Book Review: Transactions of Belongings by Jaya Padmanabham

Introduction

• ISBN – 9789383562275
• Genre: Fiction/ Drama
• Publishers: Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd
• Price: Rs. 145/- (I got this book for review from the publisher)

The short stories in the collection blend emotion and introspection. Moments of urgency and sweetness are fully canvassed and explored. The stories draw out and examine the texture of emotional belonging. In "His Curls," a mother suffers the anguish of wondering if her son is a terrorist. The ending is left to interpretation and several possibilities. The reader is forced to teeter between laughter and sadness in the tragicomedy of "An Indian Summer." "The Blue Arc" is a redemptive tale of a young woman who shows enormous courage. Each story in the collection is a journey of insights. Transactions of Belonging is a unique, intense and gripping work of short fiction.

Read about it HERE

Behind The book

Source: Google Images

About the author

You can know about the author and read her interview HERE

Me thinks

The cover page is very intriguing. Those eyes staring at you directly seem very inviting and that’s what they convey about the stories too. The stories are exactly that – inviting and intriguing.

Transactions of belonging is a collection of 12 short stories, each a masterpiece. One that haunts you for long time making you look at life and relationships around you differently.

The author has managed to keep the beauty of these stories intact with their innocence by using very simplistic language with no word play at all. It holds a reader to the story, helps him connect with the story, its characters, their pain, their confusion and all that they go through within their hearts and minds.

I took a long time to finish this book, longer than my usual reading pace for I wanted to soak in those stories. They are so mesmerising that they take you along on a beautiful journey from where you don’t feel like coming back, to a place called nowhere which still manages to define your belonging there. Superb piece of collection and hats off to the writer for stringing together such amazing pieces of pearls together to make a book worthy of reading and re-reading forever.

Strongly recommended for its simplistic beauty.

Foodie Verdict

This book is like chickoo pudding - deliciously yummy!

Source: Google Images

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