Kirti Mutatkar and Reva Nevrekar from Pune discuss Ocean Vuong's lyrical debut novel about immigration, identity, and intergenerational trauma. The Story: Written as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, the novel follows Little Dog, a Vietnamese American immigrant in Hartford, Connecticut. Through non-linear storytelling, Vuong explores poverty, language barriers, his first love with Trevor, and his mother's PTSD-driven abuse. Key Themes: Poetry in Prose - Vuong's poet background infuses every page. The writing flows like a long poem, shifting between prose and verse. Sentences feel like complete poems—readers pause to absorb their beauty. Language Divides and Connects - Little Dog writes in English to a mother who can't read it. As he becomes more American, he drifts from his origins. Yet he imagines rebirth: maybe she'll return as a girl named Rose in a peaceful nation where she can finally read his words. Immigration Reality - Success means food on the table, not becoming a doctor. His mother works in a nail salon. The American Dream myth shatters against survival reality. Authentic Queer Experience - Trevor's story—poor white boy from tobacco fields also struggling with sexuality and abuse—runs parallel to Little Dog's. Vuong writes from lived experience, avoiding exploitative trauma that plagues much queer literature. PTSD and Complex Love - His mother hits him for mispronouncing English. It's abuse rooted in war trauma and desperate love—she wants him safe, assimilated, protected from her suffering. The relationship defies simple labels. Model Minority Erasure - The Tiger Woods example shows how Asian identities get downplayed. His Thai heritage is ignored—illustrating unique Asian American marginalization. KBC Book Radar: Brain Fizz Factor: 4.5/5 - Demands processing time; subtext about identity, war, and belonging lingers for days Bookshelf Worthy: 3.5-4/5 - Short, poetic, perfect for rereading. Open any page and find meaning Why Read: Under 250 pages but profound. Accessible entry to Asian American diaspora and queer literature. Non-linear structure mirrors how memory actually works. Can finish in a week even while working. A devastating, beautiful exploration of surviving, loving, and writing your story in a language your mother cannot read. Credits: Host and Creator: Kirti Mutatkar Guest: Reva Nevrekar (Instagram: @nibblingonnovels) Show Editor: Aniket Mutatkar Logo & Design: Smitha Rau
Kirti Mutatkar and Reva Nevrekar from Pune discuss Ocean Vuong's lyrical debut novel about immigration, identity, and intergenerational trauma.
The Story: Written as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, the novel follows Little Dog, a Vietnamese American immigrant in Hartford, Connecticut. Through non-linear storytelling, Vuong explores poverty, language barriers, his first love with Trevor, and his mother's PTSD-driven abuse.
Key Themes:
Poetry in Prose - Vuong's poet background infuses every page. The writing flows like a long poem, shifting between prose and verse. Sentences feel like complete poems—readers pause to absorb their beauty.
Language Divides and Connects - Little Dog writes in English to a mother who can't read it. As he becomes more American, he drifts from his origins. Yet he imagines rebirth: maybe she'll return as a girl named Rose in a peaceful nation where she can finally read his words.
Immigration Reality - Success means food on the table, not becoming a doctor. His mother works in a nail salon. The American Dream myth shatters against survival reality.
Authentic Queer Experience - Trevor's story—poor white boy from tobacco fields also struggling with sexuality and abuse—runs parallel to Little Dog's. Vuong writes from lived experience, avoiding exploitative trauma that plagues much queer literature.
PTSD and Complex Love - His mother hits him for mispronouncing English. It's abuse rooted in war trauma and desperate love—she wants him safe, assimilated, protected from her suffering. The relationship defies simple labels.
Model Minority Erasure - The Tiger Woods example shows how Asian identities get downplayed. His Thai heritage is ignored—illustrating unique Asian American marginalization.
KBC Book Radar:
Why Read: Under 250 pages but profound. Accessible entry to Asian American diaspora and queer literature. Non-linear structure mirrors how memory actually works. Can finish in a week even while working.
