Ella Rubenstein accepts a position as a reader for a literary agent at the age of forty and in an unhappy marriage. Her first task is to read and analyze the book Sweet Blasphemy, which was authored by Aziz Zahara. Ella is captivated by his account of Shams’s quest for Rumi and the dervish’s contribution to the prosperous but dissatisfied cleric’s transformation into a dedicated mystic, passionate poet, and proponent of love. Shams’s teachings, or rules, which provide insight into an antiquated philosophy based on the equality of all people and religions and the existence of love in every single one of us, also capture her attention. As she continues to read, she comes to understand that Zahara, like Shams, has come to set her free and that Rumi’s story mirrors her own.
Elif Shafak, a renowned Turkish author, presents two enticing parallel narratives in this lyrical, vivacious sequel to her 2007 book The Bastard of Istanbul—one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century when Rumi met his spiritual guide, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz—that together embodied the poet’s eternal message of love.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love
“Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful!”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love
“If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.”
― Elif Şafak, The Forty Rules of Love
“How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships? It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love
“Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love
The matter is finished. Schoolgirl Andie Bell was killed by Sal Singh five years ago. He committed it, and the cops are aware of it. He did it, and everyone in town knows it.
Pippa Fitz-Amobi, who grew up in the same little village that was devastated by the murder, isn’t so sure. She begins to learn truths that someone in the community urgently wants to keep concealed when she selects the case as the subject for her senior year project. How far will they go to protect Pip from learning the truth if the real murderer is still out there?
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point.”
“But sometimes remembering isn’t for yourself, sometimes you do it just to make someone else smile. Those lies were allowed.”
“Real men wear floral when trespassing”
“I’m not sure I’m the good girl i once thought i was . I’ve lost her along the way”
“Pip wished she was strong enough, but she’d learned that she wasn’t invincible; she too could break.”
The color of the blood—red or silver—divides this planet. The Silver elite, who control the Reds, are commoners with superhuman abilities akin to those of gods. Mare Barrow, a Red teenager from the impoverished Stilts, is seventeen years old, and she believes that nothing will ever shift. Up until the point when she starts working at the Silver Palace. Mare learns that despite having red blood, she wields a lethal power of her own here, surrounded by those she despises the most. one that poses a danger to the power dynamic. The Silvers conceal Mare in plain sight and claim she is a long-lost princess who is now engaged to a Silver prince out of fear for Mare’s potential. Mare works covertly to support the Red Guard, a militant rebel movement, and overthrow the Silver government even though she is aware that one wrong move could result in her demise. Mare has entered a hazardous dance, pitting Reds against Silvers, princes against princes, and herself against her own heart, yet this is a world of treachery and deception.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”
“Anyone can betray anyone.”
“Rise, red as the dawn.”
“Words can lie. See beyond them.”
“I told you to hide your heart once. You should have listened.”
Verity is a psychological drama that also works as a romance. It’s about an author who is seeking to secure a new contract. She had a lot going on in her life that was stopping her from writing, and she desperately needed money. Her publisher is looking for a ghostwriter to fulfill the agreement, and they choose Lowen for the job. The conditions are unusual.
Her husband wants Lowen to come and stay at the Virginia house, and he wants her to go over Verity’s notes to figure out how she might finish the remaining novels. When Lowen visits Verity’s house, she discovers a book unconnected to the subject she’s working on, and things begin to go wrong.
All of the characters are keeping a lot of secrets, and you never know what will happen. This novel is disturbing. It’s going to screw you over. Lowen observes someone getting driven over by a truck, which is an unusual way to meet someone. This second-to-last chapter contains a storyline surprise that alters your viewpoint on the whole book. To keep the twist alive.
Today, we’ll discuss Christina Lauren’s novel The Unhoneymooners! I have seen this book a lot, so I chose to give it a try and see whether it is deserving of the attention it is receiving. My eagerness to complete this book is increased by the fact that it is my first Christina Lauren book.
