tsar

This novel is about the titular character Eleanor Oliphant, a 29 year old women, who lives a lonely life. She is completely fine with that until she isn't and decides to make some significant changes in her life after having a chance encounter with the “love of her life.”
According to Honeyman, through this book she wanted to address the increasing loneliness among young people and that led to inception of Eleanor.

The first half of this book is boring and a bit too long, Eleanor gets a crush and she starts creating a cookie-cutter fantasy with him in her head. But when this fantasy is shattered by the reality of her life, that's when this book gets interesting.
We get to see this character unravel and face their issues. I really liked the fact that the book didn't let the other characters “fix” Eleanor but rather gave her the agency to do it at her pace.

The Song of Achilles is a retelling of the tale of Achilles from the point of view of his friend and lover, Patroclus.
As with all books that provide a modern interpretation of Greek mythology, this one also shows the gods as the evil ones. Additionally, it also questions whether ambition is good and when does it become destructive.
There's a lot of not subtle foreshadowing in the narrative but that liberty is taken because most people are already aware of the tragic myth.

This novel revolves around four major characters, 2 relatively well-off city folks (Dina, Maneck) and 2 belonging to a backward caste (Ishvar, Om) in India. Through the book we see them get together inspite of their many differences to laugh together and understand each other's pain points. The novel is set against the backdrop of the emergency period in India, and sheds light on the gruesome acts committed in the name of “development” to the poor people, and how in the end “development” in a corrupt, broken social system is the same as oppression. This is possibly the reason why, most people find this book too hopeless to continue.

In this book, I realised early on that every happy instance for the characters would be followed by something terrible. (Not a good feeling to experience when you are rooting for all the characters)
While all the characters are very-well written and the writing isn't boring at all, I do wonder whether this is the right ending. It feels like, in the end the reader, like Maneck, loses all hope and resigns to the broken system accepting that no change for the better is possible.

Thrilling!!!
It has a great story.
The characters are really absorbing

This is considered as a modern classic and it has interesting ideas about identity but it feels like the plot is meandering.

I finished this book and the first thought I had - this is it?
Don't get me wrong this might be clever, have a lot of symbolism and themes about belonging but it is so so boring.
There wasn't a single moment where I was engaged in the story.

This is clearly not my cup of tea.
Really need to read something more engaging to get interested in reading again.