A devastating, beautiful exploration of surviving, loving, and writing your story in a language your mother cannot read.
Credits: Host and Creator: Kirti Mutatkar
Guest: Reva Nevrekar (Instagram: @nibblingonnovels)
Show Editor: Aniket Mutatkar
Logo & Design: Smitha Rau
Reva Nevrekar & Kirti Mutatkar discuss "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong
Kirti Mutatkar: I am super excited because this is my second season of KBC, Kirti's Book Club. And the reason I started this is I love reading books. And when I read books, I love discussing books, right? So the whole concept was I actually invite people who love reading books and I ask them, would you want to read a book? Recommend a book to me? And we read the book together and we have this discussion. So really, really excited to have you Reva from Pune. Actually, this is my second 1 in India. So excited to have you.
Reva Nevrekar: Thank you.
Kirti Mutatkar: So why this book? Why "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous"?
Reva Nevrekar: So like I am 1 of those people who gets a lot of my recommendations from like Instagram and what people like. I have a few authors, like people that I follow there, and they have, you know, they are reliable. They have tastes that are similar to mine. So I saw this book being recommended by a lot of people and I wanted something that was short, but at the same time, quite impactful. And I was also trying to get more into, 1 is like maybe the Asian American experience of things, like maybe books that are written from that perspective. Even though there aren't many—I mean there are quite a few, but not a lot of them are very popular. Usually you have a lot of the translated works like the Asian and I have read a lot of them and those are very good. But like, I wanted something from that, like capturing that diaspora.
And also, this book was also about the queer experience, which I think, you know, if you want to get into queer literature, this is a good place to start. And it was also like a short read. So it's not like—you know, a lot of these books, they tend to be like really, really big. I like reading big books, but I like to like alternate between short books. And this 1 actually I got from my mom. My mom has a traveling exchange book club, so like the exchange books so you don't end up spending on books, but at the same time you can read books that other people have and so on and so forth.
Kirti Mutatkar: Oh, that's interesting. So what do they do, they read a book and pass it along? Is that what they do?
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah. Yeah. So you have, you put up like whatever books you have, which you think other people would like to read. And then you can just take a claim on it. Like, okay, I'll keep it for 2 months and read it and send it back to you, and you just post it across India, which is great.
Kirti Mutatkar: Oh, that's pretty cool.
Reva Nevrekar: Because I, we end up spending a lot on books and, and like, I don't have an issue with that, but like, there's a space issue and just, you know, you don't end up reading it more than once, or sometimes you just end up buying a book that you don't like reading. So then this way, like, this worked out well for me. This book was on someone's list and then my mom picked it up.
Kirti Mutatkar: Oh, I wonder if it'll be—I guess it'll be harder to ship it to the US—but that's a great concept. That's a really, really good idea.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah. I mean, you can do it within the states also. I mean, that's like a good concept to have I guess. But in India it works out well because like, and it's all over, all over the country. So I think this was sent to us by someone in Goa and she sent like 2 more books. So another 1 that I read was "James." That was also a very good book.
Kirti Mutatkar: That's a good book. Yeah.
