Beyond Books

I am no writer, and have no intention of becoming a published author. But sometimes, I do feel like penning my thoughts on all things bookish. Here are a few of my thoughts and writings.
(As is evident, this page is a work-in-progress. I have written a lot more than these few articles. Stay tuned. 😃)

Author Specials:


Bookish Write-ups:



✤ Five Types of Non-fiction that Even Fiction Lovers Will Enjoy! - Guest Article for Blogchatter's BeStorified series. - March 2025.





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Giantess - J.C. Deveney

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Author: J.C. Deveney Illustrator: Núria Tanarit Genre: Graphic Novel Rating: 2 stars. Hello from Outlierland once again! L This simply didn’t match up to that exquisite cover. A farmer finds a giant baby girl in a forest. As he and his wife have six sons and no daughters, they adopt her and name her Celeste. Celeste lives a sheltered life with her brothers for many years. But after they venture onto their separate career paths, Celeste’s true life journey begins. As she traverses new places and meets new people, she comes to an understanding of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal world and she learns through mistakes and mishaps how she can finally make a place for herself and be what she wants to be. This doesn’t flow like a typical giant story. While Celeste is the only giantess in the entire book, her size plays only a minor role in the plot. Her femininity and her self-acceptance gets the major focus. In a way, this is good as Celeste is treated almost as a normal characte...
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After Life - Gayle Forman - ★

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AUTHOR: Gayle Forman GENRE: YA Contemporary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: January 7, 2025 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A YA contemporary fiction with mild fantasy elements. Could have been awesome but the FMC is too YA, if you know what I mean. 😬 Basic writing, annoying characters, convenient developments. Minimal and ad hoc fantasy content. The only thing I liked was the plot structuring. Can’t recommend this, sorry. Plot Preview: When Amber cycles home one spring afternoon, the last thing she expects is her mother to scream on seeing her walk in. The reason is horrifying even to Amber. It seems she has been dead for seven years, having lost her life in a hit-and-run accident while riding the very same bicycle she just rode home. But Amber doesn’t feel dead! The return affects not just Amber but her family and other acquaintances who were active in her life when she was alive. A lot has changed in the last seven years and Amber needs to be prepared to face those developments bas well....
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The Areca Nut Tree and Other Stories - Edited by Ranjita Biswas

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Editor-Translator: Ranjita Biswas Authors: Various. Genre: Anthology, Indian Cultural Fiction. Rating: 2.75 stars. A collection of fourteen stories from Assamese women writers. Each of these stories was written in the 1990s. There were many reasons for me to opt for this book: 1. The North-East factor is the topmost reason. I have not read much from the North-Eastern region of our country and this seemed like a great option. 2. All stories are by female writers. 3. The stories are contemporary and not historical. It would have provided a great opportunity at reading modern regional literature. 4. The blurb made it sound very intriguing. Unfortunately for me, this didn’t turn out to be as per my expectations. As the writers are from Assam, I was hoping to find something quintessentially Assamese in the stories. After all, that's the biggest purpose of reading regional writers, isn't it? That they can show us a glimpse of the local flavour that is denied us in mainstream media an...
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The Mistakes That Made Us: Confessions from Twenty Poets - Compiled by Irene Latham & Charles Waters - ★★★.¾

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COMPILERS: Irene Latham & Charles Waters ILLUSTRATOR: Mercè López GENRE: Middle-grade Poetry. PUBLICATION DATE: October 1, 2024 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A poetry anthology aimed at middle-graders, containing confessions from twenty poets about the mistakes they made in their childhood and the lessons they learnt. Great intent, good execution. Could have limited appeal because of the poetry factor. This anthology contains twenty poems written by twenty poets. Each poem contains a sort of confession about a mistake the poet made during their childhood and the lesson they learnt from the same. I am not a poetry fan, but the theme of this book was too good to resist. The introductory note sets the right tone for the book, beginning by explaining how there can be various types of mistakes but each of them is a learning opportunity. It also suggests that we normalise talking about mistakes instead of focussing only on our triumphs. After all, talking about mistakes is helpful...
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The Book Witch - Meg Shaffer - ★

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AUTHOR: Meg Shaffer GENRE: Fantasy-Romance PUBLICATION DATE: April 7, 2026 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A book-about-books fantasy featuring the titular book witch. After the super-interesting start, this absolutely didn’t go the way I expected it to. Too much of insta-love. OTT dialogues, absurd plot twists, and immature characters. I enjoyed this author’s first two novels but simply couldn’t connect with this one. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: Despite her youth, twenty-five-year-old Rainy March has been a book witch for more than a decade. She follows all the rules of the profession seriously, including the one about ensuring that fictional characters and the real world do not intersect. But when she is sent on assignment into the book series starring the Duke of Chicago, her favourite book character, she forgets all the rules and ends up in a relationship with him. When this is discovered by the head witch, Rainy is forbidden from interacting with the fictional characte...
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