Review of Kalayla
Posted: 31 Dec 2021, 23:34
[Following is a volunteer review of "Kalayla" by Jeannie Nicholas.]
Kalayla is a work of fiction by Jeannie Nicholas. The story revolves around the lives of two women and an eleven-year-old girl. Among the women, one is in her early thirties, and the other in her early seventies. Each chapter is written from the perspective of one of them. The story starts in summer 1999 and ends in December 2000. It is not a book about womanhood, but about how trying to help each other brings a sense of meaning and fulfillment to our lives.
It was amazing to read how the same incident can be interpreted differently by different people because of their age, and thus their experience. The words and phrases used by Nicholas are good. The manner of writing is great. This book made me smile a few times. There was a moment when I could relate with Kalayla, as in my early teens something happened that was very similar to what happened with her. The book surely made me laugh a lot. Kalayla is naïve, and her thoughts are outright funny. For example, once she got annoyed by the old lady and was ignoring her. She remembers it this way, “Then one day (the old lady) surprised me coming out of Mickey’s Market, almost bumping into me when I was going in. Before I could turn away, (the old lady) said, ‘Don’t you know it’s unkind to ignore people just because you’re mad at them?’ She (the old lady) was so dumb she didn’t know she was the only “people” I was ignoring.” Nicholas has beautifully knitted things related to Ireland in this book. There are important lessons in the book as well. Like humans need some purpose to work for. Without that purpose or hope, they start feeling sad. And, how our mind can start justifying our desires if we give it some time to. Also, without a plan, wondering about the future can bring fear and anxiety. The most important lesson which got re-emphasized for me was that family simply means people with who you are familiar. It need not be only your blood relatives. Anyone we know closely and are familiar enough can be considered family. A total of ten lessons were found in it. If all of them will get listed, then the word limit would get crossed.
There were three unexplained things in the book. Two of them can be speculated, but one just seemed to be completely out of place.
Because of the above-mentioned negative point, I’ll rate this book three out of four stars.
People in this book can be read eating animals. Several times. This book contains instances of violence not only against other animals but against humans as well. There’s a description of a traumatic episode. This book also contains some offensive words for people with very high and very low melanin content in their skins. According to me, there were eleven instances where there was grammatical incorrectness, but it has come to my knowledge that the author/publisher didn’t intend complete grammatical correction. In my opinion, the book would appeal the most to people who are trying to find meaning and a sense of fulfillment in their lives.
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Kalayla
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Kalayla is a work of fiction by Jeannie Nicholas. The story revolves around the lives of two women and an eleven-year-old girl. Among the women, one is in her early thirties, and the other in her early seventies. Each chapter is written from the perspective of one of them. The story starts in summer 1999 and ends in December 2000. It is not a book about womanhood, but about how trying to help each other brings a sense of meaning and fulfillment to our lives.
It was amazing to read how the same incident can be interpreted differently by different people because of their age, and thus their experience. The words and phrases used by Nicholas are good. The manner of writing is great. This book made me smile a few times. There was a moment when I could relate with Kalayla, as in my early teens something happened that was very similar to what happened with her. The book surely made me laugh a lot. Kalayla is naïve, and her thoughts are outright funny. For example, once she got annoyed by the old lady and was ignoring her. She remembers it this way, “Then one day (the old lady) surprised me coming out of Mickey’s Market, almost bumping into me when I was going in. Before I could turn away, (the old lady) said, ‘Don’t you know it’s unkind to ignore people just because you’re mad at them?’ She (the old lady) was so dumb she didn’t know she was the only “people” I was ignoring.” Nicholas has beautifully knitted things related to Ireland in this book. There are important lessons in the book as well. Like humans need some purpose to work for. Without that purpose or hope, they start feeling sad. And, how our mind can start justifying our desires if we give it some time to. Also, without a plan, wondering about the future can bring fear and anxiety. The most important lesson which got re-emphasized for me was that family simply means people with who you are familiar. It need not be only your blood relatives. Anyone we know closely and are familiar enough can be considered family. A total of ten lessons were found in it. If all of them will get listed, then the word limit would get crossed.
There were three unexplained things in the book. Two of them can be speculated, but one just seemed to be completely out of place.
Because of the above-mentioned negative point, I’ll rate this book three out of four stars.
People in this book can be read eating animals. Several times. This book contains instances of violence not only against other animals but against humans as well. There’s a description of a traumatic episode. This book also contains some offensive words for people with very high and very low melanin content in their skins. According to me, there were eleven instances where there was grammatical incorrectness, but it has come to my knowledge that the author/publisher didn’t intend complete grammatical correction. In my opinion, the book would appeal the most to people who are trying to find meaning and a sense of fulfillment in their lives.
******
Kalayla
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon