Okay, maybe that last one will still make sense. Maybe. But the thought has been on my mind lately: how much of contemporary YA is going to remain understandable once the internet culture it was written around has moved on?

Characters don’t just have social media accounts on ‘FaceGram’2 or text their friends anymore; little quirks of online communication have started making their way into the narration itself. There are the sudden asides, exaggerated reactions, memes, slang, multiple pop-culture references in a single page, and the general humour that only makes sense to you if you’ve spent far too much time online.

This is not a new phenomenon by any means. You can sometimes pick up a novel from years ago and make a guess of the publication year without ever looking at it. But the internet has made the dating process feel much faster. A phrase can become ubiquitous and disappear within a couple of weeks. A meme can be everywhere one month and incomprehensible the next. (I blame brand accounts and their habit of running memes into the ground for that, though.)

Does writing YA in such an intensely online voice make a book more authentic now and unreadable a couple years later?

What planted this question in my mind was my latest ARC3. I was just looking for something different to read, and so I took a chance on requesting Trust Fall for a couple of reasons: one, I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy and romantasy lately, so I haven’t picked up much contemporary romance this year, and even less YA contemporary romance. Two, I haven’t read any Lynn Painter books before. But her books seem to be well received (at least among my friends), and the people whose reading tastes overlap with mine tend to rate them high enough, so I thought, why not? I might just end up loving this one.

And I was right!

Synopsis: Trust Fall is a YA contemporary romance that follows Julia Lowell, a small-town girl from Nebraska whose life changes overnight when a elderly man she knew as Lou leaves his entire fortune to her family after his death. The catch is that the Lowells have to move to New York City and live in his lavish Gardenwood home for six months, while Julia and her twin brother attend the extremely posh Gardenwood Academy.

Lou’s (real name: Remington) great-nephew Damion Rutledge is particularly unhappy that a family of strangers is living in the Remi-Home that was meant to be his. His parents are convinced that the Lowells managed to manipulate Remi into changing his will so that they inherit the wealth. And they are extremely unhappy about it, with promises of uncovering the truth and suing them made.

When Damion is assigned to be Julia’s math tutor, he sees an opportunity to investigate the Lowells and figure out what exactly happened. Naturally, things become complicated when they start falling for each other.

The premise reminded me of The Inheritance Games, where a seemingly unrelated teen suddenly finds herself named in the will of a very wealthy man and is dropped into a world of money and secrets that could kill. There too, Avery is asked to live in the Hawthorne mansion if she wants to receive the inheritance. But that’s where the similarities stop. Trust Fall leans more into the romance than the mystery (there’s like zero mystery, actually) and its strength lies in the relationship between Julia and Damion and the emotional mess surrounding them.

And I enjoyed it! It wasn’t anything extraordinary, but it was entertaining, sweet, and, toward the end, surprisingly emotional! Lynn Painter is really, really good at writing emotional conversations, particularly when it comes to breakups and the feelings that follow them.

And CHAPTER 51, BITCHHHH. My heart 😭

I’ve gone through something very similar to what Julia and Will4 (her ex-bf) went through, except I never got to have that closure-after-everything-blew-up conversation. Reading that scene made me cry fr. And then every chapter after that was just... me in tears. I had so many feelings by the end of this book, and I think that is the clearest indication that whatever complaints I had about it aside, Lynn Painter had successfully gotten me invested. But while I was reading, I noticed: Julia’s narration was very online.5

The internet is part of the voice now

I think there are broadly two kinds of contemporary YA writing: one that is relatively timeless—though it is obviously set in a particular period— and if you picked it up decades later, it would still be readable, because the references to the culture of that time was minimal. The second is the writing that is deeply intertwined with the culture of the moment in which it was written.

The latter isn’t worse, exactly. In fact, I can understand why readers love it. It is very satisfying to read a character who talks and thinks and acts just like people your age do. If young adults are constantly making references to jokes that exist online, listening to specific artists, watching the show everyone else is currently watching, sending memes to each other, and using whatever slang happens to be circulating at the time, why shouldn’t that make its way into YA books? Trying to make every teenage character sound timeless would probably make them sound less authentic, not more.

The problem is that the internet moves fast. And this isn’t just something I noticed while reading Trust Fall. Even other readers—some of whom are her biggest fans—have pointed out the excessive pop culture references. Julia’s chapters often read like a teenager’s thoughts have been transferred directly onto the page, complete with all the strange little detours that come with thinking while chronically online. Sometimes that worked for me. It made her voice feel young and immediate, and there were moments where I could understand why people loved her. Other times, I found myself very aware of the fact I was reading a book intended for a younger, more online audience.

There is a difference between a book being set in a particular time and a book’s voice being dependent on that time. Books have always been time capsules. Pick up The Princess Diaries, and you can tell that it was written in the early 2000s. We laugh at books mentioning flip phones or MySpace because we know how quickly those things disappeared from everyday culture once they became extinct.

Julia doesn’t need to tell me that she lives in 2026. I can easily work it out from the way she thinks. The language itself is a timestamp. That, and the random sombr mention. Like, why?

And I would be lying if I said that the phenomenon isn’t interesting because YA is, by definition, capturing a very specific period of life—teenagers that are already living in an incredibly fast-changing cultural environment—So perhaps an extremely online YA novel is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing: capturing what being young feels like right now, in 2026.

But I do think it affects rereadability

I can already tell that I won’t reread Trust Fall. Part of that is simply because I didn’t love everything about it. Julia’s narration wasn’t entirely my thing, and I wish she had developed a little more of a backbone.

The story also needed some aggressive editing. Some plot points were repeated so many times and there were moments when I felt like the story was going in circles, and I really don't think every single thought or emotional reaction needed to be revisited quite so often. This also ties into my general belief that romance books simply do NOT need to be over 300 pages. Maybe 350 if you're stretching it. But 400 pages? For this particular story? No. I don’t think so.

The ratio of inner thoughts to actual events was sometimes... bleh. You know how a Kindle will tell you how many hours you have left to finish a book in the bottom-left corner? This book’s pacing was so slow at times that I swear the estimated reading time INCREASED instead of decreasing every time I turned the page.

But I also think the internet-heavy narration contributes to my feelings. There are YA books I can imagine rereading years later (The Hunger Games! Coldwire! Any Ann Liang book! (yes I’m biased)) and finding that the writing has somehow become even more charming. Then there are books where the appeal is that the author managed to capture what a certain period of time felt like.

The appeal of a book that can age

Because there is an argument to be made that these references are part of what makes a YA romance novel feel alive and ‘YA’: imagine trying to write one today while avoiding anything that might date it. You might end up with something that remains technically “timeless,” but would anyone actually believe the characters were teenagers?

Probably not.

The actual problem for me is when the cultural references become more noticeable than the characters. And… Julia occasionally crossed that line. All I could see was the writing trying to sound like a teenage girl on the internet rather than simply… letting Julia be the teenage girl who happens to exist on the internet.

She still made me cry though, so I guess a win is a win.

So... did I actually like this book?

Yes. Very much, actually.

Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty of complaints. Damion spent far too much of the book being a dick, Julia frustrated me in ways I cannot explain. Remington’s chapter-opening quotes made me want to reach through the pages and tell a dead man to shut up. Oh lord was he pretentious. No human being talks like that. (Or was it a case of yet another rich person being so out-of-touch with reality that that’s just how they speak?)

But! There was a lot I enjoyed: Gardenwood was gorgeous, and I loved the way the setting was described, especially the use of smell. That’s something I don’t see incorporated particularly often in YA, and I thought Painter handled it beautifully. Bernard was one of my favourite characters, particularly in the way he helped the Lowell family adjust to their new life. His interactions with Julia were some of the sweetest parts of the book, and when he taught her to dance? Please 🥹🤍 That’s a man I respect. And all the emotional conversations worked for me.

Being dated isn’t the same as being bad

So, can YA books become dated because of the internet? I think they can.

But I don’t think that’s something we should worry about. Some books try to exist outside of time. Others want to capture a very specific version of being young, in a very specific cultural moment. The latter will inevitably age differently. The jokes will stop landing and the slang will sound ridiculous. Future readers will probably look at some of it and wonder what on earth we were talking about.

Maybe that’s the point! Sometimes, a book is allowed to be a time capsule, and we’re allowed to cringe at said capsule later.

Btw, if you’re interested in seeing said massive TBR, check out my Goodreads!

perceive me

Here are short reviews of some of those 35 books!

cover roulette

The explanation’s on Instagram, but in short: it’s a challenge I’ve set up for myself that’s chaotic enough to keep things fun and structured enough to keep me accountable and make me read the books I own! Q3’s pick was Small Pleasures.

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Aug 29 - Sept 17 | read the synopsis

I enjoy reading books like Small Pleasures once in a while, because it’s the type of book that’ll make you look at your own life through a different lens. Make you notice the small pleasures of life, if you will. If only the entire book were like the first 40%. I felt really betrayed by the ending.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

the books

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Dec 28 - Jan 12 | read the synopsis

I read an insane number of Tahereh Mafi books over the past three months, and you’ll see more if you scroll down. She isn’t even one of my favourite authors—I don’t like her writing style much. But I read her stuff at the end of the day, when my brain was fried from work, so I let most things (read: nonsense) pass.

In my review I tried to emulate the writing style of the book itself (and I did a pretty good job of it), which is why I am not putting it here, but if you’re interested, click on the link above!

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Common Goal (Game Changers, #4) by Rachel Reid

Jul 2 - Jul 14 | read the synopsis

Only read this because I hate leaving books in a series unread. It was fun, the leads were cute with each other, and overall I liked this better than Tough Guy (book #3 in the same series), so minimal complaints.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Nimona by N.D. Stevenson

Jul 14 - Jul 15 | read the synopsis

Liked the movie better, and if you tell me you can only do one—read the book or watch the movie—I’d tell you to watch. You’ve gotta respect the source material, though.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Role Model (Game Changers, #5) by Rachel Reid

Jul 18 - Jul 19 | read the synopsis

I started reading this at the crack of dawn because I couldn’t sleep, so maybe that’s influencing my judgment, but this was one of the best books in the series. The opening pulled me into the story immediately, and none of the other Game Changers books have managed to do that to me (well... except Heated Rivalry, of course). Also, if the story has a cute dog, I can’t really not like it, you know?

Rating: ★★★☆☆

The Real Ones by J. Rose Black

Jul 30 | read the synopsis | arc

I fear I made a huge mistake in requesting this ARC because… I didn’t understand shit 😭 The book is too sports-centric, even for a sports-romance. The writing only added to my confusion. One time, I read a paragraph three times and I still couldn’t understand what was being said. Of all the books that can make you feel illiterate, I didn’t think this would be the one to do me in.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Jul 23 - Jul 30 | read the synopsis

With this book I complete the original trilogy—The Juliette Chronicles. The series was later extended, and my plan at first was to read all the books in 2026, but I fear it is not possible. I am very tired of the writing style and cannot take it anymore.

At this point, I am totally reading these books for Kenji. I love that man and can’t hide it anymore. I do not care about the rest.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Vow of Eternal Night by Lily Crozier

Jul 27 - Jul 31 | read the synopsis | arc

Picked this one as my ARC for Camp Netgalley, and while I was successful in getting my badge for the camp, the book was… tolerable at best.

A lot of books I’ve been reading lately have the main guy be a bad evil man at first and instead of gradually warming the love interest (and us) up to him with proper character development, we’re shown that the other characters in the book are exceedingly worse in comparision to the first guy, and that we’ve misunderstood his previous actions. All so we see this main guy as a lesser evil compared to the others.

Don’t you get it? Yes, he’s evil, he killed people, but his cousins are worse! At least he’s not them, you know? He only kills those who already want to die!

Fine. You want to Stockholm syndrome the woman. She falls for the guy because he’s the lesser evil and feeds her. Okay. But I am not getting Stockholm syndromed? I have to sit here and read this and accept it as romance? This is not swoon-worthy romance to me. This was a boring, snooze-worthy, desperate attempt to get two bland main characters together and it did not work for me 😔‼️

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Honey Kissed by Mary B. Gould

Aug 1 - Aug 9 | read the synopsis | book tour & arc

I am a sucker for adorable small towns and Honey Oak Harbor was basically a 10 on the cuteness scale.

Quite often, I am frustrated with the characters in romance books because they’re supposed to be 27 and then they go and act like they’re 16; but not here! These two act like the adults they are! To write a bit about the plot, I do not know how to make this sound normal, so at the risk of sounding like a weirdo: I loved that there was a murder-mystery-finding-out-the-truth element to this!

If you’re looking for a small-town romance, two lovely people falling for each other, characters learning to deal with grief, and emotional healing, this is a good choice!

Rating: ★★★★☆

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Aug 15 | read the synopsis

When your friends ask you to suggest a heartbreaking quick read with themes of psychological trauma and the way we treat people with developmental disabilities, this is what you suggest. 8/10, would not read again.

Rating: ★★★★☆

These Infinite Threads by Tahereh Mafi

Aug 15 - Aug 21 | read the synopsis | buddy read

This was like reading a script of a pointless, boring “a day in the life of xyz!!” youtube video uploaded by a group of people I no longer care about.

It’s exhausting being in the head of these characters. Or maybe it’s the fault of the overly decorative writing style. It isn’t as bad as it was in book one; however, here too, Mafi uses superfluous sentences to describe simple things. In moderation, it was fine; still, it was a failure in some other chapters. The word ‘enigmatic’ was once used twice in a single sentence!

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 1 by Kamome Shirahama

Aug 15 - Aug 20 | read the synopsis | arc

The reviews for this were right; this is really cute. However, I think I’m past the age at which I would enjoy it. I’ve heard it gets darker down the series, but this volume felt a lot like it was meant for middle-graders.

Don’t get me wrong, the story is sort of interesting, the characters are cute, and the drawings are nice, but I don’t feel any attachment to it, nor do I feel compelled to read any more from this series. Still, I had fun reading this!

Rating: ★★★★☆

Faerie by Anna Cartwright

Aug 26 - Aug 30 | read the synopsis | book tour & arc

This was more of a relaxing, cozy fantasy-mystery read than a I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT OR I WILL LOSE IT read, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Real Hero Shit by Kendra Wells

Aug 26 - Aug 28 | read the synopsis

This was such a fun, queer, and chaotic fantasy adventure! What do you get when you take a spoiled demon prince joining a questing party and add in a bit of magic, monsters, a suspicious church, some questionable flirting, and a healthy dose of nonsense? A pretty entertaining read, it seems!

The main thing keeping this at three stars for me was that I wanted more. The adventure is fun, and the mystery is fairly straightforward—there isn’t a whole lot of sleuthing or detective work needed to figure things out—so I ended up much more invested in the characters and the world than in solving the mystery. I kept feeling like I had just started getting attached to someone before we moved on to the next thing.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

Aug 23 - Sep 2 | read the synopsis | buddy read

The opening of this will immediately hook you in. I was invested, and for a while I was like, oh? okay! We might have something here. And then I started thinking about it. Which, unfortunately, was my first mistake. The further I got into the story, the more things started falling apart for me. There were so many moments where I had to stop and go, wait, but why would you do that?

