Sonal Singh On Sonal's Table

This is the kind of book you should pick up as a late night read when you are sleep deprived. You pick it up thinking – I am just going to read a few stories and then fall asleep - but, you end up staying up longer than intended to finish the book because your fingers are itching to turn over the page to see what the next sheet with unravel.

As the name would suggest, this is a book about happiness, the kind that only touches the life of a few lucky people. However, it is also a book about loss and finding your way out of your grief. The funny thing about grief is that even though it hurts, we grieve loss by finding a sense of comfort in the emotion. We wrap it around ourselves and refuse to let go because within its confines we still find the presence of our loved ones.

The characterization in the book is strong, as strong as the strong-willed protagonists that Neil has created. His protagonists are not lily-livered children with over-active, fertile imaginations. They are decisive thinkers and planners. They carry the weight of the stories on their puny shoulders.