Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Enter Title Here
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://blotter-paper.com/
CITY: Berkeley
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: American
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bal-baltimore-books-kaia20120927105932-photo.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2015068784
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2015068784
HEADING: Kanakia, Rahul
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100 1_ |a Kanakia, Rahul
670 __ |a Enter title here, 2016: |b ECIP t.p. (Rahul Kanakia)
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PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Graduated from graduate school.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Copywriter, novelist, and short story writer.
AWARDS:Honor Award in the first annual Tu Books New Visions contest.
WRITINGS
Has published short stories in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Space & Time, Nightmare, Procyon Science Fiction Anthology, Interzone, and others.
SIDELIGHTS
Rahul Kanakia is a long-time Web logger of Indian descent who published his first novel in 2016. Although he had written five previous novels, Enter Title Here is his first one to be published.
Enter Title Here is a young adult (YA) novel about Indian-American Reshma Kapoor, a perfect girl, at least in her own mind. She is a valedictorian at a high school in California’s Silicon Valley, but that is not enough for her. She has dreams of attending Stanford University, but so do many of her classmates, many of whom are smarter than she is. She has been able to manipulate the grading system to achieve her valedictorian status, but she lacks extracurricular activities and possesses a low SAT average, two obstacles to attending Stanford. She knows that the only way to reach her dream is to become more “normal” and make some friends and involve herself in school activities. She is not the most lovable person, though, in that she is willing to do almost anything to make it into Stanford. When an op-ed column she has written is published in the Huffington Post, an agent contacts her about writing a YA novel. Using herself as the protagonist, she knows that the novel will be the thing to get her into her dream college. But as is often the case, things do not exactly go as planned, and she has to resort to unsavory methods to move her story along.
BookPage Online reviewer Angela Leeper wrote: “Readers will question whether Reshma is a satirical antihero who reflects today’s convoluted race relations, education system, and need for fame, or simply a teen who wants acceptance and love.” A Publishers Weekly contributor described the work as a “mordantly funny story of an overachiever who takes ‘write what you know’ to new extremes.”
New York Times Online contributor Cecily Von Ziegesar was impressed with the makeup of the book and wrote: “Metafiction like Enter Title Here prevents the reader from escaping fully into the story. It’s meant to make you uncomfortable, and Kanakia made me uncomfortable in so many ways. Is he making fun of every young adult novel ever written? Is he making fun of ambitious teenage girls? Is he making fun of me? As she starts to wind down her novel Reshma writes, ‘My whole life, whenever I’ve done something intelligent or bold, I’ve always thought, Stanford will appreciate this.’ In that one line I felt Kanakia ache for me to ache for Reshma. Alas, I did not; but I’m very confident she’ll do just fine.”
Writing a long review of the book, an All About Romance contributor commented: “This is a typical teen angst novel that stands out from the crowd in two ways. The first is the ethnicity of the heroine; few novels take a look at the Asian teen superachiever, so that could have been a really interesting aspect of the book. … Aside from pointing out repeatedly that minority students are a) punished more severely for academic infractions and b) face prejudice from the leadership in many schools, the author doesn’t utilize that factor much at all. Instead he gives us a heroine who is hard to figure out and a family dynamic that is even harder to discern.” The reviewer continued: “The second aspect that makes this novel unique is the complete nastiness of the heroine. Reshma sued the school to keep her class rank when changes to the system would have put it in jeopardy. That’s problematic because it screwed over another group of students, all of them also vying for the top spot. She kicks people when they are down. She is completely self-absorbed. She uses people and manipulates them and stalks, threatens, and terrorizes as needed. She’s made herself enemies and it puts her in a bad position when we come to the big reveal.” The reviewer added: “Normally, that’s a moment that makes the reader really feel for the primary character but in this case it isn’t easy to scrounge up sympathy for this teen bully who put herself into that corner.”
A Middle Grade Minded Web site writer gave the book a “hefty five stars. … It’s more than just a fantastic story. It’s also a lesson on craft, motivation, and character building. It’s a 352-page manual of how important and satisfying it can be to take a trope and tear it, twist it, wad it up so much that you find a way to present something old in a brand new way.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
BookPage, August, 2016, Angela Leeper, review of Enter Title Here, p. 28.
Publishers Weekly, May 16, 2016, review of Enter Title Here, p. 59.
ONLINE
All About Romance, http://allaboutromance.com/ (March 6, 2017), review of Enter Title Here.
Baltimore Sun Online, http://www.baltimoresun.com/ (March 6, 2017), author interview.
Blotter Paper, https://blotter-paper.com (March 6, 2017), author home page.
BookPage Online, https://bookpage.com/ (March 6, 2017), review of Enter Title Here.
John M. Cusick, http://johnmcusick.wordpress.com/ (March 6, 2017), author interview.
Middle Grade Minded, http://middlegrademinded.blogspot.com/ (January 25, 2016), review of Enter Title Here.
New York Times Online, https://www.nytimes.com/ (August 26, 2016), Cecily Von Ziegesar, review of Enter Title Here.
Nightmare, http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/ (March 6, 2017), Lisa Nohealani Morton, author interview.
Reading Nook Reviews, http://www.bookrookreviews.com/ (July 16, 2016), review of Enter Title Here.
