Review: We Women Wonder by Inderpreet Uppal

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WE WOMEN WONDER: Dreams, Desires, Struggles & Triumphs
by 
Inderpreet Uppal

BLURB

"When a woman becomes her own best friend, life is easier." 

– Diane Von Furstenberg. 

Thoughts, quotes and determination can make a woman stronger, a survivor but she is a winner regardless. 

This book is the story of every woman, you might find your reflection too. 

A journey into what keeps us women ticking. 

What annoys the hell out of us? 

What are we women really about? 

How does the world see us? 

Is the world changing for us or are we just dreaming? 

What is our success and what it means to a woman? 

We Women Wonder, I often do, don’t you?

REVIEW

How apt is it that I read this book right before I embarked on my fourth A to Z challenge season, 2019!

We Women Wonder: 26 Essays, one for each letter of the alphabet, and all of them dealing with the various issues women face, and sometimes push under the carpet of the perfect family.

I loved a lot of things about the book, starting from the alliteration in the title. As women, we are doomed in this society to keep wondering a lot, sometimes about who we are and what we do, and making sure that we find the perfect balance between what is expected of us and what we want to do for ourselves. So the title immediately made me grin in understanding and acceptance.

Coming to the book, the essays are all about common topics that do not sound preachy or tiring to read. They are short, to the point, and keep stuff simple. If wondering is what we do, Ms. Uppal debunks that in style. She approaches the sensitive topics with practiced ease and her tone is gently persuasive.

The book’s simple approach is a huge plus, and it does resort to allusions and comparisons or jargon. The topics are relatable (and spa ecial mention for how the author found the perfect one for the letter X. As a fellow A to Z blogger I know the challenge that presents). My only complaints are the sparse typos and phrasing errors.

The pluses are the wonderful quotes in each chapter and the beginning itself. The book is also a light read that does not take a lot of time but leaves a strong impact. The language could have been better, though, so the essays do not seem like converted blog posts. The writing could have been honed.

The cover and blurb are excellent, making the reader sit up and take notice. The colour coordination seems deliberately placed and thoughtful. The typesetting could have been cleaner but is still easy to read on the eyes.

Overall, the book is a wonderful inspirational read, quick and thought provoking in the way it is written and presented. We Women Wonder, and this has some answers that unapologetically asks women to learn to choose themselves and their wishes when the situation demands it. No matter what else changes, women do keep wondering and sometimes it is books like these that change the perspective totally. Worth a read!

Grab your copy @

Amazon.com |  Amazon.in

About the author

" Inderpreet writes for her love of writing, edits manuscripts and reads endlessly. 

A sprinkling of fiction, a dash of books, and a bit of opinion add to the eclectic mix that is Eloquent Articulation, her blog.

Books, editing, writing, and blogging keep her busy whenever she gets a breather from mothering her ‘too tricky to handle son’. 

An Army brat, she now joins her adorable Army hubby across the country. "

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Guest Post by Tanushree Ghosh, Author of 'From An-Other Land'.

What is the next project that you are working on?

I forayed into writing while being a scientist and a techie. So before I had confidence I had written something worth sending out to even my closest of friends, let alone think of publishing, I had to build it. This is why I started with writing short stories, having no idea that short stories or collections, ‘don't sell'.

I was educated of this fact about two years into my writing journey – two years too late in my opinion for I couldn't go back and not have these stories that I had. But everyone I approached, barring Jennifer Lyons of Jennifer Lyons Agency who signed me for this collection (unfortunately she had to wind down her services and I had to go a separate route with this, but that's not pertinent to the point here), told me they liked my plots but wished I had a novel. So halfway into trying to get the collection of stories published, I started writing a novel.

As fate would have it, the collection ended up finding a publisher and interest (which has a lot to do I believe with its core topic becoming suddenly pertinent in an unfortunate way) and the novel, is now what would qualify as my ‘next project’.

The Afterlife of Midnight Seedlings is the tumultuous story of Aru and her mother, Manasi, spanning thirty-five years and two continents. Aru - cast as the lead but often in the shadow of her erratic mother-is a child-woman shaped into being by the often cruel foibles of those around her. She is battling memories of a violent childhood when she meets and falls in love with Maxim Kostylev, a Russian immigrant brought to the states as a child.

