Where Is Your Bookmark: Books with "Burning" in the Title

A weekly meme where readers share the first sentence of the book they are reading and say what they think. Hosted by the amazing Gillion Dumas of Rose City Reader.

"You smell like smoke," my mother said to me. [Opening of A Burning]

A weekly meme in which readers share a random sentence or two from page 56 or 56% of the book they are reading. Hosted by the wonderful Freda of Freda's Voice.

For the rest of the day, we fall and die from knowing, but never being able to say, especially to our mothers, that the inside of the prison is an unreachable place. So what if there is a courtyard, and a garden, and a TV room? The guards tell us over and over that we live well, we live better than the trapped souls in the men's prison. Still we feel we are living at the bottom of the well. We are frogs. All we can bear to tell our mothers is "I am fine. I am fine." 

We tell them, "I walk in the garden."

"I watch TV."

"Don't worry about me. I am fine." [excerpt from pgs 56-57 of A Burning]

Here is a peek into one of my recent reads, A Burning by Megha Majumdar. The novel follows the thoughts of different characters, but both of these excerpts happen to fall under Jivan's section. I find the second excerpt especially compelling--and sad. 

For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.

Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely--an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor--has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.

Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.

Does this sound like something you would like to read? Have you read it? If so, what did you think?

Connect Five Friday is a weekly meme where readers share a list of five books, 

read or unread, or bookish things, that share a common theme. 

Hosted by the  Kathryn of of Book Date.

I have a handful of books that have been on my TBR shelf for awhile now with the word "burning" in the title. Lets take a look! 

The Burning by Jane Casey

Ninth City Burning by J. Patrick Black

The Burning Island by Hester Young

Burning for You by Michele Dunaway

The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse

Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think? 

 I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Be sure and tell me what you are reading and are up to!

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