Rahul Kanakia’s short stories have appeared in dozens of publications, including Clarkesworld, Nature, and Birkensnake. He works as a copy-writer for clients in both Washington and Silicon Valley, helping them to tell stories about their projects. He’s been maintaining this blog, Blotter Paper, for eight years. And his debut book, Enter Title Here (yes, that’s its real title) is coming out on August 2nd, 2016! It’s a contemporary young adult novel that’s part metafictional romp and part drug-fueled anti-hero story–kinda like Gossip Girl meets House of Cards:
In order to score a book deal, an unscrupulous overachiever has to turn herself into a quirky, light-hearted YA novel protagonist. But after she’s caught plagiarizing an assignment, Reshma Kapoor will need to decide how far she’ll go to get a satisfying ending. (Note: it’s pretty far.)
Publisher’s Weekly called it “mordantly funny story of an overachiever who takes ‘write what you know’ to new extremes.” And Bookpage said it was “a definitive metafictional experience.” And the Barnes and Noble teen blog said, “Reshma is a genuinely unique protagonist: unintentionally funny, often mean, and uncompromising in the lengths she’ll go to get what she wants.”
Who I Am
Me!
This is me. My name is Rahul Kanakia.
I am a novelist whose first book, Enter Title Here (yes, that’s its real title), is coming out August 2nd, 2016 from Disney-Hyperion.
This is the cover of my book. I’m supposed to flash my cover at every instance in order to build up some kind of visual familiarity between it and you, the potential reader
Since the age of 18, I’ve been writing and submitting stories. Most of these have been science fiction and fantasy short stories. A number of these stories have been published. If you want to read some, I guess I’d recommend: Ted Agonistes (very short) and What Everyone Remembers (a bit longer).
I’ve written six novels (three of them were science fiction, two for adults, and one for young adults; a fourth was a contemporary young adult nove) I never revised or submitted the two adult SF novels. The second novel (the YA SF novel) was finished, polished, and submitted to both agents and publishers. It won the Honor Award in the first annual Tu Books New Visions contest and got me an offer of representation from my current agent: John Cusick of Greenhouse Literary, but never sold to an actual publisher. The fourth one, Enter Title Here, is the contemporary young adult book that will, probably be my debut. The fifth one is a adult literary novel that is terrible and which we will never speak of again. The sixth one is another young adult book: it’s about a disgraced pop starlet who suddenly starts hearing a voice–one that she interprets as the voice of God–which tells her that her whole life has been sinful and wrong. And the seven book is an adult literary novel about a somewhat-dimwitted sociopathic mother who lives in Berkeley and keeps trying to get her daughter into a really high-class school for child prodigies. These latter two novels may or may not someday be seen in print.
I’ve been interviewed by the Baltimore Sun.
I’ve been maintaining this blog since the summer of 2008 (though it’s only been regularly updated since about 2010). I used to blog on political topics, but nowadays I tend to steer clear of those. I mostly blog about books, my writing, and the writing life. I’m flirting with an expansion to more confessional topics, though.
I’m super-tall (6′ 7″). That’s almost exactly two meters, for those of you who swing that way.
I’m of Indian descent. My parents both grew up in Mumbai and came to the U.S. for graduate school.
From summer of 2012 to spring of 2014, I lived in Baltimore (while I attended graduate school). Upon graduating, I moved to New Orleans.
I quit smoking in the spring of 2011.
I quit drinking in the winter of 2010. I consider myself to be a recovered alcoholic.
I think that about does it. Perhaps this is a bit of a bio-dump, but, honestly, I read tons of blogs, and I always find it quite annoying to have to figure out, from context, who (and where!) people are. Also, yes, I will accept your facebook friend request.
INTERVIEW WITH RAHUL KANAKIA
RahulKanakiaRahul Kanakia and I started working together last year. In April his debut y.a. novel, ENTER TITLE HERE, sold to Disney-Hyperion, and will pub next fall. Pitched as Gossip Girl meets House of Cards (I KNOW RIGHT), the novel takes the form of an unpublished manuscript written by over-achiever Reshma Kapoor as she launches a Machiavellian campaign to reclaim her valedictorian status after being caught plagiarizing.
I’ve blabbed before about how awesome Rahul’s blog is, but today one of my fav writer/thinkers treats us to his insights on writing, sociability, and finding an agent:
When and how did you start writing?
Rahul: I started when I was a senior in high school. I’d always harbored a vague ambition to write stories (ever since I discovered, by reading the submissions guidelines for the official D&D magazine, DRAGON, that it was actually possible to sell a story for money to a publication), but I’d never gotten around to actually do it. I can’t say why I decided to start writing one, but I know that I finished my first story on or around December 20th, 2003, and promptly submitted it to the highest-paying science fiction magazine that I could find (where it promptly earned me the first of what are, at last count, approximately 1,240 short story rejections).
Can you remember the first book that made an impact on you? Who were your childhood storytelling heroes?
I’d say that it was probably Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. My mom gave it to me, saying that she’d read and enjoyed it when she was a girl my age, living in India. That novel led me to read all kinds of science fiction writers. I loved Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Mike Resnick, Mercedes Lackey, and all kinds of other writers. In terms of children’s books, I really enjoyed British boarding school books (again, this is the influence of my mom) like the works of Enid Blyton. Oh, and, of course, I enjoyed Astrid Lindgren.
Can you talk us through the writing of your first book? What were the key moments?
I got the idea while I was reading this Michael Lewis’ compendium of financial reportage surrounding the 2007-8 financial panic and collapse. And during one of the stories, the journalist writes about protests in Korea by students who feel like they’re being forced to study too much. During the protests, they marched down main thoroughfares, chanting “We are not study machines!”
Something about that phrase was really evocative for me, and I thought “study machines, study machines…there has to be something I can do with that.” And I started developing this sleek dystopian story involving people being forced to study really hard.
But then, as I was thinking about it, I was like, “What? This doesn’t need to be dystopian at all. This is real life. Here in this world, in our country, there are kids who feel compelled, by society, to study allll the time. So I decided to write about one of them.
The actual writing took place over 31 days, from the end of December to the end of January. I wrote most of it while I was on a family vacation in India. A significant chunk, maybe a third, was written while we were at a rented villa in Sri Lanka that had its own beach and private chef. Now that’s a writing retreat.
Was it hard to get an agent ? Can you talk us through the process?
I wrote ETH in January of 2013. At that point, I had another novel that I’d submitted to a contest for YA novels by people of color. I lost that contest, but I did become a finalist. And the winner of the contest, Valynne Maetani, knew John (she was about to sign with him) and offered, out of the blue, to put me in touch with him. I think it’s the most thoughtful writing-related thing that anything has offered to do for me. Anyway, he liked that book and wanted to sell it. I revised it throughout summer of 2013 and it went on submission to five editors in October/November of 2014, and was rejected by all of them. At that point, John had read ETH and both he and I were more excited about that, so we revised it and it sold in May of 2014.
Getting an agent was definitely happenstance. I’d previously queried 93 agents with that first book. I’m still surprised that John saw something in it that 93 other agents didn’t.
Describe your writing day. Where do you write? How do you organize your time? Where do you look for inspiration?
In general, I think writers really overstate how much time they actually spend writing. I was recently talking to a group of YA writers and one of them brought up her brother, who’s a restaranteur and works sixteen hours a day, and someone else said, “Yeah, but that’s how it is in creative professions, right?”
And I was like, “Alright. Come on. Let’s level. None of us work sixteen hours a day? It’s more like two, right?”
Then everyone looked at me like I was crazy and someone stepped in to change the subject. But I am still firm in my belief that most writers either really exaggerate how much time they spend writing, or their writing time also involves a lot of internet-browsing and Twitter time.
Each Thursday, I decide how many hours of writing I want to do on each of the coming seven days. Then I keep track of whether or not I actually do that many hours and how many days in a row I’ve managed to meet my goal. In terms of actual goals, I usually try to go for 15 hours in a week, though sometimes I hit 18 or 20. When I write, I use the Freedom app to turn off my internet, and I wedge my phone into the folds of the could cushion, so I can’t see it or easily extract it.
Inspiration is tricky. I’m not sure about that. Often I’m inspired by garish stories that I read in the Lifestyles section of the newspaper. Other times I’m inspired by books that I’ve read.
Can you tell us about your next book?
Nope. I have no idea what it’ll be.
Are there any tips you could give aspiring writers who are looking to get published?
Yes. Write hard. Read good. Keep trying. All of that is good advice.
I’d also say that it’s not a bad idea to try to meet other writers. Now, this is not necessary. I didn’t know that many other writers before I started publishing, and writing is one of the few creative professions where it’s possible to get really far even if you have zero connections. In fact, most writers get their agents through blind querying.
But if you go out and meet other writers and befriend them, either in person or on twitter, they can be of help to you. First of all, you’ll often find that if you stay friends with aspiring writers for a few years, then some will break out, find agents, get book deals, etc. And the ones who move ahead can help the ones who’re still struggling to make it. Also, the more contacts you have in the book / publishing world, the more anticipation there’ll be for your book when it actually releases. It’s hard to overstate how many books there are. And most of them are just a name, a title, and a blurb. If, on the other hand, even a few people look at that name and say, “Hey, I know that person,” then that helps.
Now I know that someone out there will read what I wrote and get super-depressed because many writers are anxious and depressive and introverted. Please don’t. I’m not saying that you need to be the coolest and most popular person in the YA world. You don’t. I’m saying to take baby steps. Get on Twitter. Follow other YA writers. Tweet at them once in awhile. I think you’ll be surprised by how little time it takes before you start to get somewhat friendly with them.
Can you describe three aspects of writing craft that have been most important as you’ve developed as an author?
Write in scene. It took me years to learn this. Narrative summary can be bold and have a good voice and be interesting, but it’s rarely surprising. It doesn’t include those chance side-characters and little bits of setting and gesture that take the book in surprising directions. If you write in scene, you’re giving yourself a chance for something to happen.
Choosing what tense to write in has become an extremely maddening problem. People will tell you to write in past tense like it’s extremely simple, but I find it maddening. If I’m writing in past tense (particularly in the first person), then when is the narration situated? Why is the narration proceeding chronologically? Why isn’t the narrator living up things with bits of future knowledge? Also, how can there be any character change: the person telling the tale is, throughout, the person who’s already changed.
On the other hand, present tense isn’t more satisfying. It’s too artificial and too constricting. It feels like it limits you too much to a given moment. It doesn’t allow you to break out of the moment and float more freely through the character’s psyche and their life.