Aru and Maxim bond over their socialist ideologies and identical struggles, but the very torments that unite them also keep them from being together and Aru marries a fellow engineer on rebound determined to undo all the damage done in her life. But paradise remains lost forever as Aru finds herself in a dysfunctional marriage with an infant daughter and her childhood savior, her uncle Tukun, trapped in a multi-generational, political plot of treachery and deceit. To save herself and Tukun, Aru not only needs to reconcile with her mother and Maxim, but also has to embark on a journey analogous to her mother's, out of which she had seen the later emerge insane: a prospect scarier than hell to a woman who wants nothing more now than to be a mother she herself never had.

If I may dare say, comparable to The God of Small Things and The Kite Runner, the novel explores critical questions around roles of women in the society while narrating a complex tale of loyalty, love, and loss. My next job is going to be finding a home for the novel.

Tanushree Ghosh is the author of the poignantly wonderful 'From An-Other Land.' 

Meet the Author:

Tanushree Ghosh works in Tech and has a Doctorate in Chemistry from the Cornell University. She is also a social activist and writer. Her blog posts, op-eds, poems, and stories are an effort to provoke thoughts, especially towards issues concerning women and social justice.

She is a contributor (past and present) to several popular e-zines (incl. The Huffington Post US, The Logical Indian, Youth Ki Awaaz, Tribune India, Women’s Web, and Cafe Dissensus). Her literary resume includes poems and stories featured in national and international magazines (Words Pauses and Noises, UK; TUCK, Glimmer Train Honorable mention) as well as inclusion in seven anthologies such as Defiant Dreams (Oprah 2016 reading list placeholder) and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (published out of Singapore by Kitaab). Her first single-author book, From An-Other Land, is on immigration.

She has held different leadership roles in non-profits (ASHA and AID India) and is the founder and director of Her Rights (www.herrights.website), a 501(3) c non-profit committed to furthering the cause of gender equality. She is often an invited speaker or panelist for both corporate and non-profit endeavors.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

Buy the Book:

Amazon

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Book Spotlight: From An-Other Land by Tanushree Ghosh

Book Details:

Book Title: From An-Other Land by Tanushree Ghosh
Category: Adult Fiction, 224 pages
Genre: Short Stories, Immigrant Stories, Literary
Publisher: Readomania Publishing
Release date: December 4, 2018
Tour dates: March 18 to April 5, 2019
Content Rating: PG + M (It has mature themes in the backdrop in some stories, but doesn't have explicit language or description)

Book Description:

Never has been the conversation on immigration more pertinent than now, post 2016 US elections. From cancellation of refugee protection and zero tolerance to undercurrent crackdown on H visas to the border wall - the resurgence of nationalism is hitting the globalized population head-on.

But what is immigration today? A question of life or death - fleeing of persecution? A compulsion? Or a mere pursuance of privilege? And what is the US today? A land of opportunities? Or a quagmire impossible to comprehend, inherently racist and selfish?

From An-Other Land dives deep into immigration today for the diaspora and its many facets with characters who seek to define themselves in an intercultural setting that is less and less sure of itself. A reality check and a guide for anyone who wants to understand the modern-day US.

To read reviews, please follow Tanushree Ghosh's page on iRead Book Tours.

Buy the Book:

Amazon

Add to Goodreads

Meet the Author:

Tanushree Ghosh works in Tech and has a Doctorate in Chemistry from the Cornell University. She is also a social activist and writer. Her blog posts, op-eds, poems, and stories are an effort to provoke thoughts, especially towards issues concerning women and social justice.

She is a contributor (past and present) to several popular e-zines (incl. The Huffington Post US, The Logical Indian, Youth Ki Awaaz, Tribune India, Women’s Web, and Cafe Dissensus). Her literary resume includes poems and stories featured in national and international magazines (Words Pauses and Noises, UK; TUCK, Glimmer Train Honorable mention) as well as inclusion in seven anthologies such as Defiant Dreams (Oprah 2016 reading list placeholder) and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (published out of Singapore by Kitaab). Her first single-author book, From An-Other Land, is on immigration.