Reva Nevrekar: So then like that's how we, and then my mom sends some books to someone else, so then that's how that whole thing works.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. No, it was a really, really good book and thank you for recommending this book. And I think you mentioned it, what, 2 weeks ago? I started reading it and actually I honestly actually fell in love with it because this author is a poet and you can actually see that in the writing, right? Did you see that, the way he writes it's like, it feels like a—it's like, it feels like a long poem actually, when you think about it.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah. Yeah. The way that like flowing off has been sort of like the vibe that you get from the book. I think it's very interesting. Very, and the structure is quite non-linear, which I appreciated. I don't know if everyone likes that—some people like very straightforward books, but I liked it that, you know, it was going back and forth and then he would just change the writing style in between. So it was interesting.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, because it is written as a letter to his mom, right? So I did like that too, because when you are thinking, when you're talking about—if I write a letter to you or I'm talking to you, I could might start off with 1 thing. And then my brain goes off somewhere else and then it comes back and does that. And I really, I actually really, really enjoyed that part, the way he is, even when he is talking to her and he's giving her directions because she's coming back from home or from a salon and he says, oh, now make a right turn and blah, blah, blah. He tells a story and then, oh, did you see this on your way? And then that leads to a story. So that was, I really, that was really fun to read.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah. Like how his, like it's how our brain works. Like it's never like we don't have very coherent thoughts. It just goes with like from 1 place to another. So that was very well written, I think from his point of view.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, so it is actually, I think we, you kind of gave the synopsis of the book. So it's written as a letter to a mom who does not read English by this Asian—by a Vietnamese immigrant who's grown up in Hartford, Connecticut. And his experience growing up here, and he is kind of—he actually touched quite a few different topics, right? Like you said, he talked about the sexual orientation. He talked about overdosing. He talked about poverty. He talked about a lot of things, the language barriers and being immigrant, quite a lot of things.
Reva Nevrekar: Childhood abuse was 1, like, you know, like just the casual childhood abuse that happens in like Asian families. Obviously now it's, we have more awareness and it's much better, but especially back in the day that used to happen with respect to his mom and she would just lash out at him. And I mean, it was very interesting, like very touching and very heartbreaking the way that he explained it.
Kirti Mutatkar: You know what, that's true. Because at first when you first hear, read that you're caught off guard, right? Because you're like, what? She hit him? But that was a very common thing and she has PTSD, so she is just acting out those things, right? So yeah.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah. I mean, and it was pretty normalized in that whatever time period that he's talking about, so I think it just makes his experience more real.
Kirti Mutatkar: Right, exactly. So what was your favorite part? What did you enjoy about the book?
Reva Nevrekar: Oh, I mean, I, as I said, I love the way that he's written it, like the way that the, you know, the chapters flow from 1 part to another. 1 thing that I really appreciated about this book, and I've seen this with, I've read some other queer literature, you know, I've read books about these kind of topics or about racism. And they tend to be very, like, exploitative in the way that they describe these experiences. You know, there's a lot of like trauma that is just like hamfisted into the pages and it just like, it feels after a point. It feels like borderline comical when you're reading because it just gets like unrealistic. Like, I get that that experience can be traumatic, but like, just—and it oftentimes it's written also not like—1 thing to be appreciated here is this is actually, it's a fictional account, but it's also like a reflection on what he's gone through as a person. Like, he's also like Ocean Vuong himself is a Vietnamese American man, and he's also—I think he's Vietnamese American, and he's also, and he's queer. He's openly queer.
So it feels more real for me, like when—a lot of times, I think there's another book, I don't know if you've read it. It's called "A Little Life." Yeah, no, it's, yeah, it's a huge book and it's, it's written by a straight woman about a queer man, and it just, that experience never really feels true. Like, never really feels authentic in the way that something like this does, because, you know, he's lived in that aspect of it.
But like I liked a lot of parts, but like he touches on a lot of topics. I mean, another topic that he talks about is, you know, like model minorities, how minorities are supposed to, like, how they get assimilated into, especially like Asian people get assimilated into white cultures, especially back then. 1 example, I think, I don't know if you remember, he draws parallels with Tiger Woods. And like they talk about how, you know, like Tiger Woods is half—and I didn't know this, like he's half Thai. I didn't know that.
Kirti Mutatkar: I didn't know that either.
Reva Nevrekar: So they, that aspect of his identity has just been erased. I wouldn't say erased by the media, but completely downplayed. Because he's known as a Black man and yeah, obviously that's, you know, it's quite commendable what he's done, but like that half of his identity is not spoken about. So it's, it shows like how, like Asians are probably—I wouldn't say they're not considered minorities, but that part of their identity is definitely downplayed when it comes to—and even the racism they face can be, you know, downplayed or like, it's not so like, you don't think about—maybe now you do, but it's not seen as much.