Finally, I have a continued problem with description. Things are important. Objects are important. They’re an important part of life: our choice of objects and surroundings tremendously influences our mood. And they’re also intrinsically interesting. No one wants to just be with heads and words all the time. What I like about novels is that they affirm the importance of the physical world. They affirm the importance of tiny details and little gestures. They’re about what it’s like to be living life in a particular body in a particular place at a particular time. However, I’m terrible at describing things. I just don’t see them in my mind’s eye very well. It’s something I’m working on
Which favorite authors would you invite to a dinner party? What fictional character do you wish you’d invented?
I’d invite Ayn Rand to a dinner party, because I read Old School, which describes a dinner meeting with Ayn Rand, and it seems magnificent. She just so totally believed in her own philosophy. How could that fail to be endearing?
I’d also invite Tolstoy, because, judging by his essays, he always had something interesting to say. I don’t know whether I’d invite bearded old prophet Tolstoy or younger more literary Tolstoy, though. Maybe I’d invite them both.
May 12, 2014
Rahul Kanakia, Recent MFA Graduate, Sells YA Novel
Lisa Yoskowitz at Disney-Hyperion has bought world English rights to Rahul Kanakia‘s debut YA novel Enter Title Here, at auction. Pitched as Gossip Girl meets House of Cards, the story follows over-achiever Reshma Kapoor as she launches a Machiavellian campaign to reclaim her valedictorian status after being caught plagiarizing. Publication is set for fall 2015; John M. Cusick of Greenhouse Literary brokered the two-book deal. (From Publisher’s Weekly)
NONFICTION
PURCHASE ISSUE
Author Spotlight: Rahul Kanakia
by LISA NOHEALANI MORTON
PUBLISHED IN APR. 2016 (ISSUE 43) | 763 WORDS | RELATED STORY: THE GIRL WHO ESCAPED FROM HELL
How did you come to write “The Girl Who Escaped From Hell?”
I’ve been having a terrible amount of trouble with my writing lately. It’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to tell a story. So I decided to intellectualize the whole thing, and I created a schema for storytelling. I decided that in order to work, a story needed four things: i) a concrete goal; ii) an internal need that meeting that goal would achieve; iii) a reason, springing from the character’s backstory, for why that need was the most important one in the character’s life; and iv) some sort of consequences if the character didn’t meet that goal. And in order to test this out, I decided I would write a story that I’d designed using this schema. This story was the result: I plotted it out while I was driving home from my girlfriend’s place (it’s a forty-five minute drive), and when I got home I wrote it over the course of about two hours. It was one of the easiest writing experiences of my life, and I thought I had it made from now on! Of course, nothing is ever easy. While this story worked out great, the other stories I’ve written with this framework haven’t yet sold.
(In this case, the external goal was for him to get his daughter to stop believing in hell. The internal need was that he needed to believe he was a good father. The backstory was that he’d ripped this girl from his mother, and he felt guilty about it. And the stakes were that if he lost control of the girl then he’d lose his cushy life.)
The most obvious inspiration for the story, of course, is The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, which is a nonfiction account by Kevin Malarkey and his son Alex (that’s really their last names . . . you can’t make this stuff up) where they claim that Alex saw Heaven while he was a in a coma. The boy later recanted, saying his dad had planted the whole story in his mind, and it was a huge mess, but for a while it was quite a cultural phenomenon. There was even a major studio picture, starring Greg Kinnear.
The horror in “The Girl Who Escaped From Hell” really falls on three levels—the fear of hell itself, the fear of a parent unable to protect his child, and the fear of becoming what one hates. Which of these scares you the most? Or is there some other aspect of the story you find more disturbing?
I think the thing that scares me the most is the ending, where the dad realizes that he no longer knows what his daughter really thinks. It reveals the abyss that lies between all people. We open ourselves up to those we love, and we allow them to see what we really think and feel, but we can close that down at any point, and once it’s closed, then we’re nothing more than strangers.
What are you working on these days? Any upcoming publications or exciting projects you’d like readers to know about?
My debut novel, Enter Title Here, is coming out from Disney-Hyperion on August 2nd, 2016. That’s definitely the biggest event in my life nowadays! My little promo blurb for the book is:
In order to score a book deal, an unscrupulous overachiever has to turn herself into a quirky, light-hearted YA novel protagonist. But after she’s caught plagiarizing an assignment, Reshma Kapoor will need to decide how far she’ll go to get a satisfying ending (Note: it’s pretty far).
The book is really good! Reshma is so manipulative and evil, but she’s also magnetic. Girls in YA novels are supposed to be insecure and/or whimsical, but Reshma is hard-charging and ruthlessly effective. I loved writing her, and I know that people will love being in her head.
I also have another novel in my contract with Disney. It’ll probably be another YA contemporary, and it’ll probably come out in 2017. Other than that, nothing is known. I’ve also been working on a middle-grade novel that will probably go out to publishers sometime in the next few weeks!
What’s the scariest five-word story you can tell us?
The cockroaches learned to read.
NONFICTION
Purchase Issue
Author Spotlight: Rahul Kanakia
by SANDRA ODELL
PUBLISHED IN NOV. 2015 (ISSUE 66) | 1650 WORDS | RELATED STORY: HERE IS MY THINKING ON A SITUATION THAT AFFECTS US ALL
From the opening paragraph, “Here is My Thinking on a Situation That Affects Us All” establishes the setting, character, and the character’s amazing voice. What inspired such an incredible story?
