Hot Girls Read Podcast

Ayesha

Last night I started “Dancers of the Dawn” by Zulekhá Afzal and I read almost 100 pages in one sitting. Safe to say that I could’ve kept reading but I realized that I needed to pause for the night. I love staying up to finish a read but we really needed to focus on catching some zzzs. 

Synopsis: Under the blazing sun, an elite troupe of dancers are trained to harness their magic. They are the queen’s most formidable assassins. Aasira has one of the rarest talents – she is a flame-wielder. Feared by all and envied by some, she uses her power to execute enemies of the crown.

Aasira’s greatest wish is to serve her queen. But on the eve of her graduation, with tensions rising among the dancers and secrets stirring in the shifting sand dunes, she begins to question whether she was truly born to kill…

My thoughts: So far, I’m really enjoying this! I believe the FMC is 16, so I’m almost double her age (yikes). That said, I know that most, if not all, the characters are South Asian, therefore I can easily picture myself as various characters! We’ve talked many times about our need to find representation in books, and I think this is a great one for fellow brown girls to read. If you love Sabaa Tahir’s books, absolutely add “Dancers of the Dawn” to your TBR. Should this ever have a screen adaptation, you can be sure to expect me trying to figure out how to audition or be an extra.

Julia

Recently I have been reading ‘Love of Fat Men’, a collection of short stories by Helen Dunmore. I was, of course, drawn to the original sounding title and after a quick flip-through of the book in Canterbury’s Chaucer Bookshop (super cute second-hand bookstore!) I decided to try it out.

In the past, I haven’t always appreciated or understood short story collections, but I have become more and more intrigued by them from a writer’s perspective. Short stories seem to allow writers the flexibility to defy time and space, writing about fractured moments with different characters in different spaces that still manage to convey tension, emotion, and scope in such a compressed format. I find it fascinating to see how other writers do this so skillfully and I also enjoy being plunged into a moment in time, peeking into a startling new world, before being torn away again. Certain short stories can be a break from the ordinary – a chance to breathe and wonder. 

Not all short stories have this effect on me, but I find myself enjoying Dunmore’s short – sometimes super short, as in only a few pages – stories in this way. The wintry atmosphere, vaguely Scandinavian setting, relatable characters, and thick smear of tension have so far captivated me and I look forward to reading more! Having read a few reviews of this collection it looks like there is a recurring character who I am interested to meet again.