Book #87 |
Book: The Direction of the Wind | Author: Mansi Shah | |
| Source: Free BookBub download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 318 | Duration: 09/21/25 – 09/23/25 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: fiction, family, India, France, cultural | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A daughter looks for her mother who left their family. 🖌6-word review: A well-done, dual-timeline story. Satisfying ending. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Nita spun around, quickly swallowing the bite of bread she had been chewing and hoping she didn’t have crumbs littering her clothes but did not look because she was too self-conscious to show how self-conscious she was.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: foi, hichko, fua, papad, ba, paan, arrondissement, namaskar, Bhagwan | |||
| Description:* Sophie Shah was six when she learned her mother, Nita, had died. For 22 years, she shouldered the burden of that loss. But when her father passes away, Sophie discovers a cache of hidden letters revealing a shattering her mother didn’t die. She left. Now that Sophie knows the truth, she’s determined to find the mother who abandoned her. Sophie jets off to Paris, even though the impulsive trip may risk her impending arranged marriage. In the City of Light, she chases lead after lead that help her piece together a startling portrait of her mother. Though Sophie goes to Paris to find Nita, she may just also discover parts of herself she never knew.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I do love a good “finding some secret letters” and dual-timeline stories, both of which this book comprised. I saw many similarities between this book and one I read 7 months ago, The Storyteller’s Secret, in terms of being centered around an Indian family and a daughter that travels to another country in search of a better understanding her mother. I recommended that one to our Mostly Social Book Club, and I might very well put this one forth as one of my future selections. I am not a fan of “Hollywood endings” (i.e., sappy sweet), which this one was just (mercifully) shy of — an ending I’d characterize as bittersweet as opposed to sappy sweet. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