Olive and Ethan, two sworn adversaries, are the subjects of the storyline in The Unhoneymooners. The story opens with Ami, Olive’s twin sister, getting married. Ami has always been the fortunate twin of the two of them, but Olive used to be the unfortunate one.
Everyone at the wedding, including the bride and groom, had food poisoning that evening, with the exception of Olive and the groom’s brother Ethan, who was meant to be his worst enemy. Olive was forced to go to Hawaii in place of her sister because she already had a 10-day bridal trip to Maui, Hawaii, scheduled. She went to Hawaii alone, without any other Ethan Torres, and pretended to be married the entire time.
French novelist Albert Camus wrote a novella in 1942 titled The Stranger, which was also released in English as The Outsider. Although Camus expressly disliked the term “existentialism,” its theme and attitude are sometimes regarded as instances of his philosophy, absurdism combined with existentialism.
Camus investigated what he called “the nudeness of man confronted with the ludicrous” through the tale of a regular man who unknowingly becomes involved in a senseless killing on a beach in Algeria. Published for the first time in English in 1946; a new translation by Matthew Ward.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.”
“I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”
“I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste it on God.”
“Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.”
“I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”
In a different version of the United States, the government requires everyone who turns 18 to undergo a surgery known as the Cure since it has been classified as a deadly disease. Lena Haloway, who resides in Portland, Maine with her aunt, uncle, and cousins, is eagerly anticipating her recovery and the start of a secure, routine life. Her mother was destroyed by love, and she is not ready to make the same error.
However, Lena meets mysterious Alex, a guy from the “Wilds” who lives beneath the government’s radar, with 95 days till her treatment. If they do the unthinkable and fall in love, what will happen?
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I love you. Remember. They cannot take it”
“You can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes”.”
“I’d rather die my way than live yours.”
“I guess that’s just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.”
“Love: It will kill you and save you, both”
Society officials make decisions. those you cherish. the place you work after death. Cassia has always had faith in their decisions. For long life, the ideal work, and the ideal partner, it’s barely a price to pay. Cassia is therefore positive that her best buddy is the one when he shows up on the matching screen. until she briefly catches a glimpse of another face before the television becomes blank. Cassia is now forced to make unthinkable decisions between Xander and Ky, between the life she has always known and a route no one else has ever dared take—between passion and perfection. A story with the resonance of a classic, Matched is one for the present.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.”
“Every minute you spend with someone gives them a part of your life and takes part of theirs.”
“It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures.”
“Once you want something, everything changes.”
“We could have been happy. I know that, and it is perhaps the hardest thing to know.”
The Republic, a country that is constantly at war with its neighbors, now resides in what was formerly the western United States. June, 15, is a prodigy being prepared for achievement in the Republic’s top military circles. She was born into a wealthy family in one of the wealthiest districts of the Republic. Day, a 15-year-old who was born in a slum, is the most wanted criminal in the nation. But his motivations might not be as evil as they first appear.
June and Day, who come from completely different worlds, have no reason to interact—that is, until the day when June’s brother, Metias, is killed and Day is named the main suspect. The day is fighting for his family’s life in the ultimate cat and mouse game, while June is out to exact revenge on Day for Metias’s passing. The two learn the horrifying reality about what actually brought them together and the nefarious extent their country would go to maintain its secrets, however, in a startling turn of events.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“If you want to rebel, rebel from inside the system. That’s much more powerful than rebelling outside the system.”
“What a joke! Poor little rich girl’s fallen in love with the Republic’s most famous criminal.”
“Forever and ever, kid, until you’re sick and tired of seeing me.”
“The memory fades, and I’m left hanging on to the ghosts of his
“You try to walk in the light.”
Tally is eagerly anticipating turning sixteen. She will get the surgery that will transform her from a repulsive ugly into a stunningly beautiful in a matter of weeks. And because she’s attractive, she’ll be thrust into a futuristic paradise where her only responsibility is to have fun.
Shay, Tally’s new acquaintance, is unsure if she wants to pursue a career in beauty. Tally discovers a brand-new aspect of the picturesque world when Shay flees, and it’s not very picturesque. Tally is given the option by the authorities to either find her buddy and turn her in, or to never turn pretty at all. Tally’s decision will alter her reality forever.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.”
“Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same.”
“When she awoke, the world was on fire.”
“We’re not freaks, Tally. We’re normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we’re not hyped-up Barbie dolls.”
“The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.”
The Selection is the opportunity of their lives for 35 girls – the chance to leave the life that has been predetermined for them since birth, to get sucked into a world filled with costly diamonds and glistening garments, and to contend for the affection of charming Prince Maxon while residing in a palace.
But being chosen is a nightmare for America Singer. It entails her abandoning her covert romance with Aspen, a member of a lower caste. leaving her home to participate in a challenging contest for a crown she doesn’t desire. residing in a palace that is frequently attacked by vicious rebels. Then Prince Maxon encounters America. She gradually begins to doubt all of her expectations for herself and discovers that the life she’s constantly envisaged might not be as fulfilling as the future she could never have imagined.
Just 264 days have passed since Juliette last touched anyone. Although it was an accident the previous time she did it, The Reestablishment imprisoned her for murder. Why Juliette’s touch is deadly is a mystery. Nobody really cares as long as she does not at all harm anyone else. Too much is happening in the world right now to focus on a 17-year-old girl. The population is being wiped out by diseases, food is scarce, birds can no longer fly, and the skies are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment locked Juliette in a cell after claiming that it was the only method for putting things right. As a result of the current death toll, the Reestablishment has shifted its position and the survivors are talking war. Juliette might be more than just a troubled soul trapped inside a lethal shell. Perhaps she is just what they need at this time. Decide if Juliette will be a weapon. or take up arms.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
“I’m oxygen and he’s dying to breathe.”
“Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.”
“I’ve been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.”
“Hope is a pocket of possibility.
I’m holding it in my hand.”
One decision has the power to change you—or to ruin you. Tris Prior must continue working to save those she loves—and herself—while juggling haunting issues of loss and redemption, identity and loyalty, politics and love. But every decision has repercussions, and as unrest rises in the groups all around her, Tris Prior must keep trying to save those she loves—and herself.
The day of Tris’ initiation ought to have concluded in victory and celebration with her preferred faction; instead, it was filled with horrible atrocities. The threat of war has increased as tensions between the factions and their ideas rise. And during times of war, decisions must be made, secrets will come to light, and decisions will become even more final—and powerful. Tris must completely accept her Divergence, even though she is unsure of what she might lose in the process. Tris has been transformed by her own choices as well as by lingering grief and remorse, shocking new learnings, and altering relationships.
The eagerly awaited second installment of the dystopian DIVERGENT series by New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth is another thrilling thrill ride with all the usual twists, heartbreaks, romance, and profound insights into human nature.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.”
“Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.”
“Sleep,” he says. “I’ll fight the bad dreams off if they come to get you.” “With what?” “My bare hands, obviously.”
“It reminds me why I chose Dauntless in the first place: not because they are perfect, but because they are alive. Because they are free.”
“No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.”
Daniel Grigori evokes a painfully familiar feeling. He immediately grabs Luce Price’s interest when she first sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in humid Savannah, Georgia. He is mysterious and aloof. He is the lone shining light in a school were using cell phones is prohibited, all of the other students are idiots, and surveillance cameras record every action.
She can’t let it go, even when Daniel makes it abundantly plain that he desires nothing whatsoever to do with Luce. She is compelled to learn what Daniel is so determined to keep a secret, even if it means dying, for she is attracted to him as a moth to a flame.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours?”
“Trust is a careless pursuit at best. At worst, it’s a good way to get yourself killed.”
“The only way to survive eternity is to be able to appreciate each moment.”
“You know everyone loves to hate a happy pair of lovebirds.”
“It felt so good
just to be held”
All that is required is a quick DNA test. With just a brief mouth swab, you can be genetically matched with the ideal companion in no time. Match Your DNA makes that commitment. The business claimed to have discovered the gene that matches each of us with our soul mate ten years ago. Since then, millions of individuals have been linked globally. However, the discovery has some drawbacks: test results have destroyed numerous relationships and challenged conventional notions of dating, romance, and love.