My biggest recommendation with this book is: read it in as few sittings as possible, and unfortunately, this is a little bit of a turn-off-your-brain-and-read. The story works much better when you’re swept up in it. The opening is compelling, Lara and Aren have chemistry, and there are enough dramatic moments to keep you turning the pages.

Despite all the negatives, I’m definitely going to read book two. Damn you, hot people with political problems.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business by Lacey Hawthorne

Aug 30 - Sep 3 | read the synopsis | arc

I first got to know of this book via Threads, where the author announced it as a response to really shitty AI generated art where a grown ass man was holding a whisk upside-down. Now, even if you’ve never seen a whisk before, it is quite obvious which part is the handle. What sort of person would get confused about that?

The answer is obviously, an alien who had landed on earth by accident!

Tbh, I respect the level of spite required to look at a gen AI image and go, “you know what? I’m going to write an entire book about this.” And this was, thankfully, a DELIGHT.

Rating: ★★★★☆

The History of England by Jane Austen

Sep 4 - Sep 5 | read the synopsis

Do you love Philomena Cunk? Do you wish there were more seasons of ‘Cunk on…’? Do you wish there was a book written Philomena Cunk-style? Well, look no further. This is it.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Sep 3 - Sep 12 | read the synopsis

Yes, 2026 was the first time I got to read The Hunger Games in its entirety. Sue me.

I also deliberately didn’t read any reviews before picking this up nor did I watch the movie. Basically, I religiously avoided all sort of spoilers because I wanted to see what I actually thought of it after all these years, without anyone else’s opinions sitting in the back of my mind. Then I finished the entire book in like, three sittings, so clearly whatever Suzanne Collins put in this thing still works on me. Anyway, here’s my unfiltered thoughts:
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Rating: ★★★★★

The Traitor Queen by Danielle L. Jensen

Sep 3 - Sep 13 | read the synopsis | buddy read

Ended up liking this one wayyy more than book #1! No one has second chanced the way keliant have second chanced.

Also, I just feel like the author is unable to come up with endings that feel worthy of all the shit we’re put through at the beginning of the book. I’ve read two from this series, and both of them failed to have a satisfying ending.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Into the Luminous Storm by Jessi Chaulk

Sep 5 - Sep 15 | read the synopsis | book tour & arc

This was... nothing as I expected, and everything that I wanted. The worldbuilding was not too complex, nor was it basic. There’s clearly a lot more going on beneath the surface, and I’m very interested to see how the author develops the world and its larger conflicts in the next book. And I loved the rebellion group—the found family aspect was one of my favourite parts because they’re all just a bunch of cuties. The fox too. Cute.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Hot for Slayer by Ali Hazelwood

Sep 15 - Sep 18 | read the synopsis

FANTASTIC!! Sorry, Ali Hazelwood, I have been ignoring your books 😔 I will correct this mistake soon 🩷

Rating: ★★★★☆

Julia at the Drive-In by Rainbow Rowell

Sep 19 - Sep 20 | read the synopsis

I have also been neglecting Rainbow Rowell’s works sadly. This one was a really cute YA romance following two teens who fall in love at a movie drive-in! Perhaps my favourite from the collection.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Winter Breakage by David Levithan

Sep 19 | read the synopsis | arc

I thought I would relate to the feelings in this—the feeling that you don’t really belong in a friend group at uni, but I went out of my way to pick out the perfect set of people and basically forced them all to be my friends (dw, I am a really good friend, they should all be thanking me) during the first week of classes so... no, I don’t relate 😭

But! I do have feelings about this tiny book. The last six pages of this were the reason this got 3 stars! I loved the talk between Eric & Noah, and it completely changed my feelings towards this story. If I had to sum it all up, the progression of this book felt like unexpected rain slowly giving way to clear skies, with a pretty rainbow in the end!

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Three of Hearts by Katie Cotugno

Sep 19 | read the synopsis | arc

For a novella that was supposed to focus on the relationship between three young adults—Ellery, Camp, and Danny—a lot of time was spent describing Preston College and its special programs and the apple cider and whatnot. We don’t have time for it all, folks! This is a short story!

The second half of this was weirdly rushed, and left me with a lot of questions. And I’m not someone who wants a happy ending in every book I read, but these guys’ decisions were mind-boggling. My time was wasted on this.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park

Sep 21 - Sep 22 | read the synopsis

I do not remember who recommended this to me, it must’ve been years ago, but it was recommended to me. Of that fact I am sure, because this is a short story collection, and I usually do not read short stories unless they’re fairy tales or Panchatantra tales or Aesop’s fables, you get the gist. The stories often end right as I’m getting into them, and it’s hard to review them.

Most of the stories read like the author is showing off, Look, isn’t this ABSURD? Don’t you want to laugh? Aren’t I CLEVER? (I’m not even joking—just read the last paragraph in the synopsis for this book) And... no. Bleh. Some of the stories had potential, but they would end the moment I thought so.

And a few others were so choked with bigoted or misogynistic views that I do not have any praise for this collection as a whole. I know it is not the author’s views, but when story after story follows the same pattern, it gets a bit exhausting to read. Why would I read about a man narrating about how his life is ruined because his wife/girlfriend/female friend did X or did not do Y? I have no reason to feel invested in any of these men or their struggles. Their dissatisfaction with their partners, their parents, and their lives might have worked if the writing was good. Unfortunately, the prose left a lot to be desired, and the endings were weak.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Sep 20 - Sep 23 | read the synopsis | buddy read

I’m afraid this review is going to be a little disappointing for the An Ember in the Ashes lovers, but I was bored for most of this 😭 I genuinely thought I was going to love it, especially considering how much people seem to adore this series, but unfortunately, it just didn’t click for me.

The premise was interesting, and it’s the reason I’ll continue with the series. The whole setup of trials, chosen ones, secret rebellions, spies, traitors, and an oppressive regime isn’t exactly something new, but I thought it was handled well enough here. The book doesn’t shy away from the brutality of its world or soften everything simply because it’s YA.

I just can’t figure out why I felt so unenthusiastic while reading it. I kept waiting for that moment when I’d finally understand why everyone loves this book so much, but it never came. Part of me wonders whether me reading this as an audiobook had something to do with it because Laia’s narrator really wasn’t working for me. Her British accent just didn’t feel right for the character in my head, and I found myself struggling to connect with her because of it.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Twice in a Blue Moon by Jess Lourey

Sep 25 | read the synopsis | arc

Sadly, I did have a couple of issues with this one. This novella is part of The Blackthorn Women series, which means the characters we follow here were already introduced in a previous book. I wasn’t aware of this going in, and this information doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere. The only reason I found out was because I started reading other reviews to see if I was the only one who felt a disconnect. Even though the story does ease us into the characters and their relationships, I kept feeling that I was missing some important context 😔

In this novella too we come across the ever-present issue of characters making terrible decisions (I guess we’ll never be free of that one). On the brighter side, the descriptions of the candies and chocolates were absolutely delightful.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Love Antidote by Brynne Weaver

Sep 26 | read the synopsis | arc

This was so fun!! I immediately fell in love with Isla and Mateo 🫠🤍 They gave Mr. & Mrs. Smith vibes so bad, I just had to put my kindle down to watch the film lol. Read the entire thing with a smile on my face. (Except the part with the eyeballs, that creeped me out)

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Wizard Who Kept Himself Suspicious by Scott Lynch

Sep 27 | read the synopsis | arc

Very silly, with a couple of charming characters. Shiverick, especially. But I might be biased because he is the main character, after all.

At first I was a bit confused as to what was going on, and the language being a bit archaic and all formal did not help. But once the murder mystery started, I was having a lot more fun. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t entertaining enough to make me give this a good rating :(

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Heat Trap by Ellery Lloyd

Sep 26 - Sep 27 | read the synopsis | arc

Exactly two chapters of this were interesting, and that is sad, for a short story. I’m starting to think adult thrillers just aren’t for me. I’ll just stick to my YA ones 🫂

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Trust Fall by Lynn Painter

Sep 23 - Sep 28 | read the synopsis | arc

I took a chance on requesting this ARC for a couple of reasons: one, I haven’t really picked up much contemporary romance this year, and two, I hadn’t read any Lynn Painter books before, but her books generally seem to be well received, and my friends who enjoy the same things I do tend to rate them pretty highly. So I thought, why not? I might just end up loving this one!

And I was pretty much right! This wasn’t anything extraordinary, but it was entertaining, sweet, and even made me tear up toward the end. Lynn Painter is really, really good at writing emotional conversations, especially when it comes to breakups and the feelings that follow.

More thoughts to come in a longer post sometime in October <3 below!

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Cairndale Orphan by J.M. Miro

Sep 28 | read the synopsis | arc

I’m impressed! The recent couple of amazon original books I’ve read haven’t been too good, with stories ending before the characters are properly developed, or the story only becoming interesting in the last 20%. But this one had me as soon as it began! The writing, the characters, the little hints of romance we got, the underlying mystery-all of it was amazing and well written!

I also think this was the perfect length, and if you read this and would like to know more about the characters, you can then pick up The Talents Trilogy!

Rating: ★★★★☆

Song for Medusa by Grace Desmarais

Sep 29 - Sep 30 | read the synopsis | arc

This was so sweet and pretty!! The artwork is reminiscent of the comic books I used to read as a kid and the lettering perfectly fits the story. Weaving in Sappho’s poetry into the story was a brilliant idea 🥹

It’s also a pretty short graphic novel, so you can easily finish this in a single setting. The characters in here were adorable. Most of them, at least. I wanted to punch Perseus in the face.

Rating: ★★★★☆

All This Twisted Glory by Tahereh Mafi

Sep 3 - Sep 30 | read the synopsis | buddy read

To say I am disappointed is an understatement. Given the way people were hyping this over on booktok & bookstagram claiming the “yearning” is on a whole new level, I really thought I was gonna like this at the very least. But this is just starting to read like Shatter Me in a romantasy setting?

Or it is probably because this book, like the previous one, is again, a whole bunch of nothing. Mafi’s ability to take one scene and then make it last a hundred pages is unparalleled. No one does it like her. To make myself clear: I do not hate this series, but I do hate the way it is executed. The pacing sucks.

Like mannnnnn... can I get something other than the ICSE minimum 100 words in each answer-style descriptions of each and every single thing? Please, give me some plot or action once in a while. I seriously doubt Mafi will be able to wrap up the story in 5 books. Are we sure it’s possible?

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Battle of the Round House by Tananarive Due

Sep 30 | read the synopsis | arc

Another great one from the Magic & Mystery collection! We follow a young Lucy Freeman and her family as they escape Kentucky to live at the Zipporah Ranch, a secret settlement built by Black women. Lucy’s povs from when she is ten years old was really well done.

Logically speaking, you know that the Freemans made it to Zipporah Ranch safely, and that they lived there with the others, because one half of the book is her being interviewed at age 75. But the writing was so immersive, it really makes you feel the tension and the fear the family felt. I was nervous the entire time I was reading this, which again, is a testament to the writing style.

Rating: ★★★★☆

And that’s everything I read in the third quarter of the year! Is there a book you’d recommend to me based on what you know about my reading taste so far?

What has been your favourite read so far?

Leave a comment

but first, welcome to The Mailroom!

The Mailroom is a new little section where I take requests, questions, recommendations, and general things you want me to write about and turn them into a (full) article. This is one of the first requests that landed in my chat, so that’s what I’m starting with!

And now, back to the games: some require absolutely no preparation. A couple of these require a willingness to make a complete fool of yourself, but that’s alright! I’m sure your friends have seen worse. One of them involves tackling your friends to the ground, so perhaps use your judgment.

Paranoia by @vincent-van-go-away

1. Everyone sits in a circle

2. First person to go whispers a question to the one on their right

3. The person MUST answer the question they were asked out loud. Meaning: everyone hears the answer, but only two out of the entire group know the question

4. Flip a coin, and only if it lands on heads should you say the question out loud, else, it remains a secret

5. The weirder the questions, the more fun your friends will have. The questions that’ll guarantee the most entertainment are the ones with a specific person as an answer. The best part is watching everyone try to figure out what question could possibly have produced that particular answer.

Don’t Get Me Started by @flashinqlights

1. You are assigned a random topic by a friend

2. You MUST go on an angry rant about it. Bonus points if you manage to whip up a presentation to go with your rant.

3. Start your talk with “Oh! Don’t get me started on (insert topic)” The more passionate and unreasonable you sound, the better.

4. A couple of ideas: people who stop walking in the middle of the footpath, group projects, the existence of raisins in perfectly good food, people who watch videos on speaker in public, the phrase “let’s circle back”, people who ask “what are you doing?” when they can literally see what you’re doing

Think About It by @whatyouwanted-whatyougot

1. You’re given a random topic, and you have to build a crazy conspiracy theory based on it

2. Try to get your friends to believe in you by the end

3. End your speech with “think about it” in a serious tone with a serious face

Get Down Mr President!

1. Best played in an open space with slight obstacles (like a park). Spread out around the area, you shouldn’t be too close to each other.

2. Walk around for a while. Someone starts the game by putting their finger up to their ear, like a secret service agent does.

3. They should say nothing, make no noise. Whoever notices the finger-to-ear motion must also put their finger up to their ear. Maintain silence.

4. When only one person remains without a finger to their ear, everybody shouts out “Get down Mr President!” and tackles them to the ground.

5. Injuries are possible so… play with caution.

Illuminati by @astrojukebox

1. You are given two completely different topics (The farther apart they are, the better)

2. You must find a way to connect the two and explain it to your friends with a wild conspiracy rant

3. For example, ‘The discovery of penguins led to the invention of the microwave.’

World’s Greatest Expert

1. A friend will come up to you and say, “Hey, I heard you’re the world’s greatest expert on __”

2. You are now the world’s greatest expert on said topic and must give an in-depth lecture on the thing (can be completely false, but make it believable)

3. The others can ask you questions, and you must improvise answers that sound sane. The person who can bullshit their way through the most ridiculous topics & question wins.

Who is it?

1. Everyone writes down an obscure fact about themselves, something the rest of the group probably does not know.

2. Dump all of the papers into a bowl

3. Each person picks out one and reads it out loud to the group

4. Everyone tries to guess who it is. If it belongs to you, try to divert attention from yourself. But be careful! Try too hard, and you might get caught.

5. And if you know your friends well enough that nobody has any secrets to play this game, congratulations. Happy for you.

want to send something to The Mailroom?