You know, I don’t really know. According to my records, I wrote it over the course of two and a half hours on January 4th, 2015. I remember that I was at my parents’ house for the holidays, and I was in my childhood bedroom and the first draft of the story just came. The next day I spent about half an hour revising it, of which about twenty minutes were devoted to rewriting the final line. Even now, I’m still not sure the final line is perfect, but it’s okay. It’s done.
With regards to the voice and the first paragraph, the only thing that comes to mind is The Sweetest Thing, which was a 2002 movie starring Christina Applegate, Selma Blair, and Cameron Diaz (it was a female gross-out comedy that was something of a precursor to movies like Bridesmaids). I remember that when I was a teenager, this movie was on HBO all the time, and I watched it a few times, and the line that’s always stuck in my memory is when the three leads are singing a song about how you should always shower compliments on a guy’s penis, and a random woman says, “It’s oozy and green!” (bit.ly/oozygreen). I think that use of the word “oozy,” and the weird gelatinous quality that it gives to the voice, are something you can hear in the first line of my story.
Very few writers can capture such a distinctly non-human point of view as you have with the spaceship. Whether it is in the subtle mentions of physiology and physical form, or the commentary of “dogs and locusts and funguses” sharing the bond of awareness, you never once portray the spaceship as anything other than its own unique self. Why do you feel such changes in perspective appeal to genre readers?
I don’t know that it’s possible to really have a nonhuman point of view. No matter what we describe, we anthropomorphize it. For instance, would an alien spaceship really fall in love with a man? Probably not. However, it’s always tempting to try to capture something that’s other. Paradoxically, I think genre readers like non-human characters because we empathize with the outcaste and the alien. We see ourselves in them. There’s danger in that, I think, since it leads us to ignore the ways that we are powerful and oppressive. Maybe this spaceship is a perfect example. It’s an immense, alien spaceship, but it’s crafted a narrative wherein it’s stuck and powerless.
You make good use of sensory impressions throughout the story: cooling in a bath of molten iron; sizzling on the ocean floor; a journey into the dark; the precision of your visual descriptions. How do you feel such impressions draw readers into a story?
I’m glad you think so! I often feel like I’m the absolute worst at this. Prose fiction is so good at giving you the texture of another person’s thoughts. You really feel in some ways, like you are them. But I often think it’s not very good at putting us in their body and giving us the experience of what it must be like to see through their eyes. Oftentimes, when I write a novel or story, I feel like I’m writing a well-narrated shadow play—all the objects and places exist only in outline—and I have to tell myself that for the reader, all of this will feel much more real.
On your blog, you share your thoughts on rejections, becoming a worse writer, and the pleasure of an exquisitely formed narrative. If you could reach through time and talk to the younger Rahul about the ups and downs of writing, what would you say?
The main thing that’s surprised me in my writing life is how long it’s taken to get anywhere. I wrote and submitted my first story shortly after my eighteenth birthday, and I was certain that story was going to sell, be read widely, and win awards. That was twelve years ago! It took me four years to sell a story to a pro market. Six years to sell a second one. And even now I don’t sell everything I write (not even close). It’s tough, and it takes a very long time. But I really don’t think that would be a helpful thing to say to my younger self. Probably if I’d known, back then, how hard it would be, I’d have given up.
What I really wish I could tell him is how much there is to learn. Writing a story is so difficult! And even now, after selling a novel and dozens of stories, I am continually learning that there are very basic things which I don’t know (and I’m talking basic, basic things, like how to construct a plot that dramatizes a character’s core inner conflict). Writing is half instinct and half very careful thought, but for too many years I thought it was mostly instinct. If I were able to go back and talk to myself at a younger age, I’d tell Rahul to study craft and to pay attention to all the things he thinks he’s too good for (plot, sympathetic characters, symbolism, etc.). But, of course, people did tell me that stuff when I was younger, and I just didn’t listen.
Do you find that your writing process differs when writing novels versus writing shorter works?
My writing process is changing continually, and it’s gotten to the point where I no longer have any idea how I do things. Right now, in particular, it’s going through a lot of flux. I used to write without any outline. I’d just have a character, a situation, and a sense of where I wanted things to end up. But I’ve lately come to realize that when I did this, I’d often leave out very critical elements and end up with weak stories that didn’t have strong character arcs. Basically, with each story I’d set off hoping that it would be like “Here Is My Thinking . . .” (i.e. the kind of story that tells itself), but if it turned out to not be that sort of story, then I’d have zero idea how to turn it into something compelling.
So lately I’ve stepped back and become more analytical. Partly this has been a result of my novel writing. For the second book on my contract with my publisher, I have to submit a synopsis before I can start writing, and lately I’ve been going back and forth with my editor over the synopsis. This has led me to think more deeply about the kinds of stories that can be told. And these insights have, in turn, affected my short story writing. I’ve been trying to be more purposeful, with my stories, in thinking about what the core narrative and character arc are. Which is to say, I no longer really have any strong method for how I write.
Who do you turn to when you want to get your science fiction reading on?