Five very different persons have now each received a “Matched” notification. Each of them is about to find their true love. But not everyone gets to live happily ever after because secrets exist even amongst soulmates. Additionally, some are more stunning than others… The One is a fascinating book that demonstrates how even the most straightforward findings can have complex repercussions. It was a word-of-mouth sensation in the UK.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“If you’ve got the opportunity to love someone as much as they love you, then grab it with both hands and hold on to it for dear life.”
“Maybe when you took it back to basics, that’s what love really was: just being there for someone when the sun rises and sets.”
“There were others out there like him, which meant that Christopher was normal, just a different type of normal.”
“I also wanted to demonstrate how greedy we are as human beings. How willing we are to give up everything and anyone we hold dear on the suggestion there might be something better around the corner.”
“It’d be like suing gun manufacturers on behalf of anyone who’s ever been shot. It’s not the fault of the weapon, it’s the user.”
In the dystopian Chicago society created by Beatrice Prior, there are five factions: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the courageous), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the learned) (the intelligent). All sixteen-year-olds must choose the faction to which they’ll dedicate the rest of their lives on a designated day each year. Beatrice must choose between remaining with her family and coming out as who she truly is since she cannot be both. She thus makes a decision that shocks both herself and everyone else.
Beatrice adopts the name Tris during the extremely competitive induction that follows and battles with the other initiates to carry out their decisions. Together, they must endure difficult physical endurance tests and demanding psychological simulations, some of which have grave repercussions. Tris must decide who her true friends are as initiation alters them all and where precisely a romance with an often interesting, sometimes irritating boy fits into the world she has chosen. Tris has a secret, though, and she has kept it a secret from everyone since she has been warned it may be fatal. Additionally, she finds that her secret might either help her save the people she cares about or endanger them as she uncovers unrest and escalating conflict that threaten to tear apart her society’s façade of perfection.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.”
“Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.”
“I might be in love with you.” He smiles a little. “I’m waiting until I’m sure to tell you, though.”
“I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren’t all that different.”
“Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up”
The Maze Runner, the first book in The Maze Runner series, is a young adult dystopian science fiction book created by American novelist James Dashner.
Thomas can only recall his name when he awakens in the elevator. Guys whose memories are likewise lost are all around him; they are strangers. The Glade is surrounded by imposing stone walls, yet beyond them is an endless maze that changes constantly. There is no other way out, and no one has ever survived. Then a female shows up. the first-ever female. She also conveys a terrible message. Remember. Run, then live.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“If you ain’t scared… you ain’t human.”
“You are the shuckiest shuck faced shuck in the world!”
“It’s kind of hard to ask a dead guy what he did wrong.”
“Just follow me and run like your life depends on it. Because it does.”
“I’ve been shucked and gone to heaven.”
Everything changes in the blink of an eye. Mia, who is now seventeen, has no recollection of the disaster; all she can recall is what happened later when she saw her own wounded body being removed from the wreck. She labors to piece everything together, to understand what she has gained, what she has sacrificed, and the extremely difficult decision she must make. This will alter how you view life, love, and family because it is so exquisitely beautiful and heartbreaking. Mia’s narrative will stick with you for a very, very long time. It is now a big-budget movie starring Chloe Grace Moretz.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.”
“I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard.”
“And that’s just it, isn’t it? That’s how we manage to survive the loss. Because love, it never dies, it never goes away, it never fades, so long as you hang on to it.”
“Love, it never dies. It never goes away, it never fades, so long as you hang on to it. Love can make you immortal”
“Losing me will hurt; it will be the kind of pain that won’t feel real at first, and when it does, it will take her breath away.”
Melanie Stryder won’t go away. A species that takes control of human hosts’ minds while maintaining their bodies unharmed has invaded the earth. Wanderer, the alien “soul” that has been given Melanie’s body, wasn’t prepared to discover its former occupant reluctant to give up control of her thoughts.
