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?