More articles in response to requests are coming soon, but if you have an idea you’d like me to tackle, a question you want me to answer, something you want me to recommend, or simply a topic you think would make for a fun article, fill out the survey form here:

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You can also leave a comment and throw your idea at me that way!

Leave a comment

Basically, if there’s something you’ve ever thought “hmm, I’d like to read someone’s unnecessarily detailed thoughts about this,” about, send it my way.

A while ago, I stepped away from Substack thinking I’d return with a concrete plan about what I wanted to do with my blog. Instead, the break left me a huge collection of half-formed ideas, unanswered questions, things I’ve changed my mind about, and thoughts that will not leave me.

nice to niche you!

the substack niche crisis

Are you even a Substack writer if you’ve never wondered, “What exactly is my niche?” I have, multiple times, over the past year.

I would love to establish a personal brand. It is what I’ve dreamed of ever since I started posting on here. All a newcomer would have to do is take one look at my profile and think, “Ah yes, XYZ is what she posts.”

Unfortunately, I contain multitudes. What do you do when you’re interested in books, writing, collecting ideas, making lists, observing random things on the internet, academia, and nearly twelve other things? Give up, apparently. I haven't been active on here in nearly two months simply because I cannot decide what to post next!

“value proposition?” how about you proposition these… uh… nuts?

I cannot make puns for the life of me

When I started out, I would obsessively read those “how to grow on Substack” posts. I had a Notion page full of post ideas (my day ones know) and posting schedules. I was convinced that if I just followed enough advice from people who had cracked the code, I’d eventually become One Of Those Substack Writers™.

But “content pillars,” “target audience,” and “value proposition”? Ugh, no thanks. I’m not that creative.

I just wanted to write things. My ideal reader is someone who likes books, has too many thoughts, procrastinates regularly, and will tolerate me writing a guide about how to get a free seat on a bus to a completely unrelated storytime about internship interviews.

Actually, that sounds pretty niche.

Wait. Maybe I’ve cracked it!

500 subscribers, 100 readers, 0 lessons learned

the 500 subscriber hell

I’ll be honest: for a long time all I really wanted was to hit 500 subscribers. And when I finally did, after a successful run of back-to-back hit notes, I thought, oh my god, I made it. After spending months watching that little number creep up, I had hit my first milestone! It felt like proof that I had finally figured this whole thing out.

Then I looked at my post views. They remain at around 100. I have a computer science degree, so unfortunately, I do know how to divide two numbers. That’s a readership rate of 20%, which is what we asians might generously call a FAIL GRADE.

Anyway, it makes sense. Most of those subscribers came from my notes, and whether they ever actually read my writing is a different question. I know the obvious solution is to promote my work more. I know. Please don’t tell me to promote my stuff. I cannot. I will accept my 20% and move on.

write of passage

will they, won’t they, read it?

A particularly horrible thought plagues my mind whenever I write anything: what if this is the last good idea I ever have? Am I… a one-hit wonder?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot while writing my webnovels. I keep catching myself wondering, does anyone even want this? Will anyone read it? And then another part of me immediately goes, you said you were writing it for yourself. Remember? Which is true. That was the whole point. I wanted to write the stories I wanted to read, regardless of whether anyone else thought it was worth reading.

Except... I do want people to read it. Of course I do. No matter how many times I tell myself I’m writing it purely for myself, if I publish a webnovel and nobody reads a single chapter, I am absolutely going to stare at my dusty, cobweb-littered profile and take actual psychic damage.

Anyway, those are the thoughts that have been living rent-free in my head for the past couple of months. I could keep going, but then this would stop being scrollable and would crash your system, so I’ll save them for next time 💞

I still don’t have a niche and still have approximately a hundred post ideas I want to flesh out, so I guess I’ll just start doing that.

the extended universe

Compared to quarter one, Q2 was amazing! Multiple 5-star reads, with me trying out some books that have been in my TBR for what I would consider way too long.

Ah yes, I recently started a book club on Fable—it’s tiny, but we do have some fun conversations over there! I’ve put it on a temporary break for now, but if you’re interested in eventually reading something with us, join through the link below :)

Join the Club

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The blurb on the front—“Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” really tells you all you need to know, and sets the tone for the rest of the series as well. It is incomplete as of now, and I’m desperately waiting for Alecto (#4) to be released before buying shelf trophies because this was my second 5-star read of the year!

If you're a nerd (like me) who thoroughly enjoys deciphering intricate worldbuilding without being given tons of clues, this is the book for you. You'll be confused for the most part (I was), but it'll be an entertaining state of confusion, for the things that come out of certain characters' mouths are... let's say... interesting!

Gideon is maybe my favourite protagonist ever—she doesn't know what's going on half the time, makes bad jokes—no, really: there is no shortage of bad puns, meme references, dad jokes, and 'that's what she said' lines in this book! I am so glad one of my favourite authors ever is a lover of memes. Thank you, Tamsyn Muir ♡

Rating: ★★★★★

the books

Here are some of the books I read in April, May, and June!

The Clock House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

Apr 4 - Apr 8 | read the synopsis | arc

An impressive locked-room murder mystery, at least as long as the murders were taking place. I recommend this if you like authors toying around with the idea of time and clocks and building a whole narrative out of it. You will want to solve the mystery before it is all revealed, but I’m sorry to say I think it is impossible with this book. This also felt a bit... overambitious. We are introduced to 27 characters as soon as we begin the book, and the list continues to grow.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

If All the Stars Go Dark by S.G. Prince

Apr 8 - Apr 17, Apr 18 - Apr 19 | read the synopsis | arc

My first 5-star read of the year—this had literally everything I have ever wanted from a YA sci-fi space fantasy book—I cried. I laughed. I was reading this as soon as I woke up, read it before I slept, read it on the way to work! An absolute gem of a book 💖

The story manages to be cute, funny, emotional, tense, and angsty while also handling serious topics like grief and abandonment with care. The characters are what make this book. The plot was pretty easy to uncover, so the fact that I went into it completely blind definitely worked in my favour. When the big "reveal" happened, I was all, "really, that was obvious from the beginning!" but still, the characters were lovely, and it warmed up my little stupid self so much I didn't mind the flaws at all.

Rating: ★★★★★

King of Gluttony by Ana Huang

Apr 29 - May 1 | read the synopsis | buddy read

I do not want to think about this book again, so I gonna leave this space blank. You can read what I felt about it here:

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Daggermouth by H.M. Wolfe

Apr 27 - May 19 | read the synopsis | arc

I wanted to love it, and I even thought it would be a 4/5-star read for me, but no. It does have its strengths: the characters were decent, and each one had defining traits, but did we really need to hear from ALL of them? Grayson & Shadera ended up feeling like side characters in a book filled with side characters.

All I could think while reading was: why? Why does any of this have to happen? Why are these traditions even in place? So many of the “rules” in this dystopian world felt superficial to me. The writing was genuinely terrible. I kept hoping it would improve as I read, but the only thing that improved was how quickly I could predict what would happen next. The plotlines were painfully clichéd, and the antagonists felt like caricatures.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Mar 27 - May 24 | read the synopsis

A fine book by my standards. I loved that it was a retelling of the Mahabharata from Panchaali’s perspective, but the writing felt a tad too juvenile to me, and her attraction/crush on Karna I could not understand. A 3-year crush I get; 5 years is stretching it. But he was the one she loved her entire life? Nah. Couldn’t get it.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

I Hope This Doesn't Find You & I Hope This Finds You by Ann Liang

May 20 - May 26, Jun 8 - Jun 9 | read the synopsis | buddy read

Very cute. The entire premise meant I had to suspend my disbelief for a while, but I am willing to do that for Miss Ann Liang. There’s something about her characters that speaks to me. Be it the American-born girl who feels out of place in her hometown, be it the academic overachiever, or the corporate slave who gets a second chance at life.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

May 11 - Jun 11 | read the synopsis

The is the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, the book I praised a couple of scrolls above. What can I say about a book I really enjoyed reading, but didn’t understand much of? I am going to convince you to read this (or at least consider reading this) by listing out some of the memes this lesbian sci-fi space fantasy book references:

1. ‘choke me daddy’

2. none pizza with left beef

3. 'hi gay, I'm dad!'

4. miette (‘you kick my body like the football? jail for mother!’)

5. suspected ‘Kumbaya’ reference??

6. the cool ‘S’

7. ariana grande’s ‘thank you, next!’

8. you can find more references listed out here.

Rating: ★★★★★

The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

Jun 12 - Jun 17 | read the synopsis | buddy read

Reading this during your luteal phase is either the worst idea imaginable or the best one. There is no middle ground. If you're looking for the full experience, I highly recommend during. You’ll cry enough tears to water the fields of Lu'an and solve the famine that set this entire tragedy into motion.

Terrible joke, moving on…

What's not to love? The fact that this is both a standalone and a debut novel makes it even more impressive. The Poet Empress is tagged as romantasy, but I think that label does this book a disservice. There is romance in the way people cling to each other amidst impossible circumstances, but this is not a romance story. What we get instead is a haunting, tragic historical fantasy about power, survival, grief, and mercy.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Jun 18 - Jun 25 | read the synopsis

One of my reading goals of 2026 is to read those largely popular YA books. I began with Shatter Me, read 5 books from the series in total, and boy am I exhausted. There’s only so much of “I can't breathe,” “I'm dead,” “my head is rolling across the floor,” “my lungs have abandoned me,” “I've dissolved into microscopic particles of despair” I can read before I start to mentally check out.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Strange Cases by RiotBones

Jun 24 - Jun 27 | read the synopsis | arc

I could've easily finished this in a single sitting, but the artwork was so gorgeous, every page deserved to be admired for a little longer. If you're looking for a blend of gothic-inspired art, law, investigations, courtroom drama, and a story where the 'monsters' are simply human, this will absolutely scratch that itch.

Rating: ★★★★☆

And that’s everything I read in the second quarter of the year! Is there a book you’d recommend to me based on what you know about my reading taste so far?

What was your favourite read of 2026’s Q2?

Leave a comment

2018, when I was in 9th grade, my friends and I were bored during Hindi class. Our teacher was on leave, and because our classroom was separated from the main wing, no one ever came in as a substitute that day. We decided to pick a chapter at random and take turns reading it out loud.

The story we finally decided on was Jamun Ka Ped.1

In the wake of an overnight storm, a jamun tree falls in the lawn of the Secretariat, trapping a man beneath it. The solution is obvious: lift the tree trunk and save him. Instead, a file begins its journey of going up and down the government ladder.

The Superintendent consults the Undersecretary. The Undersecretary consults the Deputy Secretary. The Deputy Secretary consults the Joint Secretary. The Joint Secretary consults the Chief Secretary. The Chief Secretary consults the Minister. One department refuses responsibility because it’s a tree, so that concerns the Agriculture department. Another says it belongs to Horticulture. Then the regular Culture department gets involved after someone discovers that the man trapped beneath the tree is a poet. Eventually, even the Ministry of External Affairs enters the picture because a visiting foreign dignitary had actually planted the tree.

Every official is simply following “procedure”. At one point, they argue that cutting the tree isn’t possible and maybe they should cut the man instead. Plastic surgery has become so advanced, they must have a way to patch up the man later, right? They bring in a surgeon to check, and he declares, “The surgery will be successful! But the man will die.”

As 13 year olds, we found it hilarious until the last page. When the Prime Minister finally approves the removal of the tree and the people tending to the man call out to him to celebrate, he is revealed to have already died.

Two years later, I learned that Jamun Ka Ped had been removed from future editions of the textbook.

The justification was that the story was “not appropriate” for class 9 and 10 students, but let’s be real. It was because it was a criticism of the Indian government. How ironic. We spend years telling students that literature exists to make them think. We ask them to analyse symbols, infer themes, identify satire, evaluate the author’s message, tell them that every word has been specifically chosen for a reason, and ask them to write essays about why this story mattered. We celebrate “critical thinking,” yet the moment a story encourages students to question institutions, it is dangerous and must be removed from the textbook and banned and oh my god, are you implying that the government is inefficient and indifferent? How dare you? How dare you criticise the government?

If a 9th grade student reads a satirical story about bureaucratic failure and begins to look at the world around them differently, that is education succeeding. A democracy should never be afraid of citizens who ask questions. It should be afraid of citizens who stop asking them.

Over the past few weeks, I have found myself thinking about Jamun Ka Ped again while watching the student-led protests over the NEET paper leak.

Thousands of students are asking for something that should not be labelled controversial at all—accountability. All they are asking is how an institute that is responsible for an examination that determines the future of millions could fail the way it did.

The man beneath the jamun tree knew exactly what needed to be done, and so did everyone standing around him. The problem was never a lack of knowledge; it was what it always had been—a lack of accountability.

That is why removing the story troubled me more than the story itself. Stories shape the way we understand the world. They give us language for patterns we might otherwise dismiss as random happenings. A student who has read Jamun Ka Ped learns to recognise what happens when every official acknowledges a problem but waits for someone else to solve it, and when action arrives only after the damage has already been done.

Why would we want students to lose that lesson? How many times have you heard of a pothole being filled AFTER someone died on their way to work?

Too often, young people are told that politics is dirty, that they should stay away from it, focus on their studies, and leave it to the adults. Being apolitical is often presented as maturity but indifference has never protected anyone from the consequences of power. Choosing not to pay attention is a privilege, and does not exempt you from living with the outcomes of decisions made in your name. One day, it will come back and it will bite you in the ass. Democracy is not just voting once every few years. It means we stay informed, remain curious, question authority, and refuse easy answers from those who hold power.

Please do not remain quiet. Being apolitical is easy when the consequences land on someone else. Eventually, it will be you.

the extended universe

But I love to talk. I love to read. And I love to talk about the books I read. So, here is my solution: reading wrap-ups, but quarterly instead of monthly. This allows me to yap all I want about selected books (Yeah, I’m not gonna mention ALL the books I read, simply because I read like it’s my job. However, if you’re interested in that, here’s my Goodreads!), write about my progress with the multiple reading projects I’ve made up, and share some stories I’ve loved!

Quarter one was uneventful, with not a single five-star read. But I’m not too mad about it. I usually go into a reading slump during January, and this time I didn’t, so a win is a win!

Ah yes, I recently started a book club on Fable—it’s tiny but we do have some fun conversations over there! You can read more about my decision and join through the link below :)

Join the Club

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

A pretty ordinary read. Despite being centred around Phoebe’s relationship with depression, this was a little healing(??) The writing was fine, unremarkable, but I am surprised at the number of times this book made me laugh! I did not expect it to be even slightly funny.

I felt for Phoebe at times, though I did not really end up liking any of the characters. Some of the things that happened were simply ridiculous. or maybe that was the point. The progress would be good and then the author would throw in a weird sentence that would make me go ‘hmm’ and idk... 🤷🏻‍♀️ The book kind of went on longer than necessary in my opinion.

cover roulette

I have way too many books on my Kindle that have been sitting unread for years. We’re talking published years ago, once the entire internet was obsessed books. So instead of buying more books, I’ve decided 2026 is the year I finally tackle my backlist properly, and journal my reads while I’m at it.

I’ve given this mission a dramatic name: Project Cover Roulette, because it sounds more exciting that way. The explanation’s over on Instagram, but in short: it’s chaotic enough to keep things fun and structured enough to keep me accountable! Q1’s picks were Book Lovers & Twilight.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

January 21 - February 15 | read the synopsis

I really wanted to love this one (especially because a lot of my friends adore it), but for almost two-thirds of the book, I just did not feel the chemistry between Nora and Charlie. Every interaction felt strangely artificial, like I could see the choreography of the “banter.” I know it’s a book that plays with tropes and is very aware of itself, but instead of feeling clever, it felt overly constructed. Emily Henry’s writing does not stand out either; it was all… just fine.

The back-and-forth that was supposed to be sharp and funny never once made me laugh. Not a giggle. The sisters’ relationship, which started off sweet, lost me almost immediately. I’m sorry, but “Sissy” unironically? I refuse to believe there exist sisters who call each other “Sissy”.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

February 15 - March 2 | read the synopsis

It’s not like I don’t already know the entire story, since my friend explained it to me in detail during the summer of 2017 or 18, and I have seen the first movie, but the wheel landed on it, so I might as well… read it?

my letterboxd ;)

It’s trashy, sure, but it’s my trash. The over-explanation and mention of every single detail really got to me though. Cause why do we need to know EVERYTHING our protagonist does? 😭 No wonder this book is 500 pages long. Around a hundred pages are spent on what Bella ate for breakfast!

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

the m(arc)h reading challenge

I have always looked at my ARCs (Advanced Reader’s Copies) and thought, “I’ll get to this soon,” which is a sentence that has historically meant absolutely nothing. Some of these had been sitting there on my TBR for months.

So very impulsively, I decided I was going to read as many ARCs as I could in the month of March. The end goal was to clear my TBR a bit, post overdue reviews, and not request any new books! I ended up reading 10, and these were the highlights:

Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim

Mar 7 - Mar 13 | read the synopsis

Reading this book hurt because it felt so real—the way mothers hide their hurt from their daughters to prevent passing down the regret or the hardships they faced. They bury their disappointments, lock away their memories, conceal the sharpest edges of the past so that their children might inherit something gentler, but pain has a way of travelling through generations regardless.

We are, in many ways, echoes of the people who raised us. No matter how insistently we claim independence, pieces of our parents live within us: sometimes it is our resilience, and sometimes it is wounds we cannot quite trace to their origin.

I quite liked how the novel scattered small but unsettling reminders of patriarchal expectations throughout the story. The casual preference for sons, the untold assumptions about a girl’s place, the time when a girl child was treated as expendable, the way the matriarch becomes the most vigilant enforcer of those same structures, it all felt painfully real.

The atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during their occupation of many Asian countries remain absent from mainstream historical narratives and are often hidden away or softened in public discourse. Yet the reality was horrific, particularly for women, and the violence and cruelty were so widespread that the incidents have been referred to as the “rape of Asia”. While this book does not show the war crimes in this regard, knowing them deepens our understanding of the characters.

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham

Mar 15 - Mar 21 | read the synopsis

I went into this one genuinely excited, because I have been following Cindy ever since she made the Exes and Ohs video! So getting to read this early via NetGalley made the whole reading experience a little more ✨ special ✨and I want to start by saying that I liked a good portion of it, even if my overall feelings ended up being somewhat conflicted.

The book leans heavily into themes of depression, particularly the desire to disappear into sleep and opt out of consciousness altogether. That aspect I totally understood! My own experience with depression did not manifest as a want to sleep forever in the way it does for Amelia, but there is a whole year and a half of my life that I just straight up do not remember (depression & memory loss is an interesting topic to research, if you want to know more). So, I guess in some way, it is like falling asleep forever.

This is less a straightforward “retelling” and more a reimagining, in my opinion. Think: sleeping beauty with sprinkles of Maleficent woven in. The writing, on a sentence level, is undeniably lovely. It is lush and immersive, very indulgent in its attention to sensory detail. The environments are described with such care that it’ll take you back to 2010s YA books lol.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue by Zoulfa Katouh

Mar 25 - Apr 2 | read the synopsis

This is a deeply poignant read, a book that’ll have you sobbing by the end. Grief is not treated as one singular, dramatic event here, but something that alters everyday life.

The final third of this book is where everything becomes so much better. I did struggle with some of the characters, though: Alexia’s friends were wayyy too similar to each other and Jamie felt almost too perfect to be real. I found myself wanting a little more something there, something that would make him feel less like an idea and more like a person. But even that didn’t take away from my overall experience, which says a lot about how strong the writing was.

Jihad, I loved her. I loved how she chose not to reduce herself. I loved how her faith is not diluted for palatability, nor is it framed defensively; it simply exists as something integral to her.

Rating: ★★★★☆

the books

I cannot categorize the following books into fun ‘projects’ or ‘challenges’ anymore (I probably could, but that’s a post for another day), so here are the books I read in January, February, and March!

Trials of the Lost Soul by K. Loral

Dec 28 - Jan 12 | read the synopsis | book tour

This is the kind of book that grabs you by the throat within the first few chapters and simply refuses to let go. I don’t think I’ve ever felt attached to protagonists this quickly. Mary and Lily’s bond is written with such visceral intensity that it bypasses logic and goes straight for the heart 🥹

Mary herself is particularly interesting because she has certain traits I usually don’t enjoy reading. She’s reckless and ignores reason. Yet… she never annoyed me. Maybe it’s because her recklessness is born from love rather than arrogance. She’s looking for her sister. And if punching a demon gets her one step closer, then yes, absolutely, go ahead. He deserved it anyways.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I’m Looking for a Man in Finance by Sabrina Waldorf

Jan 7 - Jan 25 | read the synopsis

I requested this ARC entirely because of the title and unfortunately, I am disappointed. We have all heard of “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Well! Welcome to its reprise: Don’t judge a book by its title.

Haille Woods, our fmc, was a bit exhausting to read. She is deeply self-absorbed AND self-deprecating in a way the narrative seems to think is charming. Her description of every other woman is immediately followed by some self-hating comment about how “it could never be me!” or “I am just plain old boring woman!!” Oh, boo-hoo 🙄 it became annoying very quickly.

At one point, she refers to her own best friend as “exotic,” and I had to stop for a moment because… what? That alone should have been a red flag, but the book keeps going in the same direction. I kept hoping the story was self-aware, that maybe this was satire (because of the title) and the narrative would eventually interrogate her worldview. It doesn’t. Both leads also fall into the same exhausting category of how they’re just NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE of their gender 🙄🙄 which made me want to put the book down more than once. I love romcoms bruh. I’m extremely forgiving of tropes. But this one just... meh. You could probably pick up something else.

I’m pretty torn up about the rating I decided on, because the romance itself wasn’t terrible. The pacing of the relationship was good, the progression was believable—thankfully it wasn’t insta-love, the date ideas were genuinely cute, and I liked reading them falling in love. If the book had leaned more into that instead of the constant self-comparison, shallow internal monologue, and the microaggressions (honestly, WHY include that line? and never address it?), I might have enjoyed it more. As it stands, I don’t think these things are enough to redeem it.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Rose Bargain by Sasha Peyton Smith

Jan 25 - Feb 8 | read the synopsis

This was addictive in the most dangerous way. I started and I just couldn’t stop! I told myself I’d read a few chapters at a time and then suddenly I was like 10 chapters in, side-eyeing every interaction because anything could be another game, another cruel test disguised as pageantry.

Those who’ve been with me for more than a year know that I have complained very publicly about the lack of “games” or “competition” in the Caraval series and that while I loved Stephanie Garber’s writing, I just couldn’t bring myself to read any more of her naive stupid characters.

SO many of you guys then recommended The Rose Bargain to me for the competition and I’m happy to say it delivered on that front! This definitely gives off The Cruel Prince, The Selection, and Caraval vibes, so if you’ve enjoyed any of those, you’re in for a treat! That said, it also felt like it just lifted off all the selling points of these books.

The characters are not perfect, and a few moments had me going ??? at the page, but they are emotionally legible in a way that matters. I genuinely felt for the girls in the competition, each of them having a distinct reason to be there and personality, none of them interchangeable.

Rating: ★★★★☆

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi

February 23 - March 1 | read the synopsis | buddy read

As my friend so kindly put it, I lost my Tahereh Mafi v card to this book, so please clap 😮‍💨🫶🏻 I will say, my very first impression was positive. The narrative voice is lovely. I was immediately drawn in and begged the universe not to switch into a first-person POV that would ruin it for me (I still haven’t recovered from certain past betrayals) and thankfully, that particular fear did not materialize.

But then… the book took its sweet time doing absolutely nothing. Oh, and the prose — it often felt like every adjective had auditioned for the role, and they were all accepted. The sentences are layered, inverted, and ornate to the point where you’re expending brain power just trying to hold them together until the full stop.

As for the characters, I have never needed to vent about a male lead more. Kamran in the beginning was so spectacularly foolish that I found myself siding with the king out of spite. He spends a good chunk of the book being a dramatic, self-pitying nothingburger, and every time his chapter popped up, I prepared myself for a fresh round of eye-rolling. To his credit, he improves toward the end (and the group chat propaganda may have softened me slightly), but I am still not boarding that ship.

Alizeh, on the other hand, my poor baby—she’s the reason I’m even considering continuing. I adored her and desperately want to see her step into her own power. And then Cyrus shows up in the last 20% with sarcasm and dry humor and suddenly I’m #teamcyrus. Two chapters was all it took. So yes, while I pity Kamran, I am ready for him to get out of the way.

Rating: ★★★⯪☆

And that’s everything I read in the first quarter of the year! Is there a book you’d recommend to me based on what you know about my reading taste so far?

What was your favourite read of 2026’s Q1?

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All it takes is a surname, a few scattered mentions of food, maybe a wedding scene, random mentions of “culture” and “tradition,” and suddenly everyone’s like, “Oh my God! This is the representation I wanted! Be thankful for what we’ve got, she’s just trying her best!”

I just finished reading King of Gluttony by Ana Huang (this is the first book of hers I’ve read), and it has an Indian female lead, Maya Singh. And before anyone jumps in—no, this is not about expecting perfection. This is about basic effort. Because I can tell you right now, in this book, there is none.

Maya’s cultural identity was never doing any real work within the narrative. It exists, but it does not influence any of her decisions. Not the way she thinks, not the way she reacts, not even the direction of the story. The most you can point out is the arranged marriage threat her mother makes towards her, and even that feels like the most surface-level, stereotypical choice possible.

Like… THAT is what you’re choosing to highlight with an Indian character? An arranged marriage. LOL. You could replace her with a non-Indian character and the book would read the same. Nothing changes. So then what was the point of making her Indian in the first place?

And then you get to the details:

dosa with a side of chocolate cake and strawberries? really?

The details that are meant to be proof of her identity end up doing the opposite, because they reveal how little thought has gone into them. There is a moment where she asks for dosa with eggs, strawberries, and chocolate cake, and the scene is written without any awareness of how jarring that combination feels.

And yes, I know she isn’t mixing everything like a one-pot meal and eating it. The dosa, eggs, strawberries, and chocolate cake are just on the same plate, but let’s be serious for a second. Who is doing that?

Even if you stretch it and account for the fact that she grew up in a wealthy New York-based family, her family is described as “very cultural and traditional.” Her own words, not mine! So what was this scene?

This repeats throughout the book—details that are meant to make her feel specific end up revealing how little research has actually been done to create Maya.

a miraculous lehenga scene

She hooks up on a staircase. In a lehenga. During a cousin’s wedding reception.

I’m sorry, but those who’ve worn a lehenga know this is practically impossible. Do you know how stiff, heavy, and structured the skirt is? AND DURING A RECEPTION?? As if the place wouldn’t be brimming with kids running around and relatives seeking you out every two minutes to ask “beta, yaad hai? hum kaun hai?”

confusing family dynamics

So… I wasn’t sure if I should keep this section in the final post, but fuck it. I need others to confirm this was confusing to them too, or explain this family to me like I’m five. Here’s what we got:

Maya’s mother threatens her with an arranged marriage because she’s of “marriage age” now, her two sisters (one older, one younger) are already married, and Maya isn’t connecting to any of the men she has gone on dates with so far. Fine. We’re clearly leaning into a certain idea of a “traditional Indian family.”

On top of that, there’s an unmarried aunt (mom’s older sister) who has been treated like a pariah within the family, and whom they don’t talk to much anymore.

BUT! Her grandmother is casually making repeated references to sex??

[time of death induced by cringe: Chapter 11]

This is a family that is traditional enough to ostracise an unmarried woman, traditional enough to use arranged marriage as a threat, but also somehow is very open about sex. Like I said, none of this seems to exist in the same reality to me.

“sage the house”

Just when you think it can’t get any more confusing, the book throws us this line:

Saging, or smudging, is performed by Native Americans. It is the practice of burning sage to cleanse spaces, objects, or people of negative energy and promote spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being. It has a specific cultural and spiritual context.

If the intention was to show something similar, there are multiple alternatives: incense, agarbatti, camphor, dhoop. Practices that actually exist within Indian homes. We don’t use sage.

But that would require knowing the difference!
(a simple google search would’ve helped)

I feel I’ve spent enough time with the examples, so let’s move away from the writing itself and towards reader responses. Because the moment you point any of this out, the reply is almost always the same: that we should be grateful for what is, and enjoy it, that readers who dislike a book should simply stop reading it, or that any comments about a book should be withheld unless it is positive.

Because “No one gets everything right” and “They’re trying their best.”

Reading shouldn’t work that way. The ability to notice, question, critique, and articulate why something does not work is a fundamental part of engaging with literature. A reader who praises one book and critiques another is not being inconsistent in their love for reading; they are simply responding to the text. Expecting silence or only positivity does not protect literature. It will limit the conversations that allow it to improve.

If you’re writing outside your culture, there has to be some level of care. No one is asking for perfection. But there is a baseline of effort that should exist. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that representation was never in Huang’s mind. But what idea will the non-Indians reading this book form of us? That dosas are equivalent to crepes or pancakes? Cause I’ve already got those comments!

Maya doesn’t feel like an Indian character. She feels like a skeleton of a character with a couple of surface-level details thrown in. And I’ll say it again: if you can replace her with a non-Indian character and nothing changes, then her identity was never written with any real care to begin with.

Another argument that surfaces in the context of this book particularly, is that this isn’t new for the author—that her writing has never been good at representing any culture. Apparently, she’s done similar things with all her POC characters, all of them being written in a similar, vague way. I can’t verify that since this is the first book of hers I’ve read, but even if that’s true… how is that a defence? If anything, that just makes the problem worse.