Wanderer starts to crave for a man she’s never encountered as Melanie feeds her thoughts with images of Jared, a human who is still hiding out. Melanie and Wanderer set off in pursuit of the man they both love as reluctant companions.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“It’s not the face, but the expressions on it. It’s not the voice, but what you say. It’s not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it. You are beautiful.”
“Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.”
“I, the soul called Wanderer, love you, human Ian. And that will never change, no matter what I might become.”
“I held you in my hands, Wanderer, and you were beautiful.”
“You never know how much time you’ll have.”
The heartwarming love tale of a woman who has lost her sight and her husband, who fights for their existence as they travel through Syria as refugees to Europe. Beekeeper Nuri and artist Afra are married. In the lovely Syrian city of Aleppo, they have a straightforward existence full of family and friends—until the unthinkable occurs. They are compelled to flee after the war destroys all they care about. However, Afra’s experience was so horrific that it caused her to lose her vision. As a result, they must go across Turkey and Greece at great risk in order to reach an unknown future in Britain.
Nuri is kept going on the journey by the knowledge that Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has established an apiary and is instructing other refugees in Yorkshire in beekeeping, will be waiting for them. In addition to the sorrow of their own unfathomable loss, Nuri and Afra must face perils that would weaken even the most courageous individuals as they journey through a ruined world. They must travel in order to reconnect, above all. The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a moving, potent, sympathetic, and exquisitely written example of how the human spirit may prevail. It is the kind of book that serves as a reminder of the importance of narrative.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Where there are bees there are flowers, and wherever there are flowers there is new life and hope.”
“But in Syria there is a saying: inside the person you know, there is a person you do not know.”
“Sometimes we create such powerful illusions, so that we do not get lost in the darkness.”
“When you belong to someone and they are gone, who are you?”
“It’s amazing, the way we love people from the day we are born, the way we hold on, as if we are holding on to life itself.”
Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies established her as one of the most outstanding writers of her generation. Her stories are one of just a few debut works – and only a few collections – to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical acclaim for its grace, insight, and compassion in depicting lives transplanted from India to America were among the many other awards and distinctions it garnered.
Lahiri expands on the issues that made her compilation an international phenomenon, including the immigrant experience, cultural clashes, assimilation struggles, and, most poignantly, the braided relationships between generations. Lahiri’s fine touch for the exact detail — the fleeting instant, the turn of phrase — opens up huge worlds of feeling on display once more.
Lahiri portrays Gogol with amazing empathy as he struggles along the first-generation path, which is littered with conflicted loyalties, humorous detours, and wrenching love affairs. She illustrates, with razor-sharp clarity, not just the defining impact of the names and expectations put upon us by our parents, but also the process by which we gradually, and sometimes painfully, begin to define ourselves.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
“You are still young, free.. Do yourself a favor. Before it’s too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late.”
“They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”
“Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.”
“She has the gift of accepting her life.”
As a result, You ask for a story, therefore I’ll give it to you. 1952 in Afghanistan. In the little village of Shadbagh, Abdullah and his sister Pari reside with their father and stepmother. Together they endure hardship and harsh winters as their father, Saboor, is always looking for a job. Pari, who is as lovely and kind-hearted as the fairy after whom she was named, means the world to Abdullah. Abdullah is more like a dad to her than a brother and will do anything for her, even giving up his one and only pair of shoes for a priceless feather. Each night, they share a cot, their heads touching and their limbs intertwined. The siblings and their father travel to Kabul by way of the desert one day.
The events that will take place there will destroy Pari and Abdullah’s lives; sometimes a finger must be amputated in order to save a hand. Pari and Abdullah have no idea what doom awaits them there. Khaled Hosseini writes about the ties that describe us and shape our lives, the ways in which we assist our loved ones in need, how the decisions we make resonate through history, and how we are frequently surprised by the people closest to us, spanning generations and continents and moving from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
“It’s a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they’re afraid of. What they don’t want.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
“They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
“I now know that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
“Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed