Sucker Punch
Essays
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today.
Scaachi Koul’s first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she’d be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Scaachi’s marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her biting wit to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she’s had—with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself—all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The title doesn’t lie. Indian Canadian journalist Scaachi Koul’s first book of essays, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, explored serious topics like racism and anxiety with a light, witty touch. Eight years later, the laughs are more rueful and the shading is considerably darker. During and after the COVID pandemic, Scaachi’s marriage fell apart amidst abuse and infidelity. And just to make things suck more, she lost her job and her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Even when they’re not the direct focus of the essays, these traumatic life events stay in the foreground, coloring how she views herself and her life. Filled with intense candor, including vulnerable discussions of sexual assault and bulimia, Sucker Punch is a book best read in pieces—just so you can catch your breath. But Scaachi’s humor and relatability shine through even in the darkest moments.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Slate journalist Koul follows up her 2017 collection One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter with a sharp companion volume that reflects on body image, the dissolution of her marriage, and her mother's cancer. "Parvati Stands in Flames" recounts how in the months leading up to Koul's divorce, she picked arguments with her husband in an unsuccessful attempt to halt their slow drifting apart: "Fighting is a connection, a tether between two people who hate each other because they can't find love." Across several pieces, Koul explores her complex relationship with her mother, lamenting that though her mother's body image issues contributed to her own, she's still awed by her mother's ability to hold their family together even while undergoing cancer treatment. Pairing humor with vulnerability, Koul reflects on how the end of her marriage exacerbated her eating disorder, writing, "Here are some things I would rather do in public than write about my body and, specifically, my struggle for self-esteem: punch my cat in the face, eat a leech, have sex with an impolite wolf." The most powerful piece, "A Close Read," describes Koul's complicated feelings about reconnecting with a college friend who raped her to get his thoughts on an essay she had published about their relationship. Probing and strikingly candid, this is another winner from Koul.