Kirti Mutatkar: Right?
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, yeah. But it, it is interesting the way they bring, he brings it up, right? So she's watching him on TV and she says, even I, because I did not know that. So I was like, what is she talking about? Does she think Tiger looks like that? And then you find out he is half—he has that in him, right? So he's Asian. And I actually really like the story of Tiger and why his dad gave him that name, because that was, I think, his friend, right? That was an Asian friend of his during the war who passes away or something like that. So he remembers that. So it was, it was interesting. So he does has, he has some tidbits in there that get very interesting.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah. And he like sort of draws parallels of his own experience with that. You know, like, of course 1 of the big examples of a biracial man being, you know, famous, like, but we just know only like 1 half of his identity. We don't know the other 1. So.
Kirti Mutatkar: Exactly. Exactly. It's, it's, yeah, that is so true. He's actually touched so much on the whole concept of immigration. The 1 thing, actually, I was thinking about it—I don't know if it's in the book or maybe 1 of the interviews I read about him—he talks about how, you know, when you're immigrants, especially coming from Indian immigrants in the US, you want your kids to be doctors, engineers, and do well or get an MBA or do things. He says he never ever had that pressure because he's come from a country that has seen war, right? So his grandma and his mom have gone through it and survived it. So his mom says, if you go and work at McDonald's and you have, we have food on the table at night, I think we have won. So for her, the idea of success was we have a full meal at the end of the day. And it was, that was, that touched me. That was, that was interesting because that should be enough, right? That was enough for him. So that was good.
Reva Nevrekar: And yeah, and it also, I think, sort of shatters that American dream. I mean, and this is a lot with a lot of immigrant stories. I think that American dream myth, because at the end of the day, his mom is working in a nail parlor, so, you know, that's, that's like, that's the kind of—just because you're an immigrant, this is how you are treated. That's what he's shown here. And even like his experiences—I mean, a lot of common like tropes of racism are seen here. But that's the point, right? Like that's how people used to view Asian people back then. Like, I think there's a scene in like when he was in school and this kid just like pulls—I mean, that's the most racist thing you can do to an Asian person. Like, they just, he pulls out, he slits his eyes and shows like, you know, tries to mock him. So I think all like, this is like little, little, little tidbits that he's thrown through the book while he's talking to his mom is, is very like, I really appreciated the way he talked about it. He doesn't like fixate on like 1 problem for like 10 pages or 20 pages together, but you just get like glimpses of his life and like all the problems that he had throughout, till that point where he wrote the letter, I think.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, and he, you're right, he doesn't like take 1. And that's why it feels more real, right? Even when he has, when people are making fun of him—I think he uses the word even yellow a lot. When I came to US, I came to Connecticut first. So when he talks about Hartford, Connecticut, I kind of know some of the things that he talks about. So that was interesting.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: So what the other thing actually I really liked about the book, or let me first ask you, so what was—is there something from the book that stayed with you? Like, like, you know, you think about it and it stayed—have you been—anything that comes to mind?
Reva Nevrekar: I think the only thing—1 thing that really haunted me was like Trevor's story, like his lover's story. It's just, I mean, it's sad, like the whole—like he was obviously, I think he was—I don't remember clearly because it's been a while, but I think he was white, but he was kind of like a poor white guy. So he was not like the most privileged white man. And he lived in like a tobacco field and like even he had like a parallel storyline going on. He was also struggling with his sexuality. His dad was abusive, I think in, in, in a, I mean, it sounds very odd to say, but in the worse way than like Rose's—his mom was abusive, like the protagonist's mom. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who's reading it, so—
Kirti Mutatkar: No, you can, because I have some—maybe you—I think people have given me the feedback that if you give that away, that's okay, so that's fine.
