I want to share my frustration at not being able to read in recent weeks, primarily due to life's distractions. Even when I try, my brain won't let me. For example, when I have free time, mostly before bed, I try to read, but I'm so tired that I can't even process what I'm reading. 😩

May I know how you guys rate books? Because I'm too afraid giving a book under 3 stars 🫠 But recently there's just some books that I know I didn't enjoy it, but at some chapters / some point I get it why people recommend it ... But it's just not my type 😭🙏🏼

Hello everyone 🧚

I was wondering if you are able to read or switch between novels that you are reading? I find it so difficult to read more than one novel cause for me it feels like I’m cheating on the one I am suppose to read?! I feel like it’s a commitment to stick to one novel even though I have multiple tbrs that I want to start immediately and I feel the novel that I am currently reading is not it but I feel somewhat guilty doing that 🥹.

What are your thoughts on this topic? 🧚

I scored really well in english at my school. And I was quite proud of it because I loved the subject. There was a part of me that used to think myself better than everyone just because I spoke English slightly well. But as I've grown up, I've realised that most countries that have adopted english as a second language, mostly to due to colonisation, have made this language their own. They don't speaking "improper English". We apply the grammar of our native language to the English language.

Take this sentence for example.

I have to do everything in this house.

It's grammatically correct and the proper way to say it.

But in India we say "everything I only have to do in this house"

It's a direct translation of "sab mujhe hi karna padta hai is Ghar mein". If I translated the grammatically correct sentence to Hindi, it would be somewhere along the lines of "mujhe sab karna padta hai is Ghar mein". Notice how only has disappeared? Because "hi" puts emphasis in the sentence and the loose translation of hi is only. But I digress.

So I wonder, if english isn't our native language and our normal way of speaking is with the rules of our native language, then why does the publishing industry ask us to be grammatically correct? Especially when it's a language rooted in colonisation. Even if the sentence is grammatically incorrect according to rules of English, saying that the person isn't speaking proper English or doesn't speak English well is kinda... false in my opinion. It's just english in the speaker's style. I feel like us speaking English with our own rules is a way of reclaiming our heritage in the modern world. I wonder how many stories were rejected because of this and I wonder if allowing such differences will make the story more authentic.

Do you think in the future, publishing industries will let forth stories with such grammatical differences? What do you think of this?