Rosh > Books: 2-5-stars‎ (122)

After moving, Ellie struggles to find friends in her new class. Her only buddy is Chloe, her bestie from before. Ellie’s mom suggests that she join a sports team to make friends, but try as she may, Ellie isn’t made for sports. But when she sees a ballet movie and later a ballet performance, the idea of training in ballet sparks in her head. But Mom doesn’t consider ballet a sport. Will Ellie be able to fulfil her dream of becoming a ballerina? (You know the answer to that one!)

1962, Virginia. Ever since the news highlighted some potential danger to the US through the USSR and Cuba, Poppy has been left unsure of her pregnancy. She wonders not just whether it is the right time to bring a child into the world, but also whether certain events from her past make her the right person to be a mother. As the story progresses, she realises that unless she faces the past, she cannot prepare herself for the future.
The story comes to us in Poppy’s third person perspective.

1924. New York. Alice Jones, born to working class English immigrants, believes that she has found true love with the wealthy real-estate scion Leonard ‘Kip’ Rhinelander, four years her junior. Alice considers herself “white”, so when, after their elopement, Kip’s parents threaten to cut him off from his inheritance for marrying a coloured woman, Alice is stunned. As events continue to spiral, Alice finds herself in a court battle against her new husband.
1943. Roberta is an ambitious journalist. When she is given the task of speaking to her estranged aunt Alice and getting the inside scoop about the latest development in the Rhinelander family saga, Roberta is initially hesitant. But for her job, she goes ahead with the interaction, and finds herself learning more about Alice and what happened in the 1920s.
The story comes to us in the first-person perspectives of Alice and Roberta from two timelines.

Charlie’s mom Sandra is a successful magician who has been entertaining audiences for decades. Her special act is when she levitates in air, with no one able to understand how she defies gravity. After all these years in New York, Sandra has now approached Charlie with a bombshell: she is moving to Santa Fe. The timing couldn’t have been worse, as Charlie herself is expecting, and the house where she lives with her husband is still not done with renovations.
The story comes to us in Charlie’s first-person perspective.

After almost fifty years of marriage, Grant has to let go of his wife Fiona when her memory issues lead to her being admitted to hospice care. When Grant goes to visit her after the mandatary one-month adjustment period, he is dismayed to find that Fiona is emotionally attached to another patient. As Grant ponders over their decades together, he realises what he needs to do to win back Fiona’s affections.

Aya, whose age we find out much later in the book as being ten years old, adores the night sky and the stars. So when there’s news of a meteor shower, she makes plans along with her best friend Naznen to go up the nearby hill and watch the spectacle first at hand at midnight, even after her mother’s express command telling her not to leave her bed. Unexpectedly, Aya is struck by a star, and seems to have come away unscathed. Until some weird powers begin to manifest.
When an evil entity named Abnus invades and takes over the kingdom of Alferra, Aya learns of a terrifying prophecy.
The story comes to us in Aya’s third person perspective.

As Emma Wheeler is the sole caretaker for her dad, she has willingly put aside her dreams of becoming a screenwriter for more than a decade. But when her friend and agent calls her with the opportunity of a lifetime, and a chance to work with her idol, acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Yates, Emma cannot resist. With her younger sister Sylvie stepping into the carer’s role, Emma flies to Los Angeles, hoping for the chance of a lifetime to convert into a memorable work experience. What she didn’t expect is that Charlie Yates didn’t even know about her arrival, and is adamant that he doesn’t work with amateurs. Never mind that the romcom script he wrote was garbage. After all, that script is just a filler to get another pet project greenlit, a project far more important than romcoms. Emma, of course, can’t accept this. Die-hard fan or not, she will not allow anyone to tell her that romcoms are useless, or to mess with the only career-transforming opportunity she has received in ages.
The story comes to us in Emma’s first-person perspective.

Ten-year-old Lili Gray is struggling to deal with an embarrassing new development in her life. (No spoilers! Sssh!) To add to her worries, her dad has gone missing, and she is sure that her stepmother Bella is behind his disappearance. Other than her friend Alejandro (aka Ale), she has no one to turn to for support. Then she discovers a long-lost uncle. Can she seek his aid to find out where her father is? Can she also figure out how to deal with her mortifying ability?
The story comes to us in Lili’s first person perspective.

