Month: May 2026

Some People by Parini Shroff (Literary / Multicultural Fiction)

Loved this book. Nathan — a crusty, hyper rational type with “minimal emotional amplitude” — is called to the bedside of Malta, his soon-to-be-ex mother-in-law (no love lost there!) when a bad fall lands her in the hospital. While neither is particularly happy with the new arrangement, Nathan has committed to moving in to help until Malta can care for herself as Kavya, Malta’s daughter (and Nathan’s soon-to-be ex-wife) is in India on a two year study program.

What follows is humorous, insightful, and almost like an unraveling mystery — but the kind of mystery based on the more difficult question of how to really understand another person (dead bodies are easier to deal with!). While untangling the relationships is the primary theme, I also enjoyed the constant cross-cultural commentary. Malti is outspoken and somewhat acerbic as she expresses her (usually negative) judgement of others. A common refrain at the end of several conversations is “Some People…” I found myself (of course) judging each of them as they worked through their mutual misunderstanding and was quite surprised by some of the perceptions. As an example, Nathan is great at fixing things and wants to fix the (many, many) broken things around Malta’s house. But Malta tells him that she takes this as an implicit criticism of her and the way she lives. To me that is crazy, but how interesting that someone could actually feel that way! Plenty more of that kind of perception war in the pages.

The writing is expressive, with clear descriptions of abstractions that aren’t always easy to articulate. I ended up appreciating and understanding all three of the characters, though it is very clear (to me) which I could be long term friends with.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 7th, 2026.

Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 5/5 Characters: 4/5

This was a wild ride — adventurous (plenty of plot), insightful, and deep dives into broad domains of art, physics, and relationships. Noah, a quantum physicist, is enticed into a top secret, billionaire funded project that explores the nature of time, memory, and consciousness in an intriguing, and quite personal, way. His wife Maya, a Tokyo-born, biracial artist, joins him hoping to explore the vibrant, though isolated, art scene in Marfa, Texas (look it up — the art scene is real!). Noah has never fully recovered from the death of his three-year old child and the ensuing collapse of his previous marriage, and he hopes that this project will somehow allow him to reconnect with a past that he can’t quite escape.

I was particularly drawn to how a single book could so thoroughly explore topics (time, memory, and consciousness) from two so dissimilar perspectives and manage to create a synergy between them. The physics explanations were far more plausible than I expected and the artistic dives were far more interesting (to me — a non artist) than I expected. I liked the characters, found the philosophical scrutiny well-paced and satisfyingly twisted, and the commentary on the motivations, approaches to problems, and subjective experiences of the three main characters (the physicist, his wife, and his ex-wife) fascinating.

The author also wrote The Ensemble — a novel about a young string quartet navigating the complex and somewhat cutthroat world of classical music performance. I loved that book as well. I’m impressed by the way this author is able to bring these very different worlds (classical music performance, modern art, quantum physics) to life in a way that allows the reader to inhabit a world in which they have no real expertise through the eyes of a character who actually does.