Book cover of Burnt Sugar

Book description

Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar is a searing literary debut novel set in India about mothers and daughters, obsession, and betrayal.

NPR Best Book of 2020

A Pen America Literary Award Finalist

“I would be lying if I say my mother's misery…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Burnt Sugar as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This novel dives headfirst into the most uncomfortable corners of a mother–daughter relationship.

I love how Doshi refuses to make either woman simply "good" or "bad" and instead sits in the murky space of resentment, obligation, and love. It's a book that made me feel complicit, unsettled, and oddly seen—as both a daughter and a mother.

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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