As the seasons change, and the allure of the new year begins to settle, you can’t help but look inwards, and maybe indulge in a little reminisce.
Coming-of-age books often capture the tumultuous feeling of existing within these crevices, dangling in the liminal space between ages. But advice and anecdotes can only take you so far. Eventually, you’ll have to take the plunge.
This March, Masala’s book club offers you an untethered look at uncharted waters.
Sally Rooney’s debut follows two best friends as they find themselves tangled in the intricacies of a radiant married couple. Sometimes, growing up means learning when (not) to communicate.
Sometimes the trigger to grow is to lose someone dear to you. It is a relentless tear in the fabric of life, and Michelle Zauner grapples with these emotions head-on in this bare, sensitive, and heartfelt memoir.
Girl moves to New York. A trope we have loved since Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City (1998–2004). There is no better way to “come of age” than in the endless possibilities of the ‘Big Apple’.
Patricia Highsmith weaves an insidious desire to belong through every page of this crime thriller set in Italy. Tom Ripley matures, not into an upstanding adult but into an ambitious con artist.
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree,” observes Esther Greenwood, the narrator of this novel. As girlhood gives way to expectation, possibility begins to feel perilously finite.
Follow a Palestinian theatre group in the West Bank staging Hamlet. As lines are learnt and loyalties tested, art becomes a fragile common for the troupe. A coming-of-age not only for its characters, but for the very idea of belonging.
Control has long been Rachel’s comfort, until it begins to crack. Journey with the narrator as she spirals through therapy sessions, unfulfilling LA corporate life, awkward stand-up attempts, and loosening her grip on hunger.
What happens when the self will not stay fixed? With desire as his compass, Paul drifts through towns and queer subcultures, wearing gender like a well-tailored suit. A sly, shape-shifting tale that refuses to sit still.