I really like Maureen McHugh. After The Apocalypse is one of the best story collections I’ve read in any genre. It’s full of perfectly human stories about various apocalypses, both major and minor. Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings was one of the most gripping books I’ve read in recent years: It restored to me the feeling I used to get, when I was a kid, from reading David Eddings or Mercedes Lackey. It’s one of the shames of growing up—the fact that old classics no longer have their power (because you see their flaws), and now it takes a much better writer to extract from you the same emotional reaction. But Ken Liu is that writer, and I’m really looking forward to his next. Similarly, Ferrett Steinmetz’s Flex was an amazingly compelling urban fantasy—I’ve rarely seen a better realized magic system, or a book where the personal conflicts were so well integrated with the broader thematic questions.
Finally, I think Jo Walton is one of the best writers working today. Earlier this year I read My Real Children and was absolutely blown away. The intertwined stories were beautiful and affecting, and the book had an interesting broader point to make about fate and about the possibility for human happiness even in the face of global misery. And then immediately afterwards I read Walton’s The Just City, which is a serious take on a premise that is absolutely bananas (the goddess Athena collects together three hundred philosophically minded individuals, from throughout time, for the purpose of creating the ideal state envisioned by Plato’s Republic). The book seems like it cannot possibly be good, but it is. Moreover, the two books are so different and are good in such dissimilar ways—zaniness and high energy of The Just City forms a stark contrast to the precise level of control and distance that makes My Real Children such a delight—that it’s difficult to believe they were written by the same author.
Readers will question whether Reshma is a satirical antihero who reflects today's
convoluted race relations, education system and need for fame, or simply a teen who wants acceptance and love.
Enter Title Here
Angela Leeper
BookPage.
(Aug. 2016): p28.
COPYRIGHT 2016 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
ENTER TITLE HERE
By Rahul Kanakia
Disney-Hyperion
$17.99, 352 pages
ISBN 9781484723876
eBook available
Ages 14 and up
FICTION
2/6/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1486395481460 2/3
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Indian-American Reshma Kapoor isn't the smartest or the most beloved at her Silicon Valley high school, but she is the best. Through careful
study and manipulation of the grading system, she has become valedictorian. But with sub-standard SAT scores and meager extracurriculars, she's
not the ideal student for Stanford, her dream school. After her op-ed is published by the Huffington Post and a literary agent contacts her, Reshma
realizes that she finally has her hook into Stanford. She will write a YA novel, using herself as the protagonist. She's willing to do anything--from
blackmailing her way into a friendship to threatening to sue anyone who might oppose her--to move her story arc along.
Rahul Kanakia's debut is a definitive metafiction experience. Readers will question whether Reshma is a satirical antihero who reflects today's
convoluted race relations, education system and need for fame, or simply a teen who wants acceptance and love. Readers may not always like
Reshma, but they won't forget her story.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Leeper, Angela. "Enter Title Here." BookPage, Aug. 2016, p. 28. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA459289989&it=r&asid=deb918f5e47e9acc613c9bf46ce99896. Accessed 6 Feb.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A459289989
----
Kanakia's mordantly funny story of an overachiever who takes "write what you know" to new extremes
2/6/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Enter Title Here
Publishers Weekly.
263.20 (May 16, 2016): p59.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Enter Title Here
Rahul Kanakia. Hyperion, $17.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4847-2387-6
Reshma Kapoor will do anything to ensure her spot as valedictorian, including suing her school for changing its grading policy just prior to her
senior year. The lawsuit--and Reshma's subsequent op-ed in the Huffington Post, "Double Standards for Asian Students"--lead her to sign with a
literary agent, Linda Montrose, telling her that she has been working on a YA novel (which she has not). Like Linda, who believes the diary-like
manuscript Reshma assembles is fictional, readers will easily fall for debut author Kanakia's heroine, even when she's at her most ruthless or
misguided. When Reshma realizes that a good book needs romance and friendship, she approaches these hurdles in her typically calculating way:
she blackmails Alex (a classmate who has been selling her Adderall) into being her best friend and starts making romantic overtures toward
another student, Aakash. Kanakia's mordantly funny story of an overachiever who takes "write what you know" to new extremes will give
college-bound readers (and their parents) a gentle wake-up call that success can come in a variety of forms. Ages 14--up. Agent: John Cusick,
Folio Literary Management. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Enter Title Here." Publishers Weekly, 16 May 2016, p. 59. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453506846&it=r&asid=e73f745d938388a4ea22a2fb55a57497. Accessed 6 Feb.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453506846
Metafiction like “Enter Title Here” prevents the reader from escaping fully into the story. It’s meant to make you uncomfortable, and Kanakia made me uncomfortable in so many ways. Is he making fun of every young adult novel ever written? Is he making fun of ambitious teenage girls? Is he making fun of me? As she starts to wind down her novel Reshma writes, “My whole life, whenever I’ve done something intelligent or bold, I’ve always thought, Stanford will appreciate this.” In that one line I felt Kanakia ache for me to ache for Reshma. Alas, I did not; but I’m very confident she’ll do just fine.
BOOK REVIEW
A Y.A. Novel Takes on College Admissions Mania
Children’s Books
By CECILY VON ZIEGESAR AUG. 26, 2016
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ENTER TITLE HERE
By Rahul Kanakia
339 pp. Hyperion. $17.99. (Young adult; ages 14 and up)
Rahul Kanakia’s debut novel, “Enter Title Here,” opens with an email exchange between Reshma Kapoor, a high school senior, and a literary agent impressed by Reshma’s recent piece in The Huffington Post. Reshma promises the agent she will write a novel. A rough draft of that novel, a book within the book, constitutes the rest of “Enter Title Here.” After introducing herself, she begins: “If you have the free time to read this book, then you’re probably nothing like me.” Reshma, who attends Alexander Graham Bell High School in Las Vacas, a wealthy Silicon Valley suburb, is first in her class and wants to go to Stanford, but her SAT scores aren’t great. She needs a hook, and that hook is this book.
