The Art of Almost Being Chosen by Kepler Vel

 

What if the person you’re waiting for is actually teaching you how little you’ve been choosing yourself? 🖤⏳

That question stayed with me long after I finished The Art of Almost Being Chosen.

There were so many little moments where I caught myself thinking, "Oh… I understand why she became this way." 🥺

Like the fourth-grade girl who quietly turns her 4 into a 2 on her report card just to hear "Good" from her father. Or the beautiful simplicity of her sitting with Priya, reading silently for forty minutes—no explanations, no pressure, just someone willing to stay. 📖🤍

And then there’s the ₹7,000 first salary. A tiny number on paper, but such a powerful moment for her. It made me understand that her ambition was never simply about success—it was about earning freedom, dignity and the right to choose her own life. ✨

But the moment that genuinely stopped me was much later.

After days of silence, she finally confronts the man she has been waiting for. And when he admits he was "seeing how many days you would wait", something inside her finally shifts. 💔

Because suddenly, this isn’t just about one relationship.

It’s about a pattern.

About how easily patience can become self-abandonment.... how endurance can disguise itself as love and how often we keep waiting because we’re afraid of what choosing ourselves might cost. 🥀

I loved how the book doesn’t give you an easy, perfect answer. Instead, it leaves you with something much more unsettling:

Maybe being chosen was never the point. Maybe choosing differently was. 🖤

A deeply reflective, emotional read and one that might make you question a few things you’ve been quietly accepting. 🌙📚

Beyond Goodbye by Tanishka Chugera

Reading Beyond Goodbye felt strangely intimate. It didn’t feel like I was simply reading someone else’s story—I felt like I was being trusted with memories that were never meant to be easy to share. ❤️

What makes this book so powerful is how quickly an ordinary day can turn into something you wish you could undo. The family moments, the children, dinner plans, conversations, laughter and then suddenly, a hospital room, fear, prayers and a daughter desperately holding on to her mother. That scene around the last hug genuinely stayed with me. 💔

And then the book takes a turn I found surprisingly captivating. ✨

The story doesn't stop with loss. Tanishka begins looking for her mother in the places grief teaches you to notice—the butterflies that keep appearing, dreams that feel almost real, little coincidences, familiar feelings and eventually meditation and auto-writing. 🦋🌙 I found myself wondering along with her:

Are these just coincidences or can love really find another way to reach us?

That question kept pulling me forward.

I also appreciated that the book doesn't offer some perfectly packaged version of healing. There are days of emptiness, anger, confusion and loneliness. Festivals don't feel the same. Familiar routines suddenly feel strange. Even the smallest things can bring the absence rushing back. 🕯️

Yet somewhere along the way, grief begins changing shape. The author slowly discovers that remembering someone isn't always about looking backward—it can become a way of carrying them forward. 🤍

And honestly, that is what I took away from Beyond Goodbye. It made me think about the people I love, the ordinary moments I probably don't appreciate enough and how quickly those moments can become the memories we hold onto forever.

🌸 If you're drawn to emotional true stories, motherhood, grief, spirituality and books that make you pause long after you've finished reading, I genuinely think this is one worth picking up.

Just be prepared—you might finish it and find yourself looking at your own loved ones a little differently. ❤️‍🩹📚

 

Almost… Not Quite: A Collection of Short Stories by Sonali Bhattacharya

Have you ever missed something you never really had?

That strange ache of almost — almost love, almost home, almost a dream, almost a life you once imagined.

That’s exactly where Almost… Not Quite found me. 💭

This collection doesn’t shout for your attention. It quietly places little pieces of longing in front of you and somehow makes you recognize yourself in them.

What I really enjoyed was how every story carries a different kind of Na Pawa.

In “Touch of Na Pawa,” Arindam’s return to Kolkata for a concert becomes much more than a work trip. An empty chair beside him brings back memories of his parents, childhood, old songs and a home that no longer exists in the same way. And that moment when he calls his mother, knowing the number is no longer in use, quietly broke my heart. ❤️

Then there’s “Almost Love” where two people who once stood so close to becoming something more meet again years later. There’s no dramatic confession — just the quiet realization of what might have been.