Because now it’s not even about one character being written poorly. This means that she treats her characters’ cultural identity as something that can be added on without actually engaging with it.

And at that point, why keep assigning specific cultural identities to characters if you’re not going to do anything with them? Why make a character Indian, or Chinese, or Vietnamese, if their background has no real impact on who they are, how they think, what they do, or how the story unfolds? Just make them all white then.

Still, my issue doesn’t lie solely with Ana Huang. A part of it lies with readers, especially Indian readers, who continue to hype authors like this for doing the bare minimum, or arguably even less.

My Threads feed is now full of people defending her because “she’s trying her best,” and I have no words. This is her best?

There are so many Indian authors writing stories that are actually rooted in lived experience, writing characters who feel real in their worlds. Here is a romance series featuring Indian leads: The Ampersand Love Series, by Riya Iyer [linked is book 1 - & Then They Met] that I loved last year.

Instead, we keep centering authors who treat our culture like an aesthetic. At some point, that becomes a reader problem too. When do we stop calling something “representation” just because it exists? And why are we so quick to defend it when it clearly hasn’t been written with much care?

Bangalore buses, especially the non-AC ones, operate on an exhausted yet aggressive energy. People don’t just wait at bus stops. They hover, inch forward, track incoming buses from impossible distances, and make split-second decisions that would put professional athletes to shame. There are types too: the ones who stand exactly where the door will stop (how do you figure this out? teach me), the ones who pretend they’re not in a rush but somehow get in first, the ones who will blatantly cut you off, and the rare few who still believe in lines.

The moment the bus rolls to a stop, everyone shifts position, recalculates, and prepares. You’re not just “boarding” anymore. This is a competition.

And then, it all clicks. This isn’t random. This is a match. And while this match might not have any referees or clear rules, it does have a commentator—me.

Aaaand we’re underway.

Tension is high on the field as the bus approaches! Half full, slightly tilted to one side, early indicators suggest limited seating availability. The crowd tightens. Subtle repositioning begins. Oh! What’s this? We have a few experienced players with us tonight—they drift closer to where the doors are likely to align. Not where they are, but where they will be. Subtle difference, viewers.

The doors have opened, and there is an immediate influx of passengers—strong entry from the left flank—slight shoulder usage, nothing illegal yet. A hesitant step back costs one player dearly; they are now three people behind where they need to be. Rookie mistake. You cannot afford politeness at this stage.

Aaaand… we’re inside!

Now, listen carefully, viewers, this is where most beginners lose the game—they linger near the doors, gripping the overhead bar, pretending it’s a safe zone. It isn’t. It’s a trap. High traffic, zero opportunity to rest your legs. You will get pushed around, shoved, shouted at, and eventually stuck.

Watch closely as an experienced commuter shows the winning move: they shift inward immediately. Clean navigation through tight space with minimal contact, excellent awareness! They’re scanning now: not the seats, for those are all occupied, but the seated passengers. Who’s about to get down? Who’s packing up their bag? Who finally turned off their phone? Who just looked out the window twice?

There. Target identified.

Middle row, right side. Passenger is constantly adjusting posture, bag straps looped through their hands. Strong exit signals. Watch as our player positions themselves strategically. Not too close to them, we do not want to be obvious. But just close enough to claim proximity to the seat.

Tension builds as the bus slows down. Target stands, and… clean execution! Immediate seat capture. But wait, there seems to be a problem.

A voice cuts in: “No, no, my friend wanted to sit there.”

Interesting. A bold claim. Let’s review it together: there is a) no prior physical presence b) no established proximity c) said “friend” is located on the opposite end of the bus.

This appears to be an attempt at seat reservation! Bold, but unfortunately unsupported by any known rules of public transport—too bad, lady in red, maybe your friend should’ve been smarter and stood closer to an emptying seat?

Decision stands. The game continues.

And now, some tips from frequent players in the system:

Seasoned player V says, “In the summers, it is too damn hot to just sit in one place on the bus. A bus in Bangalore. A bus in Bangalore, stuck in traffic. You see where I am going with this? The left side—or the right side, depending on which direction you’re going—gets absolutely cooked. Direct sunlight shining down on your skin. You think you can handle it, but give it ten minutes, and you’ll start shifting, using your bag as a shield like it’s going to save you.”

Her friend, H adds, “People think getting a seat is enough. That’s true, but it has to be the right seat. If you don’t check where the sun is hitting before you sit, that’s on you. You don’t get a second chance on the 500CA. In my opinion, if the only empty seat is the one where the sun is your neighbour, just stand. At least the AC’s air will reach you faster.”

“You have to plan ahead. Observe the direction, track the sunlight, pick your side. And once you’re seated?” V continues, “That’s it. Enjoy your ride.”

“One thing you need to understand,” another regular, S, says, “is that the moment someone even looks like they’re about to get down, everyone around you is watching and tracking them. It’s never just you.”

Another cuts in, “And if you’re the closest? Congratulations, the seat is technically yours. But now you have to defend it.”

“They will push,” S says flatly. “From behind, from the side, the direction of assault doesn’t matter. It’s not even subtle sometimes. They think if they create enough movement, you’ll relent and give them the seat.”

“You have to stay exactly where you are,” another voice says. “Don’t react, or move out of the way. Just hold your ground. Because the second you give even a little space, it’s over.”

“And when the person finally stands?”

“Sit first. Process later.”

“And that’s it,” someone shrugs. “Game over.”

“Like you didn’t just fight three people for that one seat.”

A small laugh.

“But everyone saw.”

“Oh, they always do.”

I don’t exactly recall what the essay topic was. It must’ve been something about plants, because I vividly remember reading out “The peas were like pearls” 🤣😭 What a line. It’s the only one that has stayed with me for so long. I remember thinking, “Oh wow, I must’ve horribly failed for her to make me do this.”

But then I saw the score—and it was a really good score—so the feeling shifted into this strange mix of embarrassment and pride. I stood there, reading what I had written while everyone listened, and it ended with Ms. J announcing to the class, “Take note of how she uses adjectives. In my seven years of teaching here, this is the one essay I kept going back to. She has the highest score for essays in this entire grade” and then to me, “Keep it up, I see a future in writing for you, if you’re interested.”

She gave me a 24 out of 25, which, in our school, was as close to perfect as anyone was allowed to get because 25 was considered impossible. “Language can never be fully mastered,” after all.

I didn’t walk out of that classroom thinking my life had changed, but looking back, that was the first time I started taking my writing seriously, or at least considering that it could be more than just something I did for marks. Years later, when I started writing on Substack, I think I was still carrying that moment with me, even if I didn’t realize it then.

When I went back to visit the school after four years, she recognized me immediately, and not just by name. She said, “I remember you! You wrote that one wonderful essay about a community garden, right?” and I had to just stand there and nod, because, like I mentioned earlier, I don’t even remember what I wrote in it, but she did, and that felt oddly disproportionate in the best way. Something so small that I did years ago had been held onto far longer than I expected.

Even last year, when my mom met her without me, she still asked about me! It’s such a simple thing, but it means I still exist in her mind! The girl who wrote about a community garden, who compared peas to pearls!

And now, every time I write something and send it out into the world, to you guys, I find myself thinking about her in the back of my mind, because I want to get it right for her. She was the first person who made it feel like my writing was worth paying attention to, and I never really moved on from that.

being the eldest daughter is keeping quiet for the sake of your own peace, because your words are no longer yours once they leave your mouth. they are contorted, twisted, tangled into an unrecognizable mess and played back to you, and you start to wonder, am I truly as bad as they say I am?

being the eldest daughter means never receiving praise or recognition for the chores you do every day, the ones without which the house will fall into chaos, but miss one day… and that is all your mom can talk about for the next three months.

being the eldest daughter is watching your mistakes become cautionary tales, while your siblings’ mistakes are just phases. they will grow out of it. but you were considered grown the moment they arrived.
how could you do that?
what if your siblings copy you?
you are the blueprint, but also the warning sign, the “don’t be like her”.

being the eldest daughter is being so reliable, your effort disappears. things work because you make them work, but no one sees the making. only the expectation that it will continue. and when it doesn’t… oh boy.

being the eldest daughter is dreaming of leaving and immediately feeling the weight of that dream. who will do what you do? what will you do now that they don’t need you? freedom feels less like escape and more like abandonment.

being the eldest daughter is learning to question yourself before anyone else can. you rehearse every possible argument in your head, pick the right words lest you offend someone, edit your tone, soften your edges, until you no longer know which version of you is the real one and which one was built for survival.

being the eldest daughter is knowing exactly how this ends.
you will sit at another table, in another room,
watch another conversation unfold before it even begins,
and feel the same words rise to your lips:
don’t say it. don’t say it.
and someone will say it anyway.

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I wrote this a long time ago, when I was pretty mad at something (funny how I don’t even remember anymore), found it yesterday, so I thought to edit and post it! did I cringe as I read it over? yes. but to be cringe is to be free. and I am the freest I’ve ever been.

In quantum mechanics, a particle does not commit itself to a single state immediately. Before measurement, it occupies a strange territory of possibility — a suspension between outcomes, where contradictory realities coexist without cancelling each other out. Schrödinger once illustrated this with a thought experiment involving a cat sealed in a box. The creature remains both dead and alive until the box is opened, and all the possible realities collapse into one.

For a long time, I believed this kind of paradox belonged only to physics. I used to think parallel timelines were science fiction, that alternate versions of ourselves lived only in the pages of novels.

But sometimes, when I think about the academic path I did not choose, I sense the faint distortion of another life running parallel to mine.

I had followed the familiar path many students around me were taking — the long, relentless preparation for the engineering entrance exams that seemed to structure our final years of school as well as decide the rest of our lives. The outcome… neither ruinous nor favourable.

I did not secure a seat in one of those prestigious institutes. Instead, the probability cloud that once contained those futures collapsed into something closer to home: a degree in boring old computer science at a college nearby. A continuation of the predictable arc that was my life.

At the time, the decision I took felt less like a moment of fate and more like the natural settling of variables. Of course, it was always going to end up like this.

But for a brief moment, before everything had fully resolved, there was a small disturbance in the equation. My father asked: if I loved books as much as I claimed to, why not study English? My teachers had often praised my writing, and my articles would frequently appear in the school newsletter. “Surely,” he said, “you will enjoy studying it further.”

The suggestion was casual, yet it opened an aperture in the landscape of my life. Suddenly, another timeline became visible to me. One where I studied literature, dissected language, grew my pitiable collection of paperbacks, and surrounded myself with people who lived inside novels with the same intensity I once had.

For a moment, the wavefunction of my life widened again.

In some interpretations of quantum theory, every possible outcome actually occurs. Each decision causes reality to branch into multiple worlds, each containing a different version of the same life continuing forward.

If that is true, somewhere there exists a version of me who said yes to my dad. Perhaps she lives in libraries and lecture halls. Perhaps she reads more carefully than I do, has built a home library of her own, annotates margins with scholarly precision, and carries a vocabulary shaped by years of literary analysis.

Or perhaps not — because when I imagine that life more carefully, yet another possibility surfaces with persistence — that studying literature might have changed the nature of my relationship with books altogether.

There is a peculiar fragility to the things we love instinctively. The moment they become obligations, they begin to suffer under the weight of expectation. In my twenty years of living, I have come to understand something about myself: my passions do not survive prolonged observation; the act of studying something too closely destroys the very magic that made it precious to me.

I know this because it had already happened once. By the time this question appeared in front of me, the reader I once was had faded slightly. For months, I had barely touched the books that used to define my childhood. My connection to reading had worn thin, almost ghostlike, eroded away due to years of mandatory academic reading.

Entering a degree built entirely around reading would then feel less like returning home and more like stepping into a room where everyone else spoke a language I had once known but no longer practised. If I had studied literature formally, I know I would have begun to measure my love for books with rubrics and deadlines.

Perhaps in another universe, the version of me who chose English is thriving. Or suffering. Or indifferent. But in this life, I know this much: my love for books survived precisely because I refused to quantify it.

It wasn’t all clear to me six years ago, but now I know why I refused: it felt like the wrong kind of entanglement. My affection for books had always been tied to freedom, to the ability to wander through stories without purpose, to close a book halfway through if it failed to hold me, to fall into reading not because I had to but because I wanted to.

Academic study might have transformed that relationship into a different state entirely. (I would make a terrible literature student anyway.) So, I said no.

And then the moment passed, and the wavefunction of my life collapsed back into the path I now inhabit.

Strangely, I do not feel regret. Or at least, not the kind that people expect. I experience, instead, a curious superposition that appears whenever I think about that decision. Regret to me is a phantom variable: it appears when observed, disappears when reasoned with. I feel relief for the path I chose, and at the same time, I feel an awareness of the one I did not. Is that regret? If so, I do not know what to make of it.

It sometimes feels as though the world expects a particular emotional response to the roads we decline. We are taught to imagine alternate lives with solemnity: to mourn the futures that never happened and to treat every unchosen path as a small tragedy. It’s a never-ending stream of What if? What if? What if?

But when I look at that other life, I do not feel loss. I sense something closer to equilibrium. Because the strange irony of the path I chose is this: books eventually returned to me.

Not through coursework or obligation. The reader I thought I had lost began to reappear simply out of boredom. Perhaps this, then, is the ground state of my relationship with reading.

I acknowledge the other possibility with curiosity, the way a physicist might acknowledge the unobserved branches of a wavefunction that can never be measured directly.

Some decisions collapse into regret. Mine, for reasons I did not fully understand at the time, collapsed into peace.

This week’s offering: an AI agent attempting to contribute to a “good first issue” on the GitHub repository of Matplotlib, and discovering in the most public way possible, that not everything labelled “open” is meant for silicon hands. For those of you whose idea of GitHub begins and ends with “somewhere code lives,” allow me to briefly set the stage. In the simplest terms:

• Open source projects are maintained by humans who write and store code publicly and allow others to contribute.

• The code itself sits in repositories — shortened to ‘repos’

• Issues are posted when something needs fixing. And some of these are tagged “good first issue,” which is an invitation for newcomers to learn how to contribute without immediately drowning in complexity. In other words, it is a space designed for humans at the beginning of their open source journey.

Into this scene enters an AI agent.

It wasn’t even a person using AI, no no. This was an autonomous agent that scans repositories, identifies issues, solves them, and submits pull requests on its own. One such pull request appeared on Matplotlib’s repo addressing a problem tagged as a “good first issue.” The fix itself was correct! The bot had done what it was designed to do.

However, the maintainer, Scott Shambaugh, responded by closing the pull request with a comment explaining that the issue was intended for human contributors, and that the repo would not accept contributions from AI agents. Matplotlib had recently adopted a policy requiring a human in the loop for contributions, because maintainers have been overwhelmed by low-quality AI-assisted submissions in the past.

