Trust Me Not
By Ankita Verma Datta
Pages: 378
Trust Me Not essentially deals with a volatile love affair set on the back-ground of political power-broking, corporate whitewash and media manipulation. It’s a romantic and political thriller. The author tries to give a message that humans are susceptible to an inherent, fatal flaw which becomes the cause of their undoing. In the end, you can’t believe everything you see or hear. Nothing is as it seems and nothing can be trusted by its face-value. In this book, the author attempts to reflect the realities of today’s times with the help of interesting and at times jarring insights about the dynamics of corporate world, politics and media. Trust Me Not, is definitely not a pure ‘romantic’ offering, but as the name suggests, it goes into the realm of deceit that’s become common place in today’s time. So much so that we are easily ready to embrace the ‘grey areas’.
Idaho
By Emily Ruskovich
Pages: 320
Idaho was celebrated as the first major fiction debut of this year. It is written by Emily Ruskovich who has received O Henry Prize in 2015 for her short story “Owl.” In Idaho, Ruskovich writes about the northern panhandle of her native state and explores the landscapes of different characters’ memories and secrets. Darkness is around every corner. Wade is losing his memory and Ann, his wife, is struggling to understand what happened to his ex-wife Jenny. As the story unfolds, we realise that Jenny is in prison after she kills her young daughter and we gradually learn of the mysterious act that fractured Wade and Jenny’s lives, of the love and compassion that brought Ann and Wade together and of the memories of the forested mountain in the wilderness of Idaho that reverberate through the lives of every character in the story.
How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir
By Cat Marnell
Pages: 384
Cat Marnell, 26, is an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in US —and that’s all most people know about her. But she has hid a secret life. She is a prescription drug addict. She is also a “doctor shopper” who manipulates Upper East Side psychiatrists for pills. Marnell is a lonely bulimic who spends hundreds of dollars a week on binge foods and a promiscuous party girl who dances barefoot on banquets. The story is about self-loathing, self-sabotage and self-tanner. It begins at a posh New England prep school and with a prescription for Attention Deficit Disorder medication. The story follows Marnell’s amphetamine-fueled rise from intern to editor in New York. She fights to keep her ambition and how, inevitably, her disease threatens everything she worked so hard to achieve.
All the Lives I Want
By Alana Massey
Pages: 256
Massey analyses lives of the women who reflect our greatest aspirations and darkest fears back onto us. The book is a collection of essays are personal with a cultural critique and a finely wrought fan letter, interwoven with her stories. All the lives I Want is not just about celebrity worship but also explores mental illness, the sex industry, and the dangers of loving too hard. But it is, above all, a tribute to the celebrities who have shaped a generation of women – from Scarlett Johansson to Amber Rose, Lil’ Kim, Anjelica Huston, Lana Del Rey and Anna Nicole Smith. These reflections aim to reimagine these women’s legacies, and in the process, teach us new ways of forgiving ourselves. Massey tries to bridge the gap bwteen Sylvia Plath and Amber Rose, and all the high- and lowbrow female celebrities in between with her contemporary voice and a sense of humour.