The Ninth Hour, Alice McDermott

This story focuses on Sally, who grows up in a convent after her father committed suicide, leaving her mother as a widow before Sally was born. Growing up in the convent has piqued her interest to become a nun. Her mother refuses to let her go until she was reminded…

Cinnamon Gardens, Shyam Selvadurai

This story is set in 1920’s when the old Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) under the British influence and the elite society emerged from the central Colombo. There were two main characters in this story, Annalukshmi and Balendran, at different stages of their lives, both learning how to control their…

Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O'Farrell

A legendary heatwave occurs in London in 1976. An Irish family, just like other families, experienced water shortages and droughts due to the heatwave. The usage of water is only limited to drinking, shower, washing of clothes and toilets. However, what can be more worse than this Irish family is…

And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini

In this third book, Khaled Hosseini has a different narration style compared with the two novels before this. The story has been separated into nine stories with each chapter is told from a different character's point of view. Each story consists of various humans' traits such as greed, selfishness, materialistic,…