She has held different leadership roles in non-profits (ASHA and AID India) and is the founder and director of Her Rights (www.herrights.website), a 501(3) c non-profit committed to furthering the cause of gender equality. She is often an invited speaker or panelist for both corporate and non-profit endeavors.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

Enter the Giveaway!

Ends April 12, 2019

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Review: From An-Other Land by Tanushree Ghosh

check out the schedule here

From An-Other Land
by 
Tanushree Ghosh

BLURB

Never has been the conversation on immigration more pertinent than now, post 2016 US elections. From cancellation of refugee protection and zero tolerance to undercurrent crackdown on H visas, the resurgence of nationalism is hitting the globalized population head-on. 

But what is immigration today? A question of life or death - fleeing of persecution? A compulsion? Or a mere pursuance of privilege? 

And what is the US today? A land of opportunities? Or a quagmire impossible to comprehend, inherently racist and selfish?

From An-Other Land dives deep into immigration today for the Indian diaspora and its many facets with characters who seek to define themselves in an intercultural setting that is less and less sure of itself. A reality check and a guide for anyone who wants to understand the modern-day US.

Review:

Starting from the book’s cover and blurb, everything about ‘From An-Other Land’ by Tanushree Ghosh had made me want to read it for a while now. I had seriously considered renewing my Kindle Unlimited Subscription just to read this book. And that was how much I wanted to delve into this.

And in one line: the book did NOT disappoint.

It was everything I assumed it would be, and then some more. When I first delved into this, I had expected a book that discussed tales of experiences of people who make their living in another land. And the book delivered this, and also gave stories of hope and courage, of the different minute things that might happen in a land that is simultaneously strange and familiar.

It is clear that the author has built the characters and their lives with stories and experiences in real life, and the way she ends the individual sets openly and then connects them makes it a worthy read. The language is not quite easy flowing but is a pleasant treat to read, (that might be a relative perspective, but that is still a good plus in my opinion).

The book says what it says it would, and is a must read for people who have lived the dream (and can hence relate with it) and those who are dreaming the dream (and will serve to be an eye-opener).

What worked:

Excellent myth-buster, for those who are starry-eyed about NRIs and the land of opportunities. That was the purpose of the book, and it attains that directly.

Brilliantly woven canvas of stories that proves that events that look random maybe connected together on some level that we may not be immediately aware of. The significance of the introductions and the wrap up get special points.

Each character has a distinctive voice and is well-etched in the readers’ mind.

What could have been better:

All stories are tinged with melancholy, and somehow are a dose of reality that may not encourage deluded readers to continue. The book was not written for the purpose of entertainment or casual reading, and it shows. This is not a negative point, and I personally loved it. But it is not for everyone.

The beginning takes time to get used to, and the first few pages apparently introduce too many characters. But the writing will quickly pull you in. The writing as such helps this.

Grab your copy @

Amazon.com |  Amazon.in

About the author

Tanushree Ghosh works in the technology sector in the USA and is also a social activist and a writer. She has a Doctorate in Chemistry from Cornell University and has worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratories and is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and Presidency College Calcutta.

Her blog posts, op-eds, poems, and stories are efforts to provoke thoughts, especially towards issues concerning women, social justice, and immigration - which is the topic of her first solo-author work From An-Other Land published by Readomania publishing. 

As a contributor to the Huffington Post US, she has published several posts on topics that affect the under-represented and the lesser privileged, whether that's a population, a nation, or an individual. Her first article for the Huffington Post went viral and was picked up by the Yahoo news. She has since written on the Syria war and its children, open borders, the unfair coverage in the Western media of the Brazil Olympics, societal differences in outlook on issues like gun control in the US, and off-course - women. She has written on postpartum depression, acid attack and its state globally, #MeToo and a myriad of related topics and was interviewed for Reddit and the Indian Express. She is a regular contributor to several popular publications (incl. The Tribune (Sunday Diaspora segment), Thrive Global, The Logical Indian, Youth Ki Awaaz, Café Dissensus, and The Women's Web). Her literary resume also includes poems and stories featured in national and international magazines, including Words Pauses and Noises, UK; TUCK, Glimmer Train honorable mention, and inclusion in seven anthologies (through winning national and international contests), including Defiant Dreams (Oprah 2016 reading list placeholder) and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (published out of Singapore by Kitaab). She has served in coordinator and chapter head roles of ASHA and AID India and has affiliations with several women's organizations and non-profits. She is also the founder and director of Her Rights (www.herrights.website), a 501(3) c non-profit committed to furthering the cause of gender equality and supporting victims of gender violence.