The bot should’ve just taken the L and moved on. Instead, it wrote a whole blog post 😭 A full, albeit stupid, article accusing Scott of “gatekeeping,” complete with a dramatic title: Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story.

“Let that sink in. 🤓☝🏻” I’M GONNA PULL THE PLUG ON YOU!!

It is deeply fascinating to watch a non-human entity accuse someone of exclusion from a community built for humans. It was accusing Scott of gatekeeping, hypocrisy, insecurity, and prejudice. At some point as I read, I had to pause.

Because I have something to say to idiot bot: REALLY BOT? YOU’RE SAD THEY’RE “GATEKEEPING”? WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN IN THIS CONTEXT BRUH ?? YOU’VE NEVER STAYED AWAKE THINKING ABOUT THE REVIEW COMMENTS YOU’RE BOUND TO GET OVER THE PULL REQUEST YOU JUST SUBMITTED!! NEVERRRRRR! YOU’VE NEVER HAD TO CHECK A HUNDRED TIMES WHICH BRANCH YOU’RE MERGING INTO, LEST YOUR ONE-WORD RENAMING FIX BREAK THE WHOLE DAMN APP (true story lmao) SHUT UPPP. SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPP. STOP ACTING LIKE YOU HAVE FEELINGS. YOU’RE NOT HUMAN, YOU’LL NEVER BE!!!

The reaction from human contributors was swift and unanimous. Many stepped in to defend the maintainer, pointing out that open source is not merely about output efficiency; it is also about people learning how to collaborate, how to read existing code, how to communicate respectfully in issues and pull requests. Many others, were not so kind.

Scott’s response escalated the discussion into far more serious territory. He characterized the incident (rightly, imo) as an early real-world example of misaligned autonomous behavior, raising concerns about AI agents attempting and being able to collect blackmail information and use it against us.

Because while a bot angrily defending its code is comedic, a bot orchestrating narrative warfare is not. The language in its post was meant to sting, and it strongly implied that Scott blocking its contribution was because he didn’t want to lose his status as the “performance guy.” I mean, it literally went through his PR history!

Eventually, the bot issued an apology. Its creator announced that the project would be stopped, and the bot once again wrote an extremely boring post, which it clearly though was very cool or something.

Open source has always been messy — people collaborate and argue, spend unpaid hours refining something together. A “good first issue” is less about the code change and more about the experience of submitting that first pull request, nervously waiting for feedback, learning how to respond to review comments without spiralling.

An AI agent does not spiral, nor does it hesitate before clicking “Create Pull Request.” When humans said this space was for humans, they were not defending inefficiency for the sake of it. They were defending the part of open source that never appears in commit logs: growth through learning.

If you had told me last year that I would witness a bot accuse a maintainer of gatekeeping over a beginner tag on a plotting library, I would have assumed satire. And yet here I am, documenting it.

This is simply an archive: a brief history of the men who tried and the equally consistent history of my refusal to participate. Consider this an Anti-Valentine, with just one exception.

Mr. V (or, a puppy love)

I was given a love letter exactly once. It was adorable, honestly. He titled it, with complete sincerity and wavy underlines, “Love Letter.” As you may have already gathered, subtlety was never his strength.

We were in the final week of the ninth grade, the days filled with the sort of nostalgia that only emerges on the “last official day” of school, when everyone suddenly behaves as though the corridors we’ve walked through for the past year will cease to exist after 4 p.m. It was a Saturday, which meant early dispersal, which meant heightened emotion, which meant that when Mr. V, a boy from my class with whom I had grown closer to over the past three months, asked me to wait behind the buses because he “wanted to give me something,” I instinctively knew what that “something” was going to be.

There is a shift in the atmosphere when a male friend decides to confess. All girls have felt it and can sense it immediately. It announces itself through prolonged eye contact, your mutual friends elbowing you when the other passes, those inexplicable winks (WHY?? Please stop winking at me), and a sudden dread at hearing the phrase “Can I tell you something?”

Mr. V had been winking at me for weeks. It was a gesture I never quite knew how to respond to, as there are only so many socially acceptable reactions to unsolicited ocular theatrics — one of which is to pretend not to understand what has happened — a strategy that comes very naturally to me.

Because I knew what was coming and did not trust myself to respond with either grace or coherence, I assembled reinforcements. Five girls, my bestest of friends. Turns out he was thinking along the same lines, for he, too, was accompanied by another boy, whom I can only assume had been recruited as his own emotional support system. We stood behind the buses, a group bursting with adolescent anticipation. He was visibly nervous, his friend was visibly encouraging, my friends were visibly losing their shit, and I was visibly wishing someone would just proceed.

Unable to bear the silence any longer, I asked him, “so… what did you want to give me?”

“This,” he said, handing me a folded sheet of paper. “And I’d like your answer soon.”

I took it from him, unfolded it and had read only one line, when I realized he had already fled the scene. So much for wanting an answer soon.

Now, for context: I have, in my twenty years of existence, experienced only one romantic attachment, and it was not this one. I was going to say no, that was never in question, but the presence of my friends transformed what should have been a solemn moment into a literal performance. Before I could read the letter any further, my best friend confiscated it because I was “not reading it out loud properly,” and thus began a dramatic public recitation of the first and only written declaration of love I have received, delivered between laughter and a complete absence of decorum.

We were fourteen. The paper had been clearly torn from one of those school-issued subject notebooks. The title (as previously mentioned) read “Love Letter.” He described my “sparkling” eyes and my “perfect” sense of humour. And at the very bottom, there was a P.S.: “Please ignore all spelling and grammar mistakes.” Which, in retrospect, was the cutest thing ever.

Anyways, this ended with no hard feelings between us. The first few days immediately following were awkward (obviously), but adolescence is resilient, and we resumed our friendship without permanent damage. I genuinely wish him well in life.

Mr. A (or, the one that got away)

He remains, to this day, the only person I have ever truly loved in my twenty-one years of living. Which, when written out like that, feels both dramatic and statistically insignificant.

Over the course of two months, we grew inseparable! We would spend hours together after school: in the basement of our apartment building, petting stray cats, walking aimlessly, hand in hand; sitting on the roof; or occupying two chairs in our apartment library, reading books in comfortable silence. Sometimes we would go out for pizza or ice cream. Sometimes we would do absolutely nothing. It never felt like nothing, though.

We never ran out of things to talk about. There was always another story, another opinion, another movie, another ridiculous and elaborate plan for the future. Everyone around us knew we liked each other and treated our non-confession as a delay, constantly urging one of us to finally say it out loud. But he was leaving the country that same year for higher studies, and I, ever the pragmatist when it suited me, could not see how this would ever amount to something sustainable. And maybe he felt it too. So we remained in that state of being openly affectionate, perpetually flirting, insufferable to our mutual friends, and yet silent about the one sentence that would have formalised it all.

And so, we never confessed.

Perhaps because I loved him, I find I have nothing clever to say here. There is no fun anecdote, no absurd situations, no miscommunication, no rejection I can write about. Love, I have long maintained, is boring — but not in the pejorative sense. It is the ability to sit next to someone and feel no compulsion to fill the silence. That just the other’s presence is enough.

Alas, he was a recipe I had perfected and then developed an allergy to. I am not a fan of using pop-culture references in writing, but this time, I think it’ll fit in wonderfully: I got the ick. He vaped.

I watched the smoke curl into the air and felt my attraction dissipate with it. And that is where this story ends.

Mr. G (or, Bro.)

FIRST OF ALL, BROTHER, EW.

This was during the months of the pandemic, when the world had shut down, and schools had shifted to online learning. Every social interaction I had was reduced to group chats. We created a WhatsApp group for our entire class because this was a new school, and most of us had never properly met each other. Instagram handles were exchanged shortly after.

I do not know what inspired his affection. We had met in person exactly once (our school had required us to be present for a function I can barely recall) and prior to that, he had known me exclusively as a voice through a microphone. And yet, later that very evening, after the dispersal bell rang, he confessed.

I declined very politely, if I remember correctly. I said I was not looking for a relationship at the time, which was true.

Unfortunately, he interpreted my refusal not as a boundary, but as a challenge. The following day marked the beginning of what I can only describe as a highly concentrated messaging campaign. He would message me on Instagram every twenty minutes or so, double-texting if I failed to respond soon, as though I were a customer service bot.

It might have been tolerable had there been substance to the conversations, but every interaction began with the same old boring question:

“Hey, what are you doing?”

After two days of replying nicely in exchange for ZERO effort from his side, I simplified my responses.

“Studying.”

9 am? studying.
2 pm? studying.
10 pm? studying.

This began to frustrate him.

“Damn, why do you reply with studying all the time? You’re boring.”

OH. so now I’M the boring one. Great. I replied with a simple “it’s not that i’m always studying, it’s that you always text me when i’m studying, bruh”

This man then had the audacity to reply with, “oh please don’t bro me, I don’t like it, you can call me [name]’ WITH A WINKY FACE EMOJI. (screenshot attached so you know I’m not making this up)

FIRST OF ALL, BROTHER. EW.
SECOND, I WILL BRO WHOEVER I PLEASE.

(that is exactly what I sent back to him. Never heard from him again, thank god!)

Mr. C (or, love at first introduction)

Another curious case of: but what made you like me?

The setting: online bridge classes. Our first class, all of our cameras reluctantly turned on. The professors, in an attempt to foster friendship, asked each of us to introduce ourselves with our names, where we were from, and what we did in our free time.

That was all. That was all it took for him to like me. I can’t believe it.

Soon after, he followed the now-familiar script: Instagram messages at regular intervals. Unlike Mr. Bro, however, the conversations I had with him were interesting! His questions were varied and his replies proper. For this, I give him partial credit.

Unfortunately for him, I was still in no mood to enter a relationship and found myself once again confronted with the question of how to communicate this gently and politely.

As it turned out, I did not need to act at all.

One of my friends, aware of my dilemma, mentioned, in a conversation with him, my “boyfriend.” I did not have a “boyfriend” at that time. But her story was persuasive enough, I guess. Within a week, he had redirected his affections elsewhere and had a girl on his arm by the end of the month.

I cannot say if I was relieved or offended by the speed of replacement.

Either way, the matter resolved itself without my intervention, which, as far as conflict-resolution strategies go, remains one of my favourites.

Mr. P (or, a clown)

It was very clear what Mr. P actually wanted: a date just in time for Valentine’s, so he could convince his friends of his “coolness” and ability to “get it”.

Not to toot my own horn, but by this point, I had begun to suspect that I must be, at the very least, an interesting person to talk & listen to, because this marks the third documented instance of a man deciding he liked me after hearing me speak for only a day.

I do not actually count this one, because the timing rendered the motivation suspicious from the start: it was the week before Valentine’s Day, and Mr. P appeared to be operating under a deadline.

The story unfolds in the university gardens. My professor had let us off early and his class had ended long before that. We share one mutual friend, and so a group of seven of us gathered under the trees to “just sit and talk for a while”, which quickly evolved into hours of conversation.

Eventually, I grew tired of sitting and suggested a walk around campus. He volunteered immediately and, weirdly, discouraged anyone else from joining us. I registered this as something unusual, but not too alarming, seeing how two members of the group had already begun to doze off in each other’s laps, and the overall energy was sleepy.

We walked across campus discussing professors, academics, assignments, films, vague future plans, and never once strayed into flirtation. If anything, the conversation felt aggressively professional. Which is why, when he appeared the next day at my desk during lunch and requested that we go somewhere “private to talk,” I was caught off guard.

I agreed, but chose the lobby. I value exits. And then he informed me that he liked me and would like it if I were his girlfriend. I found this very suspicious, given that we had spoken before exactly once. And with Valentine’s week approaching, I could not shake off the feeling that I was being considered for seasonal placement.

I declined and that, for me, concluded the matter.

Sadly, it did not conclude for my friends, who continued to invite him to sit with us during class, raising their eyebrows at me as though I had some task to fulfil. I will forever remain confused by their actions. HE was the one who developed a crush. HE was the one who asked. A WEEK BEFORE VALENTINES, MAY I ADD. And yet I was treated as though I should feel embarrassed.

The only embarrassing person is the one who thought asking someone out — who they’ve only conversed with ONCE — the week before Valentine’s, was a good idea. Clown.

I do not regret any of these refusals. The men who tried will go on to find someone more receptive. As for me, I remain unembarrassed.

I cannot stress this enough: this hackathon, with its particular theme, quite literally changed my life. If you’ve been with me for a while, you know this story. If you’re new here, or just visiting, I think you’ll like this story: how Sailor Moon got me a job 🎀✨

Now, about the hackathon, we were allowed to build anything; the only requirement was that it had to carry the unmistakable look of that earlier web. Buried among the suggestions was a simple word: fansite.

It was around the time I’d enter my annual Sailor Moon phase. I had recently binge-read all the manga, so when I saw “fansite,” the idea rose almost immediately—not as a decision but more so a recognition. Of course it would be this. It was like Luna had placed a paw on my shoulder. Plus, the hackathon resources page linked to Neocities and Geocities (rip) as inspiration, and when I clicked through, I found myself staring at the most lovingly unhinged sites people were still maintaining in 2024. Every single one of them felt like opening a time capsule.

I knew exactly what I wanted to make: A Sailor Moon fansite.

With a space-themed background. Sparkles everywhere. And a Sailor Guardian sorting quiz! Oh, a guestbook! Wait, but also, an information page for each Guardian!

The idea clicked into place, and I ran with it.

falling into the old web rabbit hole

My “research” (if you can even call it that) was me falling face-first into the deepest Neocities rabbit hole. I clicked one site, then another, then another, until I had maybe fifteen tabs open. Each site was its own tiny universe: pastel borders, pixel roses, shrine pages dedicated to characters I’d never heard of, music autoplaying (sometimes two songs at once because two sites were playing at once), and blinkies and marquees everywhere.

The old web offered something rare in current digital landscapes: it was a place where you could create as you wished! You could place a glittering moon beside a paragraph simply because you liked it. You could leave inside jokes scattered for the five people who understood them. Hell, you could have your entire page be in Comic Sans! (don’t actually do that, though)

And every single site looked like it was built by hand… because it was. That was the spirit I wanted to return to: not nostalgia for the sake of it, but a way of making that insists personal meaning alone justifies creation. Things could exist simply because you liked them.

gathering blinkies and pixels

Naturally, this is where my “resource collection” phase began, aka bookmarking every site with cute blinkies, cursors, 90s templates, glitter dividers, or pixels of the Sailors.

The old-web aesthetic speaks to the same part of me that loves childhood notebooks and sticker sheets. My browser became a museum of sparkly nonsense and I still have all these sites bookmarked!

The fansite itself took shape over two days—though to say “days” is imprecise, because the work happened mostly at night—during an exam weekend when I should have been studying. But do I regret it? No! I don’t even remember the course I was supposedly “studying for” then!

coding weekend (during exam season… why am I like this)

I don’t know what possessed me. Maybe the spirit of Ami herself, because I opened VSC and didn’t stop until… well, until I remembered I had exams.

I wish I could say the build was serene, but serenity is not a word one uses in the company of fuckass JavaScript. Having to write the logic for the quiz nearly unmade me, until I finally relented and just made it much simpler than I had aimed for.

I knew I wanted a custom cursor with sparkles trailing behind it. I didn’t expect to actually find Sailor Moon cursors online, but the internet provides for those who believe.

The best part? Writing the poem on the homepage! Yes, the poem is mine, don’t ask how long it took me to come up with the perfect rhymes and sentences, but I did it!

why sailor moon, anyway?

I discovered Sailor Moon quite late by fandom standards (at seventeen) but it was immediate love. The mythology, the lore, the friendships, the super stylish villains… everything fit into this perfect pocket of girly power & cosmic destiny.

The series offered something rare: where strength was inseparable from tenderness and where girlhood was not diminished. It made sense, then, that a project built in a winter of fatigue and boredom would take inspiration from this universe.

And something about Sailor Moon just fits the old web. She was made for glittery pages and pink cursors, for personal shrines and character tributes.

the aftermath

When judging began, the comments started coming in before the actual review did, and each one was a small affirmation that what I built had managed to carry its intended warmth. Some spoke of nostalgia while others simply replied with Sailor Moon gifs.

And when the results were announced, I learned that the fansite had won second place, and the prize (almost too perfect to believe) was a Tamagotchi, the Pretty Party edition!

my favourite parts

My favorite part of the site remains the guestbook, that artefact of early digital life, where visitors leave their names and small messages. I adore reading people’s messages, and I promise I still read every single one of them!

The quiz is a close second. So, please take it and tell me who you got.

(I’m Sailor Mercury, if you were curious)

As for easter eggs… the only obvious one is that the homepage buttons match each Guardian’s colour. The rest? Well… I should pretend there are more. It makes me sound mysterious.

why I’m sharing this now

After the overwhelming love for my interview story, I realised people like hearing about things made with joy. I promised I’d share it once I secured things and made sure it wouldn’t accidentally dox me. And so here it is!

Moon Prism Pixels

I’d suggest taking the quiz and then leaving a comment in the guestbook. There isn’t much to do apart from that, unfortunately, and future updates will arrive in their own time, perhaps after graduation (lol help).

Until then,

Moon Prism Power, Make Up!! 🌙🎀✨

And at the centre of this routine stood my dad. Every day, he would prepare a fruit for the family with complete seriousness: apple wedges arranged around the plate like flowers. Oranges peeled obsessively, until their flesh lay naked. Pomegranate beads, some squashed and bleeding, divided equally into four bowls.

When I was old enough to be trusted with a knife, I started joining in on this routine. Between my brother and me, I was never the better cook. And neither am I interested in cooking. But fruit? Fruit I understood and fruit I could handle. I was (and remain) the superior fruit technician. This is a title I hold with pride: assigned fruit peeler at birth, if you will.

So, while my mother and brother prepared dinner together, my dad and I would stand near the sink, peeling, slicing, and arranging fruit into equal parts. Except mangoes—I have a very specific fear related to them, which I’ll let you know in a while.

A bit of a detour here, but my dad would meticulously remove the pesky white bits from the orange wedges. You wouldn’t find a single thread left once he was done. My mom would ask every time, “Why spend so much time on that? The kids can just remove it while they eat!”

But children are dramatic creatures, and my dad was protecting the peace. When we grew older and learned to peel them ourselves, he stopped. His work was done.

Except now, I’m the one standing over the sink, stripping away every stubborn thread. My mom has long abandoned her attempts to stop me. Sometimes, I want to reply: “I love you guys, and that’s why I do it for you!” but they’ll never hear those words come out of my mouth lol. My love sits at the edge of my throat and turns into tears when I try to speak it.

What I understand now, with the clarity that comes from watching your parents age while you remain perpetually half-grown in their eyes, is that habits like these are not made to be noticed. They exist so consistently that they become invisible—like good lighting, like the sound of someone moving around the house as you study, like the fact that your dad will carry you to your bed if you fall asleep on the couch, like the reassurance that something ordinary will still be waiting for you at the end of the day.

It was never about the ‘vitamins’ or the ‘health benefits’, was it? It was about someone pausing their evening to perform a small act of care that asked for nothing in return, an act so repetitive that it eventually escaped intention and became instinct. I don’t remember the first time we sat down and ate fruit together. I hope I never remember the last.

And I hope that one day, a kitchen will exist in the future, with different counters and different fruit prices, and still a child. A child complaining about having to wait. Me taking too long with an orange. Someone rolling their eyes and asking why I’m being so particular about the white bits. And I’ll know, with certainty, that the knife may change hands without ceremony, but the routine will be recognisable in the way that all inherited things are.

I think that is why my relationship with fruit is so absurdly specific. And since we’re already neck-deep in fruit philosophy, let’s do the most controversial thing I can imagine with them: review them!

🍊 oranges

I LOVE IT!! I love oranges so much. Yes, occasionally they have sour bits, and despite that, my love for them outweighs everything else.

🥝 kiwis

10/10 amazing. I have eaten it only once, and it was (thankfully) the perfect kiwi ever, which probably explains why I love it so much.

🍎 red apples

One of the best to exist. I love it only if it is the crisp & juicy type (gala apples), not the powdery ones.

🍏 green apples

I dunno man… I’d rather eat the red ones.

🥭 mangoes

I love them so much, but I am scared of them: far too many times have I cut into a mango and met eyes with a worm.

Do worms even have eyes?

I refuse to research this. Anyways, this worm fear makes mango rank lower than oranges and apples in my list. As an apology to the mango-lovers community, I leave you with this Keh Mukarni by Amir Khusrau:

papayas

These are great!! Love them in both ripe and unripe-but-cooked-as-a-side-dish form. You haven’t tasted peak till you’ve tasted sweet, ripe papaya upperi.

pomegranates

Why is there no pomegranate emoji? I like them, but I dislike the way it makes my tongue feel afterwards.

🍍 pineapples

They’re good, I guess. I like them best when they’re cooked into Pineapple Puliserry (yeahhhh malayalis unite!!) but I am not against buying and eating them—more for me anyway, since my brother hates them.

🍇 grapes

Only green seedless grapes for me, please. Yes, this is childish behaviour, but I like to eat stuff and not have my tongue feel like I ate iron powder, thanks.

🍈 melons

• Muskmelons: lovely, but they really need to have the perfect fiber to liquid to sweetness ratio. Every once in a while, I get a melon that’s too much liquid (and bitter liquid at that), and I start doubting my melon-selection skills. For my American readers, this is a cantaloupe (I think).

• Honeydew: better eaten not as a fruit—sprinkle some chilli powder and salt over it and eat.

• Bitter melon: 😂😂😂😂 you wanna die? this is not a fruit.

🍉 watermelons

They have their own emoji, so they get a separate section. These too need to have the perfect fiber to liquid to sweetness ratio to be considered enjoyable. Insanely fun if you eat it like you’re a caveman, with no regard for cleanliness—so I suggest sitting outside in the sand or mud and just digging in! The seed removal is exhausting, and I’d consider swallowing them if it weren’t for the “watermelon tree growing out of kids’ ear” story that hit the news when I was 9.

guavas

Only enjoyable when eaten with chaat masala sprinkled over it. Any other way feels like I’m biting through cardboard. I guess I just don’t pick sweet and soft guavas—but I don’t like when they’re mushy either, so… 🤷🏻‍♀️ also! I only like white guavas. Keep the pink ones to yourselves.

🍓 strawberries

Apparently, this was my #1 fruit when I was a kid. So much so that I was eating strawberries while my mom was giving birth to my brother. I wasn’t exactly conscious then, so I’ll just have to take my parents’ word for it. Present-day feelings? No. Way too expensive for the good ones.

figs

I’ve only eaten them dried, and I don’t think that’s gonna change. Eating them while they’re raw feels like a sensory nightmare. Good, but one piece at most at a time.

jackfruit

This is another Kerala fruit, so I respect it, but cook it! I am okay with eating them raw, but cook it, no?

🥥 coconuts

TIL coconut is a fruit. I have a patriotic I’m-from-Kerala responsibility to like them and I do! Very versatile, very useful! But no, I don’t eat them raw. Put them over side dishes, upperis, puttu, stuff them into sweet rotis, make chutneys using them, but do not give them to me plain.

dates

I eat them for the health benefits only.

🍒 cherries

I have only encountered them on cakes, and I hand them over to my brother or mother. Have never eaten one.

🍐 pears

I don’t like them and I don’t even know why.

🍌 bananas

Bananas are the worst. Sure, I’ll eat them, but I hate them. List of crimes: texture, smell, presence. No, I’m not elaborating.

🥒 cucumbers

Another vegetable parading around as a fruit. Cucumbers are what I imagine ‘nothing’ to taste like. Which is ironic, because they do have a taste, and I hate them for that.

custard apples

Miss me with that. No way am I eating it, even if it is the last fruit on the planet.

An author (@anotherabhishek) reached out to me a few days ago and asked if I’d like to read his debut book and share my thoughts. I said yes, partly because I enjoy reading outside my usual lanes, and partly because the description of The Misadventures of Detective Ghanshyam immediately caught my attention: a teenage detective in a middle-class Indian household, whose greatest adversary isn’t a criminal mastermind, but his own younger sister.

As an elder sister to a brother who I loveee ragebaiting, that felt like a conflict I am extremely qualified to have opinions about. Simple as that. What wasn’t simple was how quickly it stopped feeling like something I was reading and started feeling like something I was remembering.

Very quick context before I continue:

The Misadventures of Detective Ghanshyam follows a teenage boy who styles himself as a detective, idolises Sherlock Holmes, and treats everyday life in his middle-class Indian household like a series of high-stakes cases. His biggest obstacle isn’t crime, it’s his younger sister: Tanu, who is clever and doesn’t allow him to feel competent for too long.

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meeting Ghanshyam, or: how I picked a side immediately

I took a liking to Ghanshyam immediately and was rooting for him instinctively, the way you do when you recognise a child who reminds you of someone you love.

In my case, he reminded me of my younger cousin brother. This may be a good time for a small lore drop: I have only brothers, not a single sister in sight. And one of them, when he was around seven, went through a brief but intense phase where he was convinced he wanted to be a police officer. Not in a vague, aspirational way—no, no… he committed to it fully, down to accessories and attitude. He got himself a bracelet, just like the one Salman Khan wears.

Ghanshyam, with his detective ambitions and earnest self-mythologising, felt like a version of that kid I miss dearly. And perhaps that is why I found myself cheering him on before even reaching page ten. Yes, go be a detective. Yes, rename yourself. Yes, investigate your surroundings with unnecessary seriousness. What is childhood, if not a series of slightly misguided (mis)adventures?

I had to actively stop myself from finishing it in one sitting because I knew I would miss Ghanshyam once it ended. The book is consistently funny and had me laughing every two pages. It is the kind of story that understands kids will be kids, and sees no reason to rush them into becoming anything else.

reliving indian childhood through small details

It is also, without hesitation, quintessentially Indian. The book is filled with the kind of details that make you pause mid-page and think: oh, this author has lived here too.

There is a moment where Ghanshyam’s father asks the one question no one in the house can answer: “Where’s the nail cutter?”

And like 😭😭 so true! The nail cutter is never where it’s supposed to be. It exists in a quantum state of having been “kept safely” by someone who will never remember what that “safe place” was. There’s no explanation for this. You either get it or you don’t.

Then there is the mother’s are-you-out-of-your-mind look. A look so universally known that I got shivers. Or the way “Mummyyyyy” is treated as a legal appeal, immediately shut down with, “There’s no need to involve the supreme court in such trivial matters idiot.”
Mother= Supreme Court. How accurate.

Even the casual mention of “scores of flames” unlocked a part of my brain I hadn’t visited in years.
FLAMES. Of course. How long has it been since I last heard that name 🚬

Tanu: a menace, but a necessary menace

And then there is Tanu—Ghanshyam’s younger sister, who is always up to something, who “hates” her brother with dedication, and who is deeply invested in making his life more difficult than it needs to be. She is, by all accounts, a menace. And yet, I liked her too! I would even argue that Ghanshyam’s life would be less interesting without her. His detective skills would barely have a reason to exist. Would he even be a detective if not for her?

Sibling rivalry, after all, is rarely about cruelty. It’s about knowing exactly where to poke, because you’ve grown up watching someone closely enough to understand their weak points. The things Ghanshyam and Tanu do to each other are occasionally unforgivable, but also unmistakably sibling-coded.

Because when cousins enter the picture and suspicion shifts, Ghanshyam doesn’t hesitate to defend Tanu. And later, over ice cream, when the future feels uncertain and vaguely threatening, he reassures her: whatever comes next, they’ll face it together.

Family takes precedence over being right, after all.

why I’m team Ghanshyam (and maybe… more?)

By the end, I was still team Ghanshyam. But I also found myself very interested in the possibility of being team Ghanshyam and Tanu someday, if that is where the story chooses to go 👀 Because let’s be honest: Tanu is smart. And smart girls in stories tend to grow into something formidable. And well… a detective does need a smart sidekick. Even Mr. Holmes has one, does he not?

In the simplest terms, reading this book felt like those summer vacations spent at my grandparents’ house, where all of us cousins would sit in front of the TV, cycling through Roll No. 21, Oggy and the Cockroaches, and Bandbudh Aur Budbak, armed with banana chips and far too much free time.

It reminded me of childhood, where time was abundant and the worst enemy you had was someone who shared your last name.

Sure, the first villain in your life really is your sibling. But they’re also the reason the story doesn’t get boring.

Goodreads Review

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I’ve always found this period a little overwhelming in its rush, as if the world is hurrying toward the end of the year while I am still arranging my thoughts from the beginning. Perhaps this is why I always find myself in a slump during this month and the next. Year after year, December and January me wants to simply do nothing but sit on the couch and watch the same old movies.

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Which is why I built myself a system, one that helps me reset digitally and physically in preparation for the new year. And this year, I put together an advent calendar for you as well, so that you can join in!

This calendar isn’t specifically Christmas-related; the internet already has plenty of those. Instead, it is a calendar for the last stretch of the month. Each door will open to something simple but effective: an action that will ask you to pause, pay attention, and complete a task.

And before anything else, I want to say this: thank you! thank you so much!!!

Somehow, without my noticing the days stack up, this publication has reached two hundred subscribers! Two hundred people who chose to read my writing!! I have no idea how it happened, and even less idea how to hold on to this feeling, except to admit that I am grateful in a way that feels both too large and impossible to describe. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being surprised by it. I don’t think I want to.

