I’m a big fan of Scaachi Koul’s writing and have been following her for years through various media outlets and on Twitter—I’ve always enjoyed the way she tackles a story or issue, her brand of humour always speaks to me and her stories about her parents are particularly funny.

In this, her second collection of essays, we see a different side to her. Where she used to strike me as eagerly combative and bold, here she seems drained of fight, a little defeated, seemingly as lost as the rest of us who once felt like we could take on anything, fight the good fight, but got punched down by the never ending dumpster fire that has been our timeline since the pandemic. Only Koul’s new marriage also fell apart, her mom got cancer and journalism died so… she wins I guess!

The majority of this book is focussed on her divorce, the way she used to see her partner and relationship, and how/why it ended but mostly through the way they fought, over what, and what fighting used to mean for her. There’s a lot of growth and self-reflection here and also a sad amount of “should have known” which I feel like strikes all of us who date older men in our early twenties… I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending…

Anywho! I enjoyed this, excellent read by the author, but the vibes were definitely bleaker than I was hoping for.

I very much enjoyed Scaachi Koul’s first book, One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, when I read it in 2017 so I was looking forward to reading Sucker Punch. Reviewing memoirs is always tricky, even when it’s a collection of essays (it’s still a memoir, imo). I don’t want to judge someone’s life - that’s not what we’re doing today. But, I do have to judge how someone writes about their life. And there? I feel like Koul struggled.

Here’s the book’s description:

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 pandemic hit, the world went into lockdown, 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 signature humor and fierce intelligence 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.

When I was talking to a friend about what it was I struggled with, I sort of felt like Koul was writing about her trauma and she hadn’t yet worked through her trauma. I don’t know if she was at a place where she should have been writing this memoir. There were a lot of raw feelings that I didn’t feel all that comfortable reading about. It’s not that I felt like Koul was oversharing - though I’m sure there are many people who would think that - it’s just that I wasn’t sure if she was in the best place to be sharing some of those thoughts.

I also wondered how much she was telling and how much she was holding back. Obviously there’s going to be some stories that aren’t shared, I know that and expect that. But what I learned while reading Sucker Punch was that Koul edited her stories in her first book. Which, once you learn more, you understand why she did. Again, there was some trauma that she just hadn’t worked through and it seemed like she couldn’t face the truth even to herself, let alone while writing about it for the public to consume. Though I could see why she made the choice to tell a different version of her story, I couldn’t help but wonder what else she was editing for us.

Koul is a smart and funny woman - that comes through her writing and I think why I kept reading to the end of this collection. Her essays about her family were stronger, especially when writing about her mother’s cancer diagnosis, and hearing more about her family was my favourite part of the book.

Content warnings to be aware of: illness of a parent, divorce, rape, disordered eating, and pandemic life.

Sucker Punch was full of emotions and stories, some heartbreaking and others funnier and more uplifting. I think Scaachi Koul is a smart and talented writer but something about her latest collection missed the mark for me.

*An egalley was provided by the publisher, Penguin Random House Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Scaachi Kohl's sophomore memoir and she did not disappoint. There is a candor to Scaachi's writing that I always appreciate. She is honesty, abrasive and very much a Millennial just trying to get through life. Through in a divorce before she was 30 and you have a recipe for relatable story that is easy to connect with. I also appreciate when she talks about her relationship with her parents and how it impacts her relationships which I found relatable,

While I had to wait 8 years for this, I think it was worth it and I will continue to support Scaachi in anything she does and I can't wait to pick up a physical copy.

Sucker Punch follows Scaachi Koul's life far from where her debut book left us. One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter ended with a sense of hope for a life to be embarked on with her then-boyfriend; Sucker Punch begins at divorce and unravels a rocky marriage from there. There are commonalities as both books explore themes of culture, family, and love with a deep sense of humour, yet, heartbreak and experience appears to sharpen Koul's narrative voice delivering something even more distinctive as Koul opts not to roll with the punches but instead bites back.

A personal collection of essays in which Canadian writer Scacchi Koul shares her experiences with divorce, rape, body image, disordered eating, life during the pandemic and more. This was good on audio narrated by the author herself but I'm not sure I liked it quite as much as her first book. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

I have been dying to get my hands on an ARC of this and so naturally, once I got one, I devoured it. Scaachi Koul has been one of my favourite culture writers for a while now, and I really liked her first book of essays. More introspective and vulnerable, this is an examination of her life after her marriage fell apart - a kind of post-mortem, but also a tentative re-introduction.

Koul is open about her faults, and the things she should have and could have done differently. She talks about the stories she told herself, and the reality of having to examine everything when she lives her life so publicly and online. There’s lots of anger and regret, but there’s lots of love and desire to heal, and not to totally burn everything down, not anymore.

I’m the same age as Koul, and so I think the sadness of Sucker Punch, the way the pandemic shaped how she dealt with her relationship, and her references make sense to me. But we are also very different, and her storytelling about the Indian diaspora, and her own experiences as an immigrant, even as a Canadian to the US, we’re illuminating. I laughed, I cried, I needed to sit with it for a bit. And isn’t that all we want?