Click here to check out all the titles by the author...

You can stalk her @

      

        

Play the game of Raffelcopter
With Love from Santa Giveaway 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Tour is Hosted by 

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We Promote So That You Can Write 

Book Spotlight: From An-Other Land by Tanushree Ghosh

check out the schedule here

From An-Other Land
by 
Tanushree Ghosh

BLURB

Never has been the conversation on immigration more pertinent than now, post 2016 US elections. From cancellation of refugee protection and zero tolerance to undercurrent crackdown on H visas, the resurgence of nationalism is hitting the globalized population head-on. 

But what is immigration today? A question of life or death - fleeing of persecution? A compulsion? Or a mere pursuance of privilege? 

And what is the US today? A land of opportunities? Or a quagmire impossible to comprehend, inherently racist and selfish?

From An-Other Land dives deep into immigration today for the Indian diaspora and its many facets with characters who seek to define themselves in an intercultural setting that is less and less sure of itself. A reality check and a guide for anyone who wants to understand the modern-day US.

Grab your copy @

Amazon.com |  Amazon.in

About the author

Tanushree Ghosh works in the technology sector in the USA and is also a social activist and a writer. She has a Doctorate in Chemistry from Cornell University and has worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratories and is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and Presidency College Calcutta.

Her blog posts, op-eds, poems, and stories are efforts to provoke thoughts, especially towards issues concerning women, social justice, and immigration - which is the topic of her first solo-author work From An-Other Land published by Readomania publishing. 

As a contributor to the Huffington Post US, she has published several posts on topics that affect the under-represented and the lesser privileged, whether that's a population, a nation, or an individual. Her first article for the Huffington Post went viral and was picked up by the Yahoo news. She has since written on the Syria war and its children, open borders, the unfair coverage in the Western media of the Brazil Olympics, societal differences in outlook on issues like gun control in the US, and off-course - women. She has written on postpartum depression, acid attack and its state globally, #MeToo and a myriad of related topics and was interviewed for Reddit and the Indian Express. She is a regular contributor to several popular publications (incl. The Tribune (Sunday Diaspora segment), Thrive Global, The Logical Indian, Youth Ki Awaaz, Café Dissensus, and The Women's Web). Her literary resume also includes poems and stories featured in national and international magazines, including Words Pauses and Noises, UK; TUCK, Glimmer Train honorable mention, and inclusion in seven anthologies (through winning national and international contests), including Defiant Dreams (Oprah 2016 reading list placeholder) and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (published out of Singapore by Kitaab). She has served in coordinator and chapter head roles of ASHA and AID India and has affiliations with several women's organizations and non-profits. She is also the founder and director of Her Rights (www.herrights.website), a 501(3) c non-profit committed to furthering the cause of gender equality and supporting victims of gender violence.

Click here to check out all the titles by the author...

You can stalk her @

      

        

Play the game of Raffelcopter
With Love from Santa Giveaway 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Tour is Hosted by 

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We Promote So That You Can Write 

Book Blitz: WEST BEGG by Mari.Reiza

~ Book Blitz ~

WEST BEGG by Mari.Reiza

Humour / Satire

About the Book:

A hilarious yet dark novel on how power, and the lack of it, shapes people. 

Luca’s job is being a punch bag, a tea towel, a toilet bowl, to the undeniable and unbreakable king of egg power proud of averaging two hundred flights a year to visit chicken markets around the world. 
Anna moved to Catania to work for caper queen Madame Sicily, fulfilling varied tasks from picking up Céline swimwear before it hits the runways to recovering badly parked Lamborghinis. 
La Revolução dreams through buildings but builds parking spaces, when she’s not helping launder money for her boss’s dad’s dodgy charities. 
And finally, Carolina is out to conspire with Paquita who met their boss the German in a red lit booth, to understand why the man has to drain the passion out of everything. Their fates will inevitably collide. The question is, will their bosses get what they deserve? 