I particularly loved “The Yellow Bus”. What begins as a child watching a yellow school bus becomes something much deeper about ambition, limitations and the dreams we attach to ordinary things. 🚌✨

“Waiting for Me” stayed with me too. Nirupa discovering those old letters and slowly realizing that she wasn’t really waiting for someone else anymore — she had been waiting for herself.

And “Roots in Ink” asks a question that feels incredibly human: Can a piece of paper really decide where you belong? 🌿

That’s what makes this collection work so beautifully for me.

These are stories about love, family, dreams, regret and the things that slipped through our fingers — but perhaps never completely left us.

Because somewhere between these pages, I found myself thinking about a few of my own almosts. ❤️‍🩹

A quiet, reflective read — the kind you finish, close and then sit with for a while.

 

I MANIFESTED YOU: A Modern Vedic Love Story by Dr. Richa Pathak

What if the person you thought you had lost…was never really meant to leave your story? ✨

That was the question quietly sitting in my mind while I read I Manifested You.

At first, Niyati and Rudra’s story feels like a familiar tale of two people whose paths cross again after years. But the more I read, the more complicated it became. There’s old affection, unfinished conversations, family expectations, misunderstandings and feelings that neither of them seems quite ready to confront. ❤️‍🩹

One moment that immediately pulled me in is Niyati recognising Rudra during her medal ceremony. After all those years, one glimpse is enough to bring everything rushing back. And suddenly, this isn't just a reunion anymore. It feels like something unfinished has come looking for them. 👀

Then comes Kedarnath. 🏔️🕉️

A road trip, mountains, the Ganga, temple bells, stories of Shiva and Parvati—and two people carrying far more emotional baggage than they admit. I particularly enjoyed how the journey becomes almost symbolic: the farther they travel, the harder it becomes for them to keep running from their own feelings.

And just when the romance starts taking centre stage, the story brings in manifestation, mythology and spirituality. ✨ It made me pause more than once and think about how much of our lives is shaped by what we repeatedly believe, notice and choose.

But the emotional rollercoaster doesn't stop there.

Misunderstandings deepen. Hearts break. Rudra pulls away. Niyati struggles with what she feels. And then the hospital sequence changes the emotional temperature of the entire story. ❤️‍🩹

What I liked most is that this isn't simply “Will they end up together?”

For me, the more interesting question became:

“If two people are truly meant to find each other, how many times will life make them lose their way first?” 🌙

If you're looking for a romance that mixes love, destiny, spirituality, mythology and emotional drama, this is one I'd recommend going into without knowing too much.

Because honestly…the less you know before opening this book, the more fun it is to discover where the story takes you. ✨❤️

 

You Are Loved, You Are Enough: A Memoir about embracing life by Sheryl A. Oleksak

 

🌄 I didn't expect a story about self-love to make me remember a man, his dog and a sunset on a mountain.

But that little story from You Are Loved, You Are Enough stayed with me. ❤️

Sheryl A. Oleksak’s memoir is filled with moments like this—seemingly small memories that gradually reveal something much bigger about the person behind them. Her connection with Sedona, the older man she repeatedly met while he photographed sunsets, and the quiet story of his dog returning to the place it loved most felt unexpectedly tender to me. 🐾 It reminded me that sometimes the moments that stay with us aren't the dramatic ones but the ones that make us stop and simply feel.

What I appreciated most about this memoir is how personal it feels. Sheryl doesn't try to make her journey look neat. She talks openly about growing up with a complicated relationship with her mother, struggling with food and body image, navigating relationships and slowly figuring out what self-worth actually meant for her.

The food chapters especially caught my attention. Her journey from feeling restricted by food to eventually becoming someone who could travel, explore different cuisines and genuinely enjoy eating felt like a much deeper story about freedom than I expected. 🍽️🌍

I also loved the evolution of her relationship with yoga. 🧘‍♀️ What begins as a physical practice becomes something much more meaningful—breath, meditation, patience, healing and eventually a way for her to help other people find their own sense of balance.