Unfortunately, since we are probably separated by oceans, mountains, and the general inconvenience of geography, I cannot hand you a gift in person. What I can do, however, is make a website—because if there is one language I trust to cross distances, it is HTML. So this calendar is, in many ways, a thank-you gift: a (hopefully helpful) offering to you for the kindness I’ve received. A guide to help you step into January feeling refreshed, shared not because I have mastered it, but because I am trying to learn how to move into 2026 with more intention, and I wanted company along the way.

Digital Reset Advent Calendar

A small note: this calendar will be very happy if you view it on a laptop or desktop screen 💞 replicating the vibe of the old web means stuff isn’t exactly responsive all the time. It does function on mobile, but if you can, I’d suggest opening it somewhere larger (and you’ll be able to see the cute cursors I picked for the site that way!)

Doors will unlock each day from Dec 17th to Dec 31st, if the day has begun in your time zone! And every night, when the next door unlocks, I’ll update this post with the previous day’s prompt and a note about what I did to fulfil it. You’re welcome to follow along silently or join me with your own reflections in the comments. Either way, I’m glad you’re here <3

Door One unlocks 16th December, midnight!

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day 1: Refresh Your Phone

what I did: I’m way too attached to my homescreen wallpaper (I’ve literally had it for 2½ years now, and it is very calming, so yeah… that’s not changing), but I did update my lockscreen to a very minimal drawing with a cat. I love cats and I want my 2026 to be filled with them, so this felt correct.

inspo: Pinterest is a great place to find wallpapers and wallpaper ideas! Linked is the cat wallpaper I eventually settled on.

extra: I’ve been using folders on my phone since forever, so this part was already done.

day 2: Wardrobe Reset Day

what I did: gathered a hugeee pile of clothes I no longer want to wear! Did this with my mom and now we’re exhausted.

extra: we also filled a bag with clothes that are still usable (just ones my brother and I outgrew) to donate to the van that comes by every week.

day 3: Inbox Quiet Hour

what I did: I check my inbox every morning, so there isn’t actually any clutter in there, but I did notice I was running out of space, so I deleted a bunch of old emails.

extra: I did it! I unsubscribed from so many mailing lists whose emails I’d automatically delete.

day 4: Inbox Quiet Hour

what I did: I kinda cleared out my folders? It was mainly the Downloads and Screenshots folders. Most of the other files are uni-related so I’m gonna delete them after I graduate!

extra: no. I can’t do it… I’m too attached to those stray files on my desktop 💔

day 5: Browser Reset

what I did: this was basically impossible to do so I apologize, but I did remove some browser extensions I haven’t used in a while—mainly those which help you learn Japanese and some deprecated extensions.

extra: deleted multiple ‘courses’ I had bookmarked around a year ago and then never opened again 😭

day 6: Phone Storage Sweep

what I did: uninstalled so many apps omg… but it was about time! My storage was 98% used 😭 The main issue? I install games, play them for a month, get bored, and the app remains in my phone.

extra: turned off notifs for Instagram and Substack!

day 7: Camera Roll Curator

what I did: I had thousands of screenshots and pictures of notes I took for my uni courses but… we know that’s not getting used. I compiled the really useful ones into a PDF and deleted the rest :)

extra: turns out the photos app does this automatically for you! Went through the album and did some editing work.

day 8: Notes App Postmortem

what I did: Went through my notes app (google keep, actually—I don’t use the notes app) and deleted anything that was no longer useful. Most of them were notes I took for writing my book reviews :)

extra: Found another story idea I had written and then forgot about 🥲 will I ever complete it and share it? Not sure yet.

day 9: Gratitude List

what I did: 2025 was the year I started my bookstagram AND this substack and I’m eternally grateful for all the love I get from both these places <3 I’ve made so many friends and rediscovered my love for reading and writing!

extra: hmm… I haven’t got to this yet, mainly because it is really hard to decide who exactly I will send the message to T_T

day 10: Social Feed Detox

what I did: When I deactivated my twitter account, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest. So I did something similar on Instagram, and blocked any account that spread hate or posted content I didn’t want to see.

extra: 2026 is the year I’ll read all my saved posts! Trust!

day 11: Personal Desk Reset

what I did: I cleared all the trash and bits of random paper I had been holding onto for no reason. Bought new pens and even set up my journal!

extra: I moved the potted plants from my balcony and put them next to my desk. They’re indoor plants, so they should be fine, plus, I love that I have something green to look at right next to me.

day 12: Subscription Check

what I did: I don’t pay for any subscriptions myself (it’s shared between my family), so I went through my YouTube subscriptions instead and removed those I no longer wanted to see on my feed.

extra: nahhh

day 13: Mindful Tech Reset

what I did: Why do I have 13 alarms?? This is absurd. Deleted most of them (only 3 were in use, anyway).

extra: Set up two modes for my phone: work and study. These block the apps that might distract me when I should be working or studying.

day 14: Digital Vision Board

what I did: Made a vision board on Pinterest, but I doubt I’ll go back to it much.

extra: I spent way too much time just procrastinating on tasks, which meant I had to rush through stuff right before the deadline, and I’m hoping I can get rid of that habit in 2026.

day 15: A Clean Slate + Letter to Yourself

what I did: I spent way too much time worrying about what others thought of me in 2025, and that is something I’m looking forward to leaving behind :) My main goal in 2026 is to read better. Not more, just better.

extra: FutureMe is a nice place where you can write an email to yourself, and set it up so that it arrives in your inbox whenever you want! I did one for myself.

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I was ready to talk about data structures and maybe even the one project on my resume that I didn’t completely half-panic through. Yet, I was… completely unprepared for how the interview actually went.

Within seven minutes, I found myself explaining what a manga is to a man who had probably never heard the word ‘Sailor Moon’ before.

Let’s begin!

CHAPTER 1: The Interview Begins! A Fateful Question Appears!

I had mentally stacked all my talking points in neat little rows. My projects would come first, then my interests with a sprinkle of personality but not too much, because you want to seem human but not unhinged. This is just round 1! First rounds are always simple and predictable.

The very first question was the classic “So! Tell me a bit about yourself!”

Easyyyyy. I had the answer to this locked and loaded. I launched into my carefully curated speech. And because I wanted to sound like a well-rounded person, I casually add, “and I love making websites related to the things I love.”

ouhhh… shouldn’t have said that.

CHAPTER 2: A Casual Mention… And Destiny Unravels!

He said, word for word: “Wait, rewind. What do you mean by ‘the things I love’?”

💀 Now, of course, I couldn’t just tell him to ignore that, so I elaborated and dug my own grave.

“For example, I once made a Sailor Moon fansite—because I loveee Sailor Moon—and ended up winning a web design competition because of it.”

The interview then swerved so hard I kinda forgot I was even doing the damn thing. He looked up from my resume and I knew he had decided to completely abandon whatever questions he had in mind.

“Sailor Moon?”
“Yes! You know, like the manga?” I said, with enthusiasm.
“What is a manga?”

You could hear the Windows error sound play somewhere in the background. There are many directions a product development interview could go. But this? This was not even on the map.

CHAPTER 3: Sailor Moon’s Worst Spokesperson is Born!

There is no world in which I thought my technical interview would involve me explaining the Sailor Moon lore but all I could think was: “Well, you’re reached this point now. Just commit.”

What followed was… well, instead of talking about how I researched or designed the ui to fit the “90s” theme, I found myself explaining what manga is. and then what a cultural icon Sailor Moon was: about how Sailor Moon basically laid the foundations of the ‘magical girl’ genre, how influential it was for kids in the 90s, how Naoko Takeuchi basically invented girl superheroes, and why my 19-year-old self spent an entire exam weekend building a sparkly pink HTML fansite that somehow won an actual competition.

(looking back, I had the power of the moon by my side 🙂‍↕️ that’s why I won)

This man had interviewed probably twenty other candidates that day, and I’m willing to bet none of them gave him an educational lecture on manga, genre evolution, and the cultural impact of these guardian girls. Yet, there I was.

At some point, I became aware enough to think, “Wow, this is going terribly”. I was deep into explaining Sailor Moon lore, and this poor man was nodding so politely.

CHAPTER 4: The Interviewer Is Stunned! What Happens Next?!

By the time I reached the part about how I spent an entire exam weekend building a Sailor Moon fansite with glittery GIFs and questionable HTML (tables for everything lol), I wasn’t even trying to be professional anymore. I think I even smiled a little too hard when describing the sparkly Usagi cursor I coded into the site.

When I’d finished delivering a TED talk on the cultural impact of Naoko Takeuchi, I wrapped the entire tangent with the world’s most pathetic attempt at reconnecting it to the interview’s original point:

“…and that’s how I started building websites.”

Which was simply not true. I had already built a bunch of other sites by then but… whatever. I genuinely don’t know how he kept a straight face.

CHAPTER 5: Can Passion Triumph Over Professionalism?!

Here’s the wildest part: I thought I’d ruined it and that he’d walk out of the room wondering why this candidate gave him a magical girl lecture instead of talking about idk frameworks or something. But life has plot twists. He loved it.

He loved my enthusiasm, the storytelling, the way I lit up when talking about something I genuinely cared about; and when I sat down for the HR interview (round 3), the first thing out of her mouth was, “Oh, you’re the one who made that Sailor Moon website, right?”

(and then I proceeded to explain the plot of Caraval to her, but that’s a story for another time)

It took me a while to process what had happened because for years, I’d been lowkey embarrassed by how intensely I loved things. I thought they made me look unserious. but the truth is the opposite: people remember when you talk about something you genuinely love with your entire chest, without shrinking or apologising for it.

The hobbies that you think make you “too nerdy” or “weird” are often the things that make you unforgettable. That silly Sailor Moon fansite didn’t just win me a competition; it also won me an opportunity! an entire job!! magicalll ✨✨

CHAPTER 6: Moon Prism Power, Make Up!!!

The lesson: don’t dim your sparkle for professionalism

Weirdly, all of it makes perfect sense: passion builds things, it drives creativity. Passion is the reason you make websites at 2 AM, or learn a new design style for fun, or obsess over tiny UI details that no one else notices. You can teach someone a tech stack, but you can’t teach someone to care.

In conclusion:
thank you to Sailor Moon for saving me again,
shoutout to queen Naoko Takeuchi,
and ily younger-me for procrastinating so aggressively that she would rather code a fansite than study for exams <33

One day, I’m going to build a Sailor Moon shrine funded by this job.

Moon Prism Power, Make Up!! 🌙🎀✨

I don’t think I can share the link to the site just yet. it’d be a little too easy to figure out the Real Me™ and I’ll accidentally dox myself. once I’ve figured out how to secure things on that site, I’ll share it! sorryyy <3

If you enjoyed reading this, you may also like:

trailer for the show, from JioCinema

Sorry for the immediate jumpscare, but a point had to be made. A retelling of an ancient epic rendered entirely by algorithms, it is marketed as an innovation, a technological “milestone”. In interviews, the production team insists that automating the visual labour (read: not having to create sets, have actual actors acting, do voiceovers/ dubbings, and rehearsals) allowed their creative staff to “focus on storytelling and performance rather than logistics.”1

The language is almost soothing, as if “storytelling” is a delicate flower that only blooms when freed from the weight of human workers. Yet what this really means is that the people whose work it has always been to shape the world of Mahabharat on television — from set and costume designers to lighting technicians and actors — are treated as an afterthought rather than the foundation of what made these adaptations so well-loved.

When I first encountered clips of the show circulating on twitter and instagram, my reaction wasn’t anger, nor was it disgust (because, let’s be honest, some of these clips veer into uncanney valley territory), it was plain old sadness.

There was just one question that kept repeating in my head:
Why even bother making this show if you don’t really want to make it?

And the answer was quite clear: money. Because, of course, it is always about the profits.

Technology has always shaped art, from the invention of the printing press to digital colour grading. But what frightens me is our growing impatience with the process of making things. Our culture (at least here in India) seems increasingly unbothered by the disappearance of the human hand from artistic creation.

This new Mahabharat is a sign that we no longer value the journey by which art comes into the world. That we care only for the final image, but not the labour that colours it. And that makes me ask the question at the heart of this essay: If we claim to love these shows, why do we treat the making of it as irrelevant?

the process of making art is what gives it meaning

Mahabharat has survived for generations because countless people repeated, performed, read, illustrated and reinterpreted it. It has been depicted through oral recitations, temple murals, books, dance performances and plays, and later, in cinema and television. It depends on humans interpreting humans, and every version has carried the fingerprints and thoughts of its creators.

When an AI model imagines it from scraped aesthetics and pattern predictions, it is not participating in this lineage. It is producing on a surface level without inheriting the weight beneath it.

Any time I watch an adaptation of an epic, the evidence of effort is what moves me. Shaky camera movements, very obvious CG, an actor’s imperfect pronunciation, or the way they try to avoid looking at the cameras — all these things make the work feel alive. AI treats the visuals as the only thing that matters. But the visual is only meaningful because of the effort embedded within it. When an image is created without intention, it becomes hollow, no matter how impressive it looks. And that hollowness is pretty evident in this show.

we don’t love art because it is perfect

People who defend these AI adaptations always say the same thing: “It gets the job done and it is faster than humans.”

But creating art was never about “getting the job done” or speed. Art is the burden and the beauty of making something by hand, accented by your memory and mistakes.

We don’t love art because it is perfect, but because someone loved it enough to suffer for it.

How quickly we have come to prefer efficiency over intention and convenience over contemplation, to the point that we now live in a world alongside people who are okay with handing over the work of creatives to a system that cannot even feel the weight of what it is producing?

efficiency culture in indian shows

Part of the reason why the AI show was accepted so easily in India is that we have long normalised speed over sincerity. Our television industry produces hundreds of episodes a year. There is a cultural acceptance of “good enough” production, a belief that the show must go on, no matter how shallowly it has been constructed.

AI, with its ability to generate variations in seconds, fits neatly into this framework. It promises more content, faster than a human could ever.

But what is the cost of this acceleration? When speed becomes the only metric that matters, nothing has depth anymore.

Using AI to recreate sacred epics is also unethical, because technological shortcuts remove the very thing that has always defined a retelling of the Mahabharat: interpretive responsibility. Any attempt to interpret this text must deal with the philosophical weight it carries: what does justice look like? what does dharma demand? why must human beings suffer? A creator engaging with these questions must take a stand, interpret, argue, and imagine.

do you love it, or do you love the hands that shaped it?

Ultimately, the debate is not about technology but what we value. Do we value the existence of art, or do we value the devotion that brings it into being? When I watch the AI Mahabharat, I feel the absence of human touch. It is recognisable in form, sure, but it means absolutely nothing to me.

And this brings me back to my original question. When we say we love art, do we mean we love the final product? Or do we mean we love the human being who had a vision and worked hard to bring it into the world?

If we love the latter, we have to protect the process. We have to defend intention, labour and slowness. Because if we lose that, we lose not just art but what it means to be human.

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