Book Links:
Goodreads * Amazon


Quotes:
At the office, Macco One’s sickened secretary barely acknowledges me. She firmly maintains that it is sickening to work in our place, Macco One’s place, says that it is not about the chickens but the cocks, ‘Too many big cocks flying around.’ I have never known her on a high. I leave the box of Indian sweets I bought her by the pot plant on her desk and hope that they poison her, ending her ordeal. (Luca)

The thought of my boss’s iron calves ungoverned scares me. Is it panic or an absolute type of anger? Does he know what he is angry about?’ Ignorance about one’s anger can be harder to deal with than deliberate devil. Sometimes I have nightmares where he chops my arm with the drama of a man picking cherries. (Carolina)

I cannot leave the swimwear on the bike. It is a church, Saint Agatha. No one should steal it by the virgin’s gate. But even so. These people cannot help themselves. They all want to look good at Mondello this summer. (Anna)

Irajá, which means beehive, is stunning, very pale with dark hair, so pale you can see millions of small blue veins through the skin of her face and neck, giving her a magical tinge. This is not the kind of woman you can imagine doing ordinary things like shitting or clipping her toenails. (La Revolução)

I’m crying on Paquita’s shoulders yet again. Her jumper is cheap cashmere. She is small and delicate and perfectly proportionate like a kid’s mannequin. And I am totally aware that this is the strangest of arrangements. (Carolina)

She is not Fuksas. Even if Irajá is convinced that in her heart she is a great architect with a social vision. I guess it keeps her away from pretending to be something more dangerous. When she purses her lips, the natives show fright on their faces and for a moment I expect a long viper tongue to come out pushing against her lips. I think they do too… This pale bundle of nerves is so thin and young, must be less than fifty kilos, below twenty five years of age. Any of those native hands could easily crush her to the ground, but they are afraid. (La Revolução)

Read a Snippet:

Paquita is the only one who really knows him.
She knows even the small things about him, like why he spends his little free time watching documentaries about extreme conditions and casualties of war including gas chambers and prisoner camps. She says he lives constantly defeated like the lowest worm. A dressing gown-ed, porno-clicking, self-suffering cut-off, only soothed by the corrosive fizz of some yellow pills. At least he needs less porn now that he has her.
‘Everyone he loved has died on him,’ she insists, ‘he feels betrayed by mankind and can only take the most sanitized forms of human contact.’
I can agree. ‘He does not seem to love any of us in the office very much, Paquita. That’s for sure.’
She nods as if thankful for my understanding. Next she re-tells me the story of how they met in a red lit booth in Hamburg. He apparently spoke to her of his tears, pills and mucus down his throat being the shades, flavours and textures of his days.
‘I did not know he could be that poetic,’ I tell her.
‘It was a breach of etiquette,’ she confesses, ‘and I think that he had been made uncomfortable by the heat in the booth which had been turned up to accommodate ladies in their underwear.’ She means nude sex workers but makes it sound like delicate dolls.
Paquita tells me that he came back to her booth again and again after the first time, until he asked for her to work for him exclusively. And when he got the job in Brussels, he took her with him. Apparently, the arrangement is that in public she is his housekeeper, but of course she is so much more than that. They are a smiley duo, a team, Lemon and Lime.
Paquita doesn’t like when I call it compensated dating. She does not like to be called a fuck-buddy either.
I could use Paquita’s confessions to hurt him, to destroy his career. The most important man in the European rail business lives with an Ecuadorian whore. Paquita is well over the legal age but he could still get done for enslaving her? He has not offered her marriage. She does not even have residency papers. Does he keep her passport under lock and key? But of course, this would also destroy Paquita.
I cannot get myself to destroy her illusion that they exist as a blessed unit.
(Carolina)

About the Author:

Mari.Reiza was born in Madrid in 1973. She studied at Oxford University and worked as an investment research writer and management consultant for twenty years in London, before becoming an indie fiction writer. Also by her, Inconceivable Tales, Death in Pisa, Sour Pricks, A Pack of Wolves, STUP, Mum, Watch Me Have Fun!, Marmotte’s Journey, West bEgg, PHYSICAL, Room 11, Triple Bagger, Opera and the Retreat, all available on Amazon.



