The Overbooked Bibliophile

Rating:  3.5⭐️ “Firing pottery is like lighting a fire in your heart. There might be something inside that you’re trying your best to ignore, but it’s only by turning your gaze toward it that you can see it clearly.” The Healing Season of Pottery   by  Yeon Somin   (translated by  Clare Richards ) revolves around Jungmin, a young woman on the cusp of thirty who shuts herself away from the rest of the world after she quits her job as a broadcast writer after her disillusionment with her job and work pressure culminate in an emotional breakdown in her workplace. Living alone in a small apartment in Chestnut Burr Village, Jungmin struggles with depression and rarely ventures outside her home. On one of her rare outings, she discovers a pottery studio and gradually, as she begins to connect with the clay she is molding and the other members of the community among whom is an old friend with whom she shares a traumatic history, she also reconnects with herself. “Somet...

Rating:  3.5⭐ Until August   by  Gabriel García Márquez   (translated by  Anne McLean ) revolves around forty-six-year-old Ana Magdalena Bach and her annual visits (on the 16th of August) to the island where her mother is buried. Ana’s itinerary includes a visit to the cemetery where she places a bouquet of her mother’s favorite flowers and indulges in a one-night stand with a different man every year before she returns to her family – her musician husband of over two decades and her two adult children. One of her trysts ends in a humiliating gesture and she carries both the emotional and physical reminder of the same through the years. Every visit to the island and her experiences with the men she meets inspires her to reflect on her actions, her marriage and her family. In sparse prose we are given insight into her motivations, her internal conflict and her desire in a journey of self- explorations with a thought-provoking ending. A departure (in terms of them...

Rating:  3.75⭐️ "Here the idea persists that if you admit that you’ve done something wrong and then show remorse because you’ve had a difficult childhood, or a trauma, or are different from the rest, you will rehabilitate better. That’s a word I find really ridiculous, rehabilitate. As if there’s such a thing as a possibility that you could ‘return to a former condition.’ That’s what it says in the dictionary. Return to a former condition. As if time allows, as if time pauses and will wait for you while you get your shit in order. Time does what it wants and you fight against it.” Confrontations   by  Simone Atangana Bekono   (translated by  Suzanne Heukensfeldt Jansen ) revolves around sixteen-year-old Salomé Atabong, daughter of a Cameroonian father and a Dutch mother, living in the Netherlands sentenced to six months in juvenile detention for a violent act, the details of which are gradually revealed. The narrative follows Salome as she comes to terms with t...

Rating:   4.25⭐ Under the Storm   by  Christoffer Carlsson   (translated by  Rachel Willson-Broyles ) is an exceptionally well-written, immersive novel that I could not put down. “There’s this word, used by old men and women around here. It comes across their lips like sinister smoke when someone is a little mean or nasty, when a place or thing has this unpleasant, uncanny feel to it: kymig.” The novel begins in Marbäck, Halland, Sweden with the discovery of the body of a young woman after a house fire in November 1994. The ensuing investigation implicates her boyfriend twenty- five-year-old Edvard Christensson whose troubled background and family history make it easy for the community and law enforcement to vilify him. Edvard was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1995. The narrative follows Officer Vidar Jörgensson who was part of the investigation and Isak Nyqvist Edvard’s nephew, seven years old at the time, both of wh...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “But the era/ of progress/ and the world's/ conscience/ does not contain/ the full history of their land” Aednan  by  Linnea Axelssonn  (translated by  Saskia Vogel ) is a brilliantly penned novel-in-verse that shall definitely go on my list of favorite reads this year. To be honest, I was hesitant to pick this one up as I’ve never been completely comfortable with the format, but I have to say that reading Aednan (which means the land, the earth and my mother in Northern Sámi) is an experience that will stay with me. A story about family, community, displacement and forced migration, intergenerational trauma and the struggle to preserve and protect one's cultural identity, this saga is shared through several voices, spanning over a century and tells the story of the nomadic Sámi community through the eyes of the members of two families. “We were to be driven/from the forest fells/lakes//migration paths and songs/had to be stifled/stricken from memory” T...

Rating:  4.5⭐️ Ten-year-old Thomas and Bess, the woman was supposed to be looking after him, disappear during a blizzard in the Interior Alaska region. Benedict, the boy’s only family, his neighbors Cole and Clifford and Vietnam War veteran Freeman who has recently relocated to Alaska, brave the elements as they search for Bess and Thomas all the while aware that chances of survival in this weather are slim. Unbeknownst to them, Bess got separated from Thomas after leaving the house with him and is also searching for him. As the narrative progresses, we get to know more about these characters - their past traumas, secrets, and motivations - and it is gradually revealed that the inclement weather isn't the only threat in their midst. Blizzard   by  Marie Vingtras   (translated by  Jeffrey Zuckerman ) is an exceptionally well-written novel that I would not hesitate to recommend to those who enjoy character-driven fiction. Despite its short length, this is a h...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Goodbye Cat  by  Hiro Arikawa  (translated by  Philip Gabriel ) is a collection of seven stories revolving around the relationship between cats and their humans as told from the perspectives of seven cats and their families with much wisdom, heart, and humor. Written in simple prose, the stories vary in length and tone and touch upon themes of love, loyalty, companionship, family and grief. In the first story, The Goodbye Cat (4/5), we meet an elderly cat who endeavors to change into a supernatural spirit so that death won't separate him from his human family. A new father rescues a kitten from a recycling bin and in caring for it, learns much about fatherhood. Bringing Up Baby (4/5). A family is perplexed by their new cat’s devotion to their indifferent father in Good Father/ Bad Father (4/5). In Cat Island ( 5/5), we follow a young boy’s experiences on a trip to an island inhabited by cats with his father and his ...

  Rating:  4.5⭐️ " There are many crossroads in life. All regrets stem from what happened at one moment we never imagined would happen to us. When our own action brings about an unexpected result, how can we not experience huge regret? After all, do we ever get another shot?” Before We Say Goodbye   by  Toshikazu Kawaguchi   (translated by  Geoffrey Trousselot ) is the fourth installment of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series and personally one of my favorites (along with Book #2,  Tales from the Café  ) . Set in Café Funiculi Funicula in Tokyo, we meet an interesting cast of characters (both old and new) – café regulars, owners and staff and first-time visitors who come to the café for the unique experience of time travel. The rules are the same and no one can change their past. Then why go back? Love, regret, nostalgia, guilt, the need to say goodbye and to share what was left unsaid. In four interconnected stories we meet a former...

My Rating:  3.5⭐️ In 1876, Norway, seventeen-year-old Brynhild Storset is embroiled in an affair with a man who leaves her after she gets pregnant and ends the affair in a vicious act of violence. She eventually emigrates to America joining her sister, Nellie, in the Midwest takes up work as a maid and seamstress. She changes her name to Bella (later Belle) and strives to begin a new life. However, her past haunts her and she is consumed by guilt and shame and an inherent mistrust of those around her. Belle gets a fresh start, marrying a man who loves her, and taking in abandoned children, thereby fulfilling her desire for love and family. However, Belle’s life is not one of happily ever afters but one of disillusionment and anger towards a world that fails to evoke any feeling of belongingness within her and as the narrative progresses we follow Belle as she embarks on a journey of violence, greed and crime. I found the premise of  My Men  by  Victoria Lielland ...