Miss Wisey Pants

 "It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all" The Tea Rose - Cliché-ridden, full of implausible co-incidences and popcorn-worthy twists that keep you on edge through & through. Some books are destined to be turned into a movie. The Tea Rose is definitely one of those. The whole time I was reading this book, I kept wondering how is it that it's not a movie yet! And the fact that it's the first of a trilogy and there are two more of its kind definitely makes for a lucrative cheap thrill. Perhaps one day somebody would make a movie based on this book. This is a story of two childhood sweethearts - Joe & Fiona - brutally separated by the sudden & unfortunate turn of events in their lives. While Joe ends up getting tricked into marrying a pampered, rich dame, Fiona moves continents after losing not just the love of her life but her entire family to a merciless bane.  (I had to make it rhyme somehow!)   Our hero grapples with nothing but hard-luck after the tra...

 " We cannot help but be interested in the stories of people that history pushes aside so thoughtlessly." Pachinko is a hauntingly-beautiful tale of a family mired in geopolitical war between (then)Korea & Japan.  It follows four generations of the family seeking to build their own identity in a country that refuses to acknowledge their humanity. Filthy, lazy and criminals became synonyms to a "Korean" for a Japanese. Pachinko, an infamous arcade parlor business, was the only chance a Korean had in Japan to rise to some success. The author, Min Jin Lee, traces the lives of her characters along the historical shifts. The writing is fast paced covering a lot of historical details in the length of the book. For this reason, it was difficult for me to build a connect with the characters, of which the book has many! Except for one or two, the book doesn't dwell on any other characters for long and some seem to disappear unceremoniously, which left me wondering wh...

" We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows." Anxious people was a quick & an easy read. The story doesn't revolve around one person, rather it revolves around one situation where several people find themselves stuck with each other in a crisis that turns out to be a blessing in disguise for all of them.  The book, teetering on the edge of a self-help drama, makes for a soothing read. The characters are well-meaning, good-intentioned human beings who have been dealing with life one day at a time until that one day when all their realisations and epiphanies in life come crashing down on them. I think the author's heart is at the right place and the book even manages to find some depth here & there and if you're a sucker for good quotes like me, you'd find plenty gems worth remembering. For me, however, the book was way too sappy and unre...