and repercussions of a war. it carves you from the inside so much that you feel like you have been there, in the northeast of sri lanka, in the 2009. we were taught about the sri lankan civil war between the tamils and sinhalese in tenth grade. after reading this book, i realised how much trauma and hopelessness of the people fighting for their significance in their own homeland, were not in the textbook. the descriptions of cemeteries where the tamils were buried and later on displaced with bulldozers will never be forgotten.

it's almost impossible for us to imagine a war that is happening in the 21st century. the author made me believe that, no matter how educated or how happy we are, living in the modern era, there will always be the looming shadow of an oncoming human-made disaster.

in the tale, we follow krishan, a man in his early thirties going back to the war-torn part of his country for the funeral of his grandmother's caretaker. he is unanchored and confused by all the sudden emotions and thoughts he has while travelling to the northeast. he thinks of his time in delhi with anjum, his former lover, his obsession to return to his homeland so that he can atleast be a part of the place his brothers and sisters died fighting for. he is disturbed by the misplaced guilt, that somehow he should have been there instead of being in delhi.

a passage north makes you ponder and question; it is a page turner and transforms the entire way you see the world.

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

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funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.5

there is a scene in a room of one's own where the narrator was denied entry to a library because she wasn't accompanied by a man of the college or furnished with a letter of introduction. a prestigious library with its treasures of books does not allow a woman entering it, unless she is accompanied by a man. there is another part where a man is horrified to see the narrator on the "turf" since the gravel (more uncomfortable path) is the one for a woman.

a room of one's own is fierce and humourous in its account of how, since time immemorial women are deprived of freedom and dignity. there is something metaphorical in the way woolf says a woman can't write fiction unless she has a room of her own and five hundred a year. we could take this "room" to be her freedom. woolf points out how women are the villains in fiction, she is honoured and dignified in it, when in reality she is absent and indecorous. she uses the concept of an imaginary sister of shakespeare to prove that "women cannot write fiction as good as a man" because she is not given the opportunity.

this essay is beautifully executed and the opulent use of examples and anecdotes made it all the more appealing. however, it did not acquire a place in my all-time favourites. it's disquietingly white and i'm not a fan of white feminism. you could say intersectional feminism was not "popular" or "known" back then...but i won't endure all the whiteness in this. she just erased the whole existence of women of color in this essay. not a word is uttered about race because apparently she thought the essay is *only* about gender equality. it is late 1920s or the early 1930s that we're talking about...

in short, a lot of relevant points are depicted in this 93 pages long book, nothing is talked about race, and a man's way of writing is refreshing since he has the freedom of mind is pointed out.

Oh also, fuck patriarchy.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is a beautifully written futuristic novel featuring Klara, an artificial friend (AF). In this cutting edge novel Ishiguro manifests the fragility and wavering of human heart and its feelings. The world in Klara and the sun have two categories of children, “lifted” and “not lifted”; “lifted” being the children who are genetically modified and “not lifted” being the children who are not genetically modified. Josie, a 'lifted' child buys Klara to support Josie’s declining health. Taken to Josie’s home, Klara perceives what humans are like and finds a home. A contemporary novel, with wide-ranging characters, it captivated me from the beginning and, trust me, that do not happen more often to me.

This is my first Ishiguro novel and I loved his writing style. I always believed in digressive writing and loved reading such works. However, he surprised me with KatS’s plain writing style. He has authored everything on to the point rather than deviating from the actual plot. I did not have to annotate anywhere in the book since although it was a philosophical book (sort of) it did not really have any quotes or references worth annotating. Consequently, it is also one of the things that makes Klara and the sun different.

Although I loved the plot twist and everything, some parts were a bit underwhelming and predictable.

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Since the secret history and goldfinch (Donna Tartt's other hyped books) were out of stock I bought this one and I'm ✨disappointed ✨. The whole story is so boring and dull. The plot animates only from 300th page or something. Till then it's just descriptive narrations about the characters. I mean, I *am* a fan of such digressive writing. In fact, I enjoy such kind of writing. But the digression that is used in this book is utterly boring.

Half of the time, what the main character, Harriet does, doesn't even make any sense. That's the whole book actually, this 12 year old doing things impulsively and getting in trouble. It felt like Donna Tartt made her 12 years old so that she could write the story and justify her doings as "she is a twelve year old" or whatever.

Harriet's brother Robin was murdered when he was nine and Harriet was 10 months old? Desperate to find who killed her brother she steps into the world of a crime family. Uhmmm I do understand her desperation to find her brother's killer. But, she doesn't even have any proof that this particular person (from the aforementioned crime family) has killed her brother. It just doesn't make any sense.

There is a scene where she steals a snake from the criminals. And I'm like....when I was 12, I used to listen to one direction *gags*
Anyway that's another 700 pages long book that wasted my valuable time. But don't get me wrong, last 200 pages are actually interesting.

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youngdumbandbooks's reviews 12 reviews

youngdumbandbooks's reviews
12 reviews