The Henna Start-up is another fantastic book by acclaimed YA-author, Andaleeb Wajid who weaves a story as intricate as a mehendi pattern. It’s layered with ambition with a swirl of rebellion and a love triangle to add to the geometry!
Shabnam Minwalla masterfully crafts a potboiler combining romance, history, intrigue, and a dash of politics while the book switches effortlessly between two parallel storylines spanning decades.
Against this backdrop, veteran BBC journalist Divya Arya, seeded a creative rendering of the story of Kashmir, for the younger generation. The idea was old school but perfect: pen pals exchanging notes. One is in Delhi, and the other in Kashmir.
This book is about a girl and her struggle with being body shamed and her subsequent struggles at loving herself. Ananya, a bright teenager who loves baking, is fat shamed by friends at a birthday party, after which she transforms into a biryani hating, salad eating, cracker munching, hangry, “work in progress” woman, who sees nothing but her fat bulges in the mirror.