Sara Nisha Adams is a writer and editor. She was born in Hertfordshire, England, to Indian and English parents and now lives in London. The Reading List is partly inspired by her grandfather, who lived in Wembley and who immediately found a connection with his granddaughter through books.
Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in Wembley, in West London after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries. Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at a local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It's a list of novels that she's never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she's facing at home. When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list...hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.
The Reading List follows two characters as they read a list of books curated by an unknown person. This list, with classic favorites like Little Women and To Kill a Mockingbird, gives the two main characters, Mukesh and Aleisha, the ability to connect with one another and the other people in their lives they're having trouble reaching. I really loved the thesis of this book—how books can bring people together, how it can show you the way when you're stuck, how books aren't just used for escapism. Adams captures that thesis quite nicely by demonstrating how Mukesh and Aleisha are able to better understand themselves and the people around them by the end of the novel. It's a very quiet, but very powerful story to tell.
I love books about books, so I was expecting to really fall in love with this one, especially since the titular reading list has a few of my own favorites (like Little Women and Pride and Prejudice). I found some elements of the book itself rather cheesy, like how both Aleisha and Mukesh see the characters from the books they're reading around them in real life, or how every single book they read applies to something going on in their life. I read a lot of books, and I haven't always felt that powerful feeling with everything I've read, so I found it a bit unrealistic that that would be the case for those two. Cheesiness aside, I think all of it goes to show that anyone can be a book person, and that books are for every person, no matter your previous experience with novels and reading. That is one of my favorite takeaways.
I have some conflicted feelings about the end of the novel. I wasn't sure that Aidan's death was handled in the best way that it could have been, meaning that I don't think the pacing of the ending nor the ending itself did justice to the type of grief and surprise that comes when someone dies unexpectedly. I'm not entirely sure how to phrase my thoughts about this, and I know I'll be thinking about it for a long while. Truly, otherwise, this was a hopeful and reflective read. I love how it's a testament to the power of books and human connectivity. It just wasn't the strongest book that I'd read with these themes before.
For more from Sarah Nisha Adams, visit her online on Instagram @sarahnishaadamsbooks.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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