BBAW Day 4

One of the best parts about book blogging is the exposure to books and authors you might never have heard of before. Pimp the book you think needs more recognition on this day. Get creative! Maybe share snippets from other bloggers who have reviewed it or make some fun art to get your message across.

I'm going to share with everyone two of my favorite books that I feel are less known and under appreciated.

A Life Less Ordinary: A Memoir by Baby Halder is a personal memoir about a woman growing up poor in India. She gets married off to a man that does not love or appreciate her. Eventually she is able to leave her husband and finds work as a maid in Delhi but that does not end the hardships for Baby. Now she has to work a demanding job and take care of her own children on her own. Even though she faces a lot of challenges in life, Baby does not pity herself.

Mian Mian's Candy is another absolute favorite of mine. She could easily be one of my favorite authors if they would just translate more of her books! I even used her for one of my art projects, that's how much I liked this book. Well, I guess I'm just going to have to learn Chinese in order to read her other books.

Candy is somewhat based on the author's real life and experiences growing up in China in the eighties. In this book, the main character, Hong, drops out of school at 17 and runs away to Shenzen, China. There she falls in love with a musician. They live together and Hong starts drinking and doing drugs. However, Hong is still not happy with life.

This book ended up getting banned in China too. China during the eighties was an important time for China because things like art and music were beginning to break free again after being under government control for such a long time. I guess China does not want books portraying the country in a negative way out there. I might end up doing a full review of this book later but that's the gist of things.