But if there is one thing I took away from this book, it's that healing doesn't necessarily mean forgetting what happened. Sometimes it means accepting what you cannot change, forgiving without expecting anything in return and deciding that your past no longer gets to control your present. 🌿

I finished this book feeling strangely calm.

Not because everything in Sheryl's life suddenly became perfect, but because she learned to stop waiting for perfection before allowing herself to enjoy life.

And honestly, isn't that something most of us could use a little more of? ✨

Confessions of a Safariholic: Lessons from Central India's Tiger Habitats by Dr. Milind Desai

 

🐾 I went looking for tigers. I ended up finding the forest.

There’s something wonderfully deceptive about Confessions of a Safariholic. You pick it up expecting tiger stories, thrilling sightings and perhaps a few spectacular encounters. Instead, Dr. Milind Desai quietly pulls you deeper into the world around the tiger and that is where this book truly comes alive. 🌿

What I particularly enjoyed was how the author notices the little things most of us would probably miss.

Take the recurring “Bhai, lens kaunsa hai?” question. It sounds amusingly familiar but it becomes a surprisingly sharp observation about how safari photography can sometimes become more important than actually experiencing the forest. 📷

Then there are the alarm calls—the sambar, the langurs, the subtle changes in the forest. The book makes you realise that a tiger sighting doesn't begin when you finally see stripes. It begins much earlier, if you know how to listen. And sometimes, the most memorable safari is the one where the tiger never shows up.

I also loved the wonderfully specific world of breakfast points. A simple breakfast becomes part of the safari rhythm—drivers, guides, tourists, conversations, routines and those little unwritten rules that regular safari-goers understand. ☕🌳

And perhaps my favourite part is the author's honesty about the lens itself—how expensive equipment doesn't automatically make someone a better wildlife photographer. It's observations like these that make the book feel lived-in rather than researched.

This is not just a book about wildlife. It is about patience, people, photography, forests, obsession and learning to notice.

By the last few pages, I wasn't simply thinking, “I want to see a tiger.”

I was thinking, “I want to go on safari like this.” 🐅✨

Did You Hear Me?: Little Voices, Big Feelings by Jacqueline Moss

 

📖 Some children's books are meant to be read.

💭 Some are meant to be talked about.

I read Little Voices, Big Feelings: Did You Hear Me? with my niece, and what I enjoyed most was seeing how naturally she connected with Amari’s feelings. 🥹

There was no need for me to explain everything to her. She could see that Amari was trying to say something, people around her were busy and slowly that small feeling of being ignored became something much bigger. 💭

That is what made this book work for me. ❤️

It doesn't simply tell children, “Express your emotions.” It shows what can happen when those emotions aren't heard in the first place. 💛

Amari’s “DID YOU HEAR ME?” is such a simple line, but it carries so much weight. 🥺

And I really liked Auntie Nia. ❤️

Instead of immediately telling Amari to calm down or behave differently, she stops and listens. Their little “pause” signal was one of my favourite ideas in the book because it gives Amari something practical—a way to communicate that she needs to be heard before her feelings become overwhelming. 🤍

My niece seemed to understand that idea instantly. 😊

That experience made me appreciate something else about the book: it doesn't feel like a lesson disguised as a story. The emotions are woven into everyday family moments, which makes them easier for a child to recognise in their own life. 🌱

The illustrations help too. 🎨 They give the characters so much expression that you can often understand what Amari is feeling before you even reach the next line.

And there is something exciting about knowing this isn't intended to be a standalone journey. ✨ The author has shared that more books are planned for this series, which makes Did You Hear Me? feel like a beginning rather than an ending. I'm genuinely curious to see which emotions the upcoming books will explore. 📚💫

For me, this first book has already established something important:

Children don't always need bigger voices. Sometimes, they simply need someone willing to listen to the little one they already have. 🫶