30 Things I Love About Myself
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4.5 • 14 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
When Nina Mistry's life hits rock bottom, she decides to change her stars by falling in love...with herself—a hilarious, heartfelt story from outrageously funny novelist Radhika Sanghani.
Nina didn't plan to spend her thirtieth birthday in jail, yet here she is in her pajamas, locked in a holding cell. There's no Wi-Fi, no wine, no carbs—and no one to celebrate with.
Unfortunately, it gives Nina plenty of time to reflect on how screwed up her life is. She's just broken up with her fiancé, and now has to move back into her childhood home to live with her depressed older brother and their uptight, traditional Indian mother. Her career as a freelance journalist isn’t going in the direction she wants, and all her friends are too busy being successful to hang out with her.
Just as Nina falls into despair, a book lands in her cell: How to Fix Your Shitty Life by Loving Yourself. It must be destiny. With literally nothing left to lose, Nina makes a life-changing decision to embark on a self-love journey. By her next birthday, she's going to find thirty things she loves about herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sanghani's sweet if unremarkable latest (after Not That Easy) opens with Nina Mistry at rock bottom, or so she thinks. It's her 30th birthday, and she's been arrested in her hometown of Leicester, England, after falling in with a group of demonstrators protesting the treatment of refugees while on her way to grab a bite to eat. In her cell, she contemplates how she's "failing at a lot of big life things." But the universe (by way of a helpful detective) provides her with the book How to Love Yourself (and Fix Your Shitty Life in the Process), which Nina takes from the jail and uses as a guide for her "spiritual journey." Over the next year, she upends her relationships with her clinically depressed brother and overbearing mother, the latter of whom constantly reminds her she's a disappointment to the Indian community. She explores astrology, meditation, and tantric sex, and there's even a naked reciting of Maya Angelou's work. Things go sideways when her article "Yoga isn't for white people" (retitled by an editor) goes viral, bringing on attacks from trolls and accusations of racism. While some of the dialogue is flat and the arc is a bit predictable, the characters are charming and heartfelt. It's modest but effective.