Reva Nevrekar: Okay, so then he has, like an unfortunate path as you move on, you know, and it's just, it's very interesting how experiences can be so—say like it, they can be very similar and like, even though they're, like their races are different, they're perceived differently by the rest of the world, you know. Maybe their identity ties them together or maybe them being like odd ducks among like a sea of like conventional people ties them together. But yeah, we can have similar experiences in parallel lives in that sense. I think that was very interesting. But yeah, I think that part of the story like kind of haunted me a fair bit.
Kirti Mutatkar: It, it struck something deeper on how he was, right. And when you talk about how he's exploring his sexuality too, and like you said earlier on, right? Sometimes when you read some of these books, they're so—you don't believe them because it's so good or so bad, but this kid who's figuring it out and he does something and then he's questioning himself. I'm like, am I going to stay this way for my life? Are you going to stay this way? Maybe I like girls later, so he's also in his mind, conflicted. He's thinking through, is this good? Is this not good? Am I bad for doing what I'm doing?
But for me, what kind of I, haunted me or kind of, I thought about it, was when he writes this book, so he is writing this book for a mom who does not understand English, right? And so he says, maybe Mom, when you, you believe in rebirth. I hope I, I don't, I don't know if I believe in rebirth or not, but I hope there's a rebirth that happens and you come back as a little girl and maybe your name stays as Rose and you come back to a nation that is not at war, and you have parents who read your bedtime stories and maybe you will then read my book and maybe you'll remember all the things that we have gone through. And that like, huh, that was interesting.
Reva Nevrekar: Like you're thinking ahead like a generation.
Kirti Mutatkar: I was like, oh, that was interesting, right. I mean, how words stay, I mean, the impact of words and how they stay with you.
Reva Nevrekar: I think his mother is also, like, there's a scene, I vaguely remember this, like she tries to—like 1 of the instances of abuse that he faces from at her hands was because he's not able to pronounce English words. And it's, it's quite interesting because she can't speak English, obviously, but like she wants her son to be assimilated in that culture and to be able to speak properly and fit in. And obviously the methods that she's using are like, not right, they're wrong, but it's coming from a place where she cares for her son. So it's, it's a very conflicted, like, complex relationship that they have. But yeah, as you said, like English, I think, and that part of the culture, like fitting in, is, is a very big part of this book. Like how much she wants her son to fit in, like how much she doesn't want her son to go through what she's gone through. But the way that she's going about it is obviously not like, like appropriate.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. Yeah. He actually starts the book also by saying that, right? Sometimes words connect, but sometimes words also separate us. He says, I write in English and the more I get, become part of the American kind of way of living and the language, the more I am going to separate, become like that, alienate myself from you and where I come from. So he sees that more as a connection and also a separation when you look at words, right? So yeah, his, you know, some, some of the sentences in the book you feel like you want to pause and they become like a—you feel like that's a poem in itself that's like, you just read it. I'm like, oh, this is interesting.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah, and he does like delve into like poetry in between, I think. But just, you know, he will be talking in prose and then just suddenly you get like a small excerpt sort of like a poem. Like he sort of weaved in poetry into his writing, which was nice. I really liked that.
Kirti Mutatkar: And he had like the—he liked talking about monarch butterflies and the buffaloes and the things that he connects, how the buffaloes to dying and the war. Like he is, he is very good at connecting a lot of things.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah, the symbolism is really nice, like I think you don't really see it with like a lot of other authors who write about these kind of topics. Generally my experience has been either, like, the writing can be very—when you're talking about the immigrant experience, it can either be very straightforward and then that just gets a little, like it loses that like human touch to it. Or, the second part is it can get very, like, satirical, like very, you know, dark. Like dark and like even the humor becomes very dark, which I like—sometimes I like absurdist books. But, so this 1 was like different. It was very, very immersive. Like you felt like you were with him when he was experiencing all that. Because he, it's, it's a first person point of view, but then also, like, it's not him, it's just like a stand-in character that he's used for. Who's unnamed by the way, which again, I think—I've read a lot of books with like unnamed protagonists. So this 1 was another—it's, I don't know if it's a new trend, right? But it works. I mean, it, it does work when you don't assign a name to that person, it like, it feels like you are in the book instead of that person.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, I mean, he's called Little Dog, but then—
Reva Nevrekar: Little Dog. Yeah. But like he's not, yeah, it's not, he doesn't have like a name, you know, like an identity, a non-Asian name, an Asian identity to him.
Kirti Mutatkar: Right, right. That's true. So when I have like the, in KBC, I have 2 kinds of ratings. 1 is a Fizz Factor, so Brain Fizz Factor, right? So if you, they look at it, like if it's—say let's say you rate it at 1, that would mean like it's a flat soda. It didn't really create those fizz thing in your brain. So where if it's at 1 to 5 scale, where 5 being like all those bubbles were like going crazy in your brain. Where would you put this book?
Reva Nevrekar: Quite high, actually. Probably like 4 and a half or something. 4, 4 and a half. For me personally, like I did think about it a lot and I needed to take a breather after this, like take a day off before starting a new book. So just to let it sink in. I mean, I don't know if it like—if, if it makes you think in like, okay, what just happened? The story is pretty—I, I mean, I already said it's not straightforward, but like, the writing is not straightforward, but the story is pretty straightforward. Like his accounts, you know, this happened, this happened—he just talks about like bits and pieces from his childhood. So you know what happened. But it makes you think about like, you know, the subtext here about the Asian immigrant experience or about, you know, queer identity back in the day, about PTSD that comes from war. Like all these things you have to like, let it seep in for at least a day. So for me it was quite a high rating on that, like 4, 4 and a half.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, me too. And I was simultaneously reading another book called "Master Slave Husband Wife." So it's about a husband and wife who pretend to be a slave owner and a slave and get from the southern part and escape to Boston and New York. And it's, it's a true story actually. So it's reading about the African American experience and here comes the Vietnamese experience and all the PTSD and stuff. So it was 2 heavy books. But I actually really liked the language in here and it's lots of good topics and it's a sad kind of, some of the topics kind of get you, it's emotional that touches you, but it's still a really fun read. I, I really enjoyed it. It was a fun read.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah, I, and even, I actually read "James" right after this, so it is just like, like a lot of like hard-hitting topics, 1 over the other. But they were both very well written. So for me it didn't feel, like a lot of these books become kind of like a slog if they're not well written. You know, if, if the person writing them does not know about these topics, and then that's a whole thing with media, right? Like when they talk about, you know, white people using like Black people's or like Asian people's, like stories as their own. But it's like they were both written by authors for whom, like these experiences were personal. So, like I read these books 1 after the other and it was quite like, okay, like this is, you know, these are like the different experiences. Lots to think about. Very, I mean, I wouldn't say both are similar, but they deal with some similar topics, I think. Very heavy topics. Some of them.
Kirti Mutatkar: They do. I read "James" on the way to India and there were certain things that I was—I, I don't know if I noticed a few things that we also tend to do sometimes in India and I'm like, oh, like, huh, that can—some things came out for me when I was reading it and disturbed me a little bit when I read "James," but I really loved the book. Loved the book.
Reva Nevrekar: That was also great. Yeah. That again, it's like, that, that again deals with classism. There's also like the issue like—small snippets of like how we just like, we as privileged people, even if we are not white, we can still be, you know, we have that money, we have that privilege. So how we can just be like casually classist around working class folks and then, then it's quite interesting.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. Yeah. And what about, the second thing I have is Bookshelf Worthy. So on a bookshelf, you can either—let's say you read the book and you're done with the book, and you donate the book, or you love the book so much that you actually want it on your bookshelf. So where does that lie? Or does it lie in between?
