Okay so I loved this book more than words can describe and I cannot believe I read it so quickly, I mean who needs to do schoolwork when you can read this masterpiece right?
This book deserves all the hype, it was brilliantly written and the pacing was spot on. With the addition of the podcast and comment elements it was easy to get absorbed into the story and fly through it. I knew from the very start that I was going to rate it highly because it just sucked me in and I imidiately cared about the characters.
The characters themselves are another asset to the story, I loved our main character and the journey she went through in terms of character development and finding herself in an industry that wanted so badly to just fit her into a box. I also enjoyed out other side characters and thought they were the perfect mix of people and were a great group to help the author get the messages of this book out.
There was so much nuance in this book which I greatly appreciated, as a white cis (athiest) woman I have a lot of privelege in comparison to Hana but was really able to learn a lot from this book from an own voices writer. The microagressions are so clear when you read them and made me so angry however I can totally see how such comments have become normalised specifically in corporate culture which is just not okay. Performative activism from a consumerist standpoint is such an interesting topic to explore and definately one that has made itself apparent in recent years. It really was an impactful book but managed to keep a lighthearted tone throughout.
And can we talk about some of the food descriptions in this book... Omg I'm not sure how the author did it but everytime I read a few chapters my stomach would start rumberling. From Hana's mum's traditional Indian food to the ice cream shop they visit the atmosphere and description was just spot on in my opinion. The atmosphere and setting of the story was just so vivid and beautiful.
One thing I did notice was the author explained a lot of South Asian terms within the narrative, whilst I understand that this is to support a wide variety of readers it did make me sad to realise that she had to keep explaining herself and I hope this narrative choice was one she made and not an imput of the publishers.
Overall I would highly reccomend and I can imagine this becoming somewhat of a comfort read for me which is high praise indeed.
This book deserves all the hype, it was brilliantly written and the pacing was spot on. With the addition of the podcast and comment elements it was easy to get absorbed into the story and fly through it. I knew from the very start that I was going to rate it highly because it just sucked me in and I imidiately cared about the characters.
The characters themselves are another asset to the story, I loved our main character and the journey she went through in terms of character development and finding herself in an industry that wanted so badly to just fit her into a box. I also enjoyed out other side characters and thought they were the perfect mix of people and were a great group to help the author get the messages of this book out.
There was so much nuance in this book which I greatly appreciated, as a white cis (athiest) woman I have a lot of privelege in comparison to Hana but was really able to learn a lot from this book from an own voices writer. The microagressions are so clear when you read them and made me so angry however I can totally see how such comments have become normalised specifically in corporate culture which is just not okay. Performative activism from a consumerist standpoint is such an interesting topic to explore and definately one that has made itself apparent in recent years. It really was an impactful book but managed to keep a lighthearted tone throughout.
And can we talk about some of the food descriptions in this book... Omg I'm not sure how the author did it but everytime I read a few chapters my stomach would start rumberling. From Hana's mum's traditional Indian food to the ice cream shop they visit the atmosphere and description was just spot on in my opinion. The atmosphere and setting of the story was just so vivid and beautiful.
One thing I did notice was the author explained a lot of South Asian terms within the narrative, whilst I understand that this is to support a wide variety of readers it did make me sad to realise that she had to keep explaining herself and I hope this narrative choice was one she made and not an imput of the publishers.
Overall I would highly reccomend and I can imagine this becoming somewhat of a comfort read for me which is high praise indeed.