“Spinning Silver” by Naomi Novik

🍁 “But I had not known that I was strong enough to do any of those things until they were over and I had done them. I had to do the work first, not knowing”
– Naomi Novik, Spinning Silver
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🌻 Set in a Russian Village, this fantasy story takes you through the lives of two female protagonists, Miryem, the daughter of moneylenders and Irina, the daughter of the tsar.
Both of them have lost a bit of their inner selves, became hard and tough against their own wills, for the better good of their families and even though they have resorted to their fates, luck brings them together to embark on a quest which will yet again test their will power and the ability to think through in the moment of crises.
Will they succeed in saving their homes from the clutches of dark magic.
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✨ Although I don’t cherish fantasies so much for the complex plot, this book was a happy surprise for its easy-to-understand plot and clarity of characters, and before long I was mesmerized by the magical realism so much so that I was reminded of the fairy tales I read as a child.
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🌼 The three female protagonists also make for a good story direction, by means of their own perspectives, so similar yet different in their own ways. The story is absolutely enchanting with various layers of character developed which isn’t too clunky, the subtle details to the imagery and the thought-provoking situations that are planted to keep the reader’s interest always piqued, this sure makes for a warm and satisfying read, which is sure to hit close to your heart for the resemblance of your favorite childhood fairy tales.
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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Genre: fantasy, fiction, fairytale, young-adult .

“The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die” by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay

“The aunt who wouldn’t die” by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, as the name suggests is about an aunt, or pishima in Bengali, who everyone thinks is dead, but for one member of the household, the new daughter-in-law, Somlata, to whom the aunt comes to every now and then as a ghost, and tries to scare her.
But what does she actually wants?
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This book is like a light, fluffy conundrum of a lot of things all at once, the difficulties of living in a joint family, the struggles of widows and the bahus of the house, the romance of a newly married couple and the ghost of an old aunt reluctant to part away with her belongings, a perfect mix that catches the essence of an Indian household in its true sense.
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Reading the book reminded me of the books that I used to read as a kid, small pocketbook versions, with big fonts and folklore that leaves you with a mushy feeling of having read something wholesome. Although the story is simple and the narration devoid of any hullabaloo of fancy prose, the tale itself brings a warmth to the reader’s heart, like soaking in the sun on a winter afternoon.
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A light yet poignant tale of women from three different generations of a family, trying to maintain the household and uplift it, amidst societal ‘laws’, in their own capacities.
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Thank you @bee.books for this beautiful book, in exchange for an honest opinion.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Genre: translated, indian-literature, bengali-literature, culture, mystery