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The first book that I chose is “The Way Things Look to Me” by Roopa Farooqi. This title of the book got me interested because we all tend to perceive things differently. What I might view as good can be interpreted as something bad from someone else’s point of view. That’s the main theme of the novel. The debut writer Roopa Farooqi hits on the elasticity of siblings relationships and describes a life of self discovery and awareness. She was honoured with the IMPAC Dublin Award for her great debutant work.

Yasmin Murphy is the youngest of the 3 siblings and is going through Aspergers Syndrome. Yasmin is very intelligent. She attends a special school for high achievers, sees music in colours and tends to remember everything that has ever happened to her. She has two other siblings, Lilia and Asif. Both the siblings show their insecurities in very different ways. Life for these siblings get worse when their mom passes away in a blink of an eye leaving Asif, the oldest son to take charge of the family. Everyone considers Asif to be the ‘good boy’ but now he has to stricken the laws to manage the household. Lilia is active and outrageous, Yasmin is special, Asif wants to be loved. This story connects to me because in a house of siblings, there is always competition and the urge to do better than the rest. I have been in that situation where it seems like you are isolated from all the love in the family, so the character of Asif really got me looking forward to read the book. The plot of the whole storyline looks quite interesting and convincing. I will eagerly wait to find out how the bonds of true blood reunite and make a living in the society.

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The second book I have chosen is “Ordinary Thunderstorms” by William Boyd. The name of the book immediately caught my attention because it was something unusual and unexpected. It had a hidden message to it which could have not been depicted just by breaking the words into two. The author William Boyd gets deep into the dark side of London’s underworld corruption through this book. The authors writing style seems quite interesting and this can be seen through the many honors he has received for the book like; IMPAC Dublin Awards, A National Best Seller Award and the Costa Novel of the Year Award.

To break into the synopsis, the book revolved around this persona Adam Kindard. Adam is a young climatologist new in town for a job interview. While he admires the embankments in Chelsea, London, he comes across this restaurant where he meets Dr. Philip Wong; who is found dead later that night. His life takes on a roller coaster ride from then onwards, where every move he makes turns against him and now he has to loose his identity and his connection from the real world in order to survive in this place of theft and crime. I personally liked the overall plot of the book as it reminded me of the movie “The Unknown”, where similar things take place and now it would be very interesting to find out to how William Boyd adds on more thriller and suspense to this highly captivating novel.