Early on, Reshma writes a synopsis of the action to come in which “an introverted, studious Indian-American girl . . . starts doing all the regular American girl stuff that she always used to ignore: making friends, going to parties, drinking, dating, falling in love, having sex, etc.” That may remind you — it reminded me — of “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” that decade-old debut novel about an ambitious suburban Indian-American girl who did all of the above in order to get into Harvard. “Opal Mehta” was, of course, pulled from the shelves after its teenage author was accused of plagiarism. T.S. Eliot said, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” Perhaps Kanakia drew inspiration for “Enter Title Here” from the story of that novel and its author (who by the way graduated from Harvard and is apparently doing just fine). Or not.
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For someone with zero experience, Reshma handles boys and sex and partying astonishingly well. In the wee hours of the morning, jittery with Adderall, she jogs up and down her stairs, conveniently disturbing George Trivandrum, a hot jock who uses the Kapoors’ address illegally to attend Bell. Then there’s Aakash, the nerdy boyfriend she acquires because her diligently outlined novel requires it. Sweet, skinny, studious Aakash joins a chat group for dating advice and studies up on “internet-sanctioned making out.” Sadly, George wins.
Reshma claims that “the secret to succeeding as a writer is pretty simple: In general people don’t try to understand anything; they judge a work by how smart it sounds.” She’s hard to listen to, but she doesn’t go unpunished. She plagiarizes an English assignment and gets caught. The Huffington Post accuses her of plagiarizing her article. Stanford drops her. Then her agent drops her. Reshma’s family threatens to sue. She goes on a talk show, and the host brings on her English teacher. Reshma spits in the teacher’s face.
The most likable character besides Aakash is Reshma’s therapist, Dr. Wasserman, a struggling crime writer. Instead of addressing Reshma’s anger issues or Adderall abuse, he talks her through interior and exterior story arcs and encourages her to include a murder in her novel. I agree with him — let’s murder Reshma! But Dr. Wasserman doesn’t even have an agent.
There are many subjects of Reshma’s ire. A Bell High alumna named Susan Le who bought out her parents’ company and made a fortune. Her parents, for being so naïve. The other contenders for valedictorian. Herself, her own worst enemy. Aakash says it most succinctly: “You’re kind of a bitch. That’s your thing. Everyone knows that.”
We hear Reshma’s voice only through the diarylike draft of the novel she’s writing. Dated chapters heighten the tension as spring approaches and college acceptance letters arrive. Reshma may learn not to behave like an entitled brat, but Kanakia refuses to reward her: She is accepted nowhere and winds up working in a shoe store.
Metafiction like “Enter Title Here” prevents the reader from escaping fully into the story. It’s meant to make you uncomfortable, and Kanakia made me uncomfortable in so many ways. Is he making fun of every young adult novel ever written? Is he making fun of ambitious teenage girls? Is he making fun of me? As she starts to wind down her novel Reshma writes, “My whole life, whenever I’ve done something intelligent or bold, I’ve always thought, Stanford will appreciate this.” In that one line I felt Kanakia ache for me to ache for Reshma. Alas, I did not; but I’m very confident she’ll do just fine.
it's more than just a fantastic story. It's also a lesson on craft, motivation, and character building. It's a 352-page manual of how important and satisfying it can be to take a trope and tear it, twist it, wad it up so much that you find a way to present something old in a brand new way.
hefty five stars
Monday, January 25, 2016
Book review: ENTER TITLE HERE by Rahul Kanakia
Title: Enter Title Here
Author: Rahul Kanakia
Genre: YA Contemporary
Pages: 352 pages
Publication date: August 2, 2016
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Website: http://blotter-paper.com/
My Rating: 5 / 5
Not too many books promise you an unlikable character on the first page. And I'd say even fewer books put the fact that you'll be following a full-blown antihero right on the cover. It's rare. It's risky. And in order to pull it off effectively, I'm pretty sure the author needs to be either some world-building savant or a literary mad scientist.
Lucky for Rahul Kanakia, he's a bit of both.
Reshma Kapoor, the self-proclaimed best-of-the-best in her class, has one goal: to get into Stanford. But having the highest GPA and a laundry list of extra curriculars isn't enough. She needs something that will get her noticed in the stack of applicants. Her solution is simple (according to her). She's going to write a killer YA novel.
Now this is all revealed early in chapter one. And from then on, Reshma becomes a workaholic bulldozer, flattening anything and anyone who gets in her way of Stanford stardom. Her vision becomes so tunneled that she doesn't bat an eyelash when it comes to deciding how she'll manage her valedictorian victory. She quickly proves that she'll do whatever it takes to keep her status as the top student.
Seriously. Whatever it takes.
I kept waiting for the moment when I slammed the book closed and tossed it across the room. But I never did. In fact, I began developing a very strong respect for Reshma. And that's because Rahul gives her endless amounts of motivation for her actions. Reshma has every reason in the world to act the way she does and her drive to become the best is something we can all relate to in one way or another. I'm convinced that Reshma--while perfectly existing as the main character in her world--could easily exist as the antagonist in a companion novel. In fact, there are several characters Reshma interacts with who could fit the mold of "protagonist." But I love that they don't. Because even though she possesses so many qualities of the typical mean girl, Reshma's never the villain. She's the determined, resourceful, intelligent, and occasionally self-deprecating hero that we end up cheering for at times and cringing over at others.
