We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

This is feeling a bit like déjà vu because I said I was starting the book last week but really, I ended up reading something else. This time though I am actually reading Silence is a Sense. Our narrator is a Syrian refugee whose trauma has led to her to stop speaking and we basically follow her story as she observes the lives of her neighbours through the windows of the apartment block and as she grapples with processing everything she has experienced in Syria and in fleeing Syria to get to where she is now. It’s a very heavy book and I’m also getting a bit confused at times as we get present day scenes mixed with flashbacks to Syria mixed with dreams and I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not sometimes. There’s a lot packed into this book and I hope my review will be able to do it justice!

A young woman sits in her apartment in an unnamed English city, absorbed in watching the small dramas of her assorted neighbors through their windows across the way. Traumatized into muteness after a long, devastating trip from war-torn Syria to the UK, she believes that she wants to sink deeper into isolation, moving between memories of her absent boyfriend and family and her homeland, dreams, and reality. At the same time, she begins writing for a magazine under the pseudonym “the Voiceless,” trying to explain the refugee experience without sensationalizing it—or revealing anything about herself.

Gradually, as the boundaries of her world expand—as she ventures to the neighborhood corner store, to a gathering at a nearby mosque, and to the bookstore and laundromat, and as an anti-Muslim hate crime shatters the members of a nearby mosque—she has to make a choice: Will she remain a voiceless observer, or become an active participant in her own life and in a community that, despite her best efforts, is quickly becoming her own?

What are you currently reading?

Today is actually the Balinese New Year and it’s a day that’s meant to spent in silence and meditation. I spent most of the afternoon alternating between awake + reading and asleep so it was a pretty quiet and lazy day. 😂 This is the first time in five years that I’ve celebrated it outside of Bali and I have to admit I kinda miss being there for it as the experience is so much more intense. They take it really seriously with no internet and electricity but the island falls into this intensely quiet and calming zone that it rarely ever experiences as a tourist destination and it’s honestly amazing!

Other than that, I don’t know what I’ve been doing recently? Cos I don’t think I’ve been playing much ACNH but I also haven’t been watching shows or reading a huge amount either. Time just flies so quickly I can’t believe it’s already mid-March! 🙈

I took a look at what I’ve read so far in March and… It’s not a lot! I don’t even know why I’m not reading much this month because I don’t think I’m feeling particularly “slumpish” or anything and neither is my time being consumed by much else. The weekend is already over and I’ve only managed to finish one book and I’m not even making much headway with my current read. I guess we all have off months, right?

First Line Friday: 12 March
Let’s Talk Bookish: Predicting Trends
The Outstanding Blogger Award!
#WWWWednesday: 10 March
ARC Review: Happy Singles Day by Ann Marie Walker
#TopTenTuesday: Cutting Down the Backlist!
#5OnMyTBR: Retellings
Goodreads Monday: The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
ARC Review: The Last Secret You’ll Ever Keep by Laurie Faria Stolarz

WEEKLY TRACK HIGHLIGHT

I’ve recently discovered this old track by Ben and ugh, how it slays my feelings! I’m saddened by that ending.

🎶 darling, only you can ease my mind / help me leave these lonely thoughts behind / when they pull me under / and i can feel my sanity start to unwind. 🎶

I hope you’ve all had a good weekend and that you have a great week ahead! Take care of yourselves and of each other, friends 🖤