Reva Nevrekar: I, I mean, I don't, I wouldn't donate this 1 if I—I mean, this 1 is not my own copy, so I can't like, comment on it, like from a personal point of view. But, I would, I would put it at like a 3 and a half or like, I wouldn't donate it, at least for like years together. Firstly, I think this is a good, it's an easy book to like recommend to people so you can always like lend it to people. So my mom, so in my family, like my parents and I, we all, all 3 of us read. And then my mom's friend, who has her own, like, we have a silent book club, silent reading book club. So she reads and like, there's somebody else who reads there. So like we do like circulate the book amongst us. So my mom and I have read this 1 now. I, I don't know if my dad would enjoy something like this, but he's read "James," so like, my mom and I have read this, and then like, someone else wants to read it. So then we make use of—like, if a book is good, we make use of it, like 4 times at least. And then she's part of that traveling group, so then she like sends the book somewhere across the country also.
So for me, but yeah, I, I would keep this 1—1, it's a really good book. I mean there's not much more to add to it. It's also short. If you ever feel like rereading something, you can read something like this. It's impactful but short. It's not like light reading, but at the same time, it's not something that I'll have to invest a lot of energy in. Like, you know, there are a lot of good books that are like 600 pages long, but I wouldn't want to—as much as I love them, I wouldn't, I would like really have to motivate myself to read them again. So that's not going to happen here. And like as you said, like so much of the book is written in like poetry. That it becomes easier to just like, open up any page and just, you know, pull that quote out or like, yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yep, yep.
Reva Nevrekar: It's not like text, text, text, like, not like dense walls of text. So that's good.
Kirti Mutatkar: Right. So you don't have to start from A to Z. You can pick up the book halfway and just look, look at it.
Reva Nevrekar: It's like little anecdotes throughout, like scattered throughout the book. So if I want to read about a particular part of his life, I can just skim through the book and like find it back.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yep. Yep. That's so true. For exactly the same thing. I would say exactly the same thing. So, and people would now, who would join, right? At the roundtable. So let's say they should, people should read the book. I think it's a great book. And it's not a big, it's a, it's actually a very, very quick read.
Reva Nevrekar: You can, I mean, even if you're working, you can finish it in like a week. I think for me, like, I, I have, I am working, so I just get time, like in the evenings, but 1 week should be enough to like finish something like this.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, for sure. I, yeah, I read it in a week. So it, and I was reading that big, the other book is pretty fat and I was reading that at the same time. So, it was, it was a quick read, but if they don't read the book, there's still so many topics in the book that we can discuss in the roundtable. So hopefully people join the roundtable because it's so we can go so much deeper into some of the topics.
Reva Nevrekar: Yeah. Yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. So thank you so much Reva. Is there anything else, anything else that you want to add before we wrap up?
Reva Nevrekar: No, no. I think, oh, also, I, I have an Instagram page where I review my books, so if anyone is interested in, like, reading my review on this book or like any other books, I can, can I share the handle?
Kirti Mutatkar: Share. Yeah, totally share it. And then I'll put it in the show notes too. So share it.
Reva Nevrekar: It's called Nibbling on Novels. I, I'll send you the exact, like, ID, so what I do is I read a book and then I photograph it with anything that I'm eating. It's at a restaurant, at home, you know, coffee, whatever, and I just post about it. So you can just get—it's kind of an aesthetic page also where I post photos of like food and books together.
Kirti Mutatkar: Nice. But thank you so much. This was fun. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and thank you. I mean, I don't think I would've read the book without your recommendation, so thank you so much. And I'm actually going to go back and read his latest book. I think I—
Reva Nevrekar: "The Emperor of Maladies," I think. Yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yes, yes. And he has a couple things. He was on Oprah Winfrey and he was talking about it.
Reva Nevrekar: Mm-hmm.
Kirti Mutatkar: I really enjoyed the interview, so I'm going to go back and read. So thank you for that recommendation.
Reva Nevrekar: Thank you.
Kirti Mutatkar: Thank you so much. Okay.
Reva Nevrekar: Thank you. Bye. Bye.