And that's why Enter Title Here gets a hefty five stars. Because it's more than just a fantastic story. It's also a lesson on craft, motivation, and character building. It's a 352-page manual of how important and satisfying it can be to take a trope and tear it, twist it, wad it up so much that you find a way to present something old in a brand new way.
Add it on Goodreads.
August 2016
ENTER TITLE HERE
Blurred lines between fact and fiction
BookPage review by Angela Leeper
Indian-American Reshma Kapoor isn’t the smartest or the most beloved at her Silicon Valley high school, but she is the best. Through careful study and manipulation of the grading system, she has become valedictorian. But with sub-standard SAT scores and meager extracurriculars, she’s not the ideal student for Stanford, her dream school. After her op-ed is published by the Huffington Post and a literary agent contacts her, Reshma realizes that she finally has her hook into Stanford. She will write a YA novel, using herself as the protagonist. She’s willing to do anything—from blackmailing her way into a friendship to threatening to sue anyone who might oppose her—to move her story arc along.
Rahul Kanakia’s debut is a definitive metafiction experience. Readers will question whether Reshma is a satirical antihero who reflects today’s convoluted race relations, education system and need for fame, or simply a teen who wants acceptance and love. Readers may not always like Reshma, but they won’t forget her story.
This is a typical teen angst novel that stands out from the crowd in two ways. The first is the ethnicity of the heroine; few novels take a look at the Asian teen super-achiever, so that could have been a really interesting aspect of the book. However, aside from pointing out repeatedly that minority students are a) punished more severely for academic infractions and b) face prejudice from the leadership in many schools, the author doesn’t utilize that factor much at all. Instead he gives us a heroine who is hard to figure out and a family dynamic that is even harder to discern.
The second aspect that makes this novel unique is the complete nastiness of the heroine. Reshma sued the school to keep her class rank when changes to the system would have put it in jeopardy. That’s problematic because it screwed over another group of students, all of them also vying for the top spot. She kicks people when they are down. She is completely self-absorbed. She uses people and manipulates them and stalks, threatens and terrorizes as needed. She’s made herself enemies and it puts her in a bad position when we come to the big reveal. Normally, that’s a moment that makes the reader really feel for the primary character but in this case it isn’t easy to scrounge up sympathy for this teen bully who put herself into that corner.
Enter Title Here is an interesting and somewhat different teen angst novel. For readers of that market, this might be a provocative reading choice. The prose is excellent and the story contains some unique features. However, if that type of book isn’t your cuppa this story won’t work for you. It just doesn’t have what it takes to appeal to a wider audience.
Enter Title Here
Rahul Kanakia
Buy This Book
One of the amazing things about the novel Gone with the Wind is that the book is intensely popular in spite of the fact that many dislike heroine Scarlet O’Hara. I would agree that Scarlet is hard to like, at times hard to understand and never comfortable to be around; yet she is an enduring figure in our collective conscience because of those traits rather than in spite of them. The heroine of this novel is in many ways similar to Miss Scarlet, although I doubt she will ever be as famous.
Reshma Kapoor has two realities. There is the reality she projects: tough as nails, confident, top ranked student in her school, future Stanford graduate. Then there is her internal reality: her SAT scores were not those of a future Stanford student and her top ranking in class is held on to by mere tenths of a decimal point. She feels she’s nothing special since she has to work twice as hard as everyone else to achieve as much as they do. And there is a dark secret which lurks at the back of her mind, a secret which could destroy all she has worked for.
When an op-ed piece she wrote for the Huffington Post catches the eye of a literary agent she feels saved. All she has to do is pitch a novel and then tell Stanford she has a contract with an agency to publish a book. That one fact will set her application apart and ensure her entry into med school.
Reshma’s only problem? She had no plans for writing a book and she is pretty sure no one will be interested in a novel based on her life of all work and no play. Solution? Get a life. Her first step is to finagle a date with the nerdy Indian boy who has been crushing on her for at least a year and whom she has ignored for an equal length of time. Aakash, sweet and naïve, plays perfectly into Reshma’s plans and it isn’t long before she is stalking him on Bombr and learning all his secrets.
Her next foray – finding a best friend – doesn’t go as well. She has to blackmail Alex Sorenson, her Adderall dealer, to get invited to eat lunch at the “perfects” table and receive an invite to a party. But Reshma is nothing if not determined and as she goes about getting the life she thinks she needs she starts to wonder if she has ever had the life she actually wants. And if she even knows what that is.
This is a typical teen angst novel that stands out from the crowd in two ways. The first is the ethnicity of the heroine; few novels take a look at the Asian teen super-achiever, so that could have been a really interesting aspect of the book. However, aside from pointing out repeatedly that minority students are a) punished more severely for academic infractions and b) face prejudice from the leadership in many schools, the author doesn’t utilize that factor much at all. Instead he gives us a heroine who is hard to figure out and a family dynamic that is even harder to discern.
Reshma has a complicated relationship with her parents. She loves them but also scorns them. Typical teen, right? But in Reshma’s case the scorn