Somerset. When Amelia is found unconscious with no discernible pulse on the mudflats outside her home, it is almost a miracle that she survives. When her younger sister Lexi rushes over from New York, she finds Amelia in the hospital but with false memories of being happily married to someone named Sam. Neither Lexi nor their mother have any knowledge of a ‘Sam’ in Amelia’s life.
Determined to help her sister, Lexi ropes in a local vet named Nick, who bears a striking resemblance to the non-existent Sam and gets him to recreate some of Amelia’s dream dates with Sam, in a bid to help her “remember”. But (as you might have rightly guessed), Lexi soon finds herself falling for Nick. Can they have a future together when Amelia thinks she is married to him?
The story comes to us in Lexi’s first person perspective.

After a bitter divorce from her cheating husband Rob, Beth is looking for a fresh start. Unfortunately, with her limited funds, all she can afford is an old, unkempt cottage on the outskirts. Her children Olivia (7) and Jacob (5) aren’t impressed with the house, and are frank about their opinion.
When Beth finds a box of letters while clearing out one of the rooms, she discovers that they are all agony aunt letters written by someone named Evelyn Wright. As Beth reads them and relishes the wisdom of Evelyn’s words over the next few days, she decides to begin her own agony aunt ‘column’ online, so that she too can help others the way Evelyn helped her. And if she can locate Evelyn and thank her, all the better.
The story comes to us from Beth’s first person perspective.

Daisy Bowen-Jones is a teenager you would love to hate – a rude bully with several bad habits. She has been expelled from school, and her family – comprising her mom Estelle, grandma Dorothy, and uncle Ben – are concerned about her. But Daisy knows that she may not have a long life. Her genetics ensure that the disease her father had is definitely going to affect her too some day. Daisy’s family is behind her to get genetic screening done, but Daisy stays adamantly away. Things begin to change a little when Daisy is forced by her grandma to work in a care home, looking after dementia patients. But with several family secrets now tumbling out, Daisy is still a long way from recovery.
The story comes to us in the third person perspectives of Daisy, Dorothy, and Ben.

Emily and her husband John have just moved into a futuristic “smart home”. John is quite enthusiastic about the new residence, but Emily feels an immediate sense of unease and can’t settle in comfort. The digital wallpaper, with its constantly shifting and mesmerising patterns, is especially responsible for making Emily feel like she’s being watched, even haunted by some artificial presence. John is insistent that the house is perfectly fine and that it is Emily’s mental health that is questionable. Will Emily’s increasing obsession with the wallpaper and her paranoia alleviate with time?
The story comes to us in Emily’s third person perspective.

Sloot, Utah/Arizona border. Fifty-eight-year-old Norma volunteers with the local Search-and-Rescue team, using her horse and her two hounds to locate missing persons. On one such occasion, she finds a nineteen-year-old girl named Jill, reported missing by her boyfriend. However, Jill begs Norma not to reveal to anyone her whereabouts as she is terrified of her boyfriend Jake and was trying to run away from him when she lost her way. Against her gut feel, Norma decides to adhere to Jill’s request and helps her back to her parents’ house in California.
Things are quiet until five years later, when an arrest rakes up the old news again. To Norma’s surprise, Jake has been taken into custody for one crime but he will also be tried for Jill’s murder. Norma is now torn between her promise and her instinct.
The story comes to us in Norma’s limited third-person perspective over two sections – the initial events and the ‘five years later’ section.

Blythe is desperate to sell just one more house this month so that she can set a new record at the real estate firm she works with. So she bends the truth just a teensy bit when she sells a home in the picturesque little town of Holly Cross to city dweller Sam. Sam hates Christmas, so he is unaware that he has purchased a residence in the centre of the most Christmassy village of the country. Needless to say, as Christmas draws near, Sam is the Grinch who might jeopardise Holly Cross’s chances of winning a Christmas village competition. Now Blythe has to do some quick reparations as she is the one to blame.
The story comes to us in the third person perspective of Blythe and Vicky – Blythe’s best friend.

2007. New York.
Fleeing from an abusive marriage in China, Jasmine arrives in New York City with hardly any support system of money or family. Her main purpose is to be reunited with her daughter, who, unknown to her, was taken away at birth and offered to an American couple for adoption. With her ex searching for her, Jasmine is running out of time to find her child and escape permanently. But how is she to do that?
Rebecca, an editor-in-chief at a publishing company, has it all – a job she loves, a talented and good-looking husband, a loveable adopted daughter Fifi, prestige, and wealth. However, her life suddenly seems to be on a downswing, with first her job and then her marriage in trouble. As the world around her begins to collapse, Rebecca knows she needs to save her family and her job at any cost. But how is she to do that?
The lives of these two women, as you might have guessed, are on a collision course, which forms the crux of the novel.
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Jasmine and the third person perspective of Rebecca.