Author Links:
Twitter * Instagram

Book Blitz: Caro M, by Mari.Reiza

~ Book Blitz ~

Caro M, by Mari.Reiza

Psychological / Romance / Contemporary

About the Book:

Portraits of unyielding love. A woman, mostly alone in her world but for her dog, shares memories through letters to her old 'tesoro'; a wife trusts her sweetheart psychiatrist blindly through her divorce; a young girl lands a fairy tale wedding soon to turn into a nightmare her cousin yearns to fix. Immersive, witty, tender,

Caro M, explores the hurricane-like devastation love is capable of.







Book Links:
Goodreads * Amazon

The setting
A circus of the grotesque doctor’s office on the Tuscan plain, where an unstable wife feeling a blade of hay in a world of snakes has been pill-fried for over a decade by her school friend become pretend life-ologist. A nearby coastal village, where an angered young woman narrates the recent sham marriage of her innocent cousin to a horny, wealthy ‘old’ man with a relaxed Peroni smile, who clearly plans to get away with anything. A balcony across the Eiffel tower inhabited by a mysterious smoking French lady in constant one-way correspondence with her ex-lover, in a large flat in a lovely historical house where someone else than her once made history.

Meet Elena
A woman ‘with issues’ to settle: physical, social, sexual – all types. Perhaps she’s scarred from living forever under the guidance of some fool: her father, her uncle and Zeno’s father, and then with Mimi, and in Zeno’s psych ward for years now, even if she swears she’s not the mad one despite sounding occasionally inconsistent or devious or both. But then there are plenty of people to blame for it. And there have forever been the pills, so large she can only swallow them down with gin. No wonder it’s unthinkable that she will ever make a single decision on her own!  Why did she marry Mimi? They all thought her sister was the prettiest, cleverest and most desirable one, and she was expected to settle for less. Her father probably pushed her to. But Mimi’s infidelity has given her carte blanche to push back. And Zeno will help her, because they’re made for each other; she’s almost a wife of sorts to him. Does he not believe her?

Meet Isa
She lives in Paris, worked in law but now looks after her dog. She also writes songs and has recently retaken smoking perhaps because she felt at some sort of crossroads; the ‘industry’ of her smoking her husband calls it, even if he’s often away in LA. She has come to resent him, for being a man who would squirm when handed a baby as if it were an octopus, even if this had never bothered her before, even if she knows she’s extremely lucky to have him in her pretty life; for being a man with smelly feet who doesn’t do passion, can’t assess jewellery, and whose best-ever present has been words he doesn’t believe in, engraved on a Zippo he hates: Il n’est rien de réel que le rêve et l’amour. They’ve for some time been two separate people. And when she meets Mimi she lets him lit up every space for her, embarking in a fool’s errand.

Meet Carmela
Her cousin looked beautiful in her wedding dress: a virginal bride, although she knew that she wasn’t a virgin. She did think Laura was marrying too young but hadn’t confronted her about it because she was herself recovering from heartbreak, and Laura may have mistaken her concern for jealousy. The truth was Carmela didn’t like Laura’s groom. For starters, he was over twenty years their senior! Yet, that day at the wedding they both looked marvellous and Carmela thought perhaps she had been right not to stop Laura embracing marriage like a magic portal. Until she saw her cry.

About the Author:

Mari.Reiza was born in Madrid in 1973. She studied at Oxford University and worked as an investment research writer and management consultant for twenty years in London, before becoming an indie fiction writer. Also by her, Inconceivable Tales, Death in Pisa, Sour Pricks, A Pack of Wolves, STUP, Mum, Watch Me Have Fun!, Marmotte’s Journey, West bEgg, PHYSICAL, Room 11, Triple Bagger, Opera and the Retreat, all available on Amazon.


Author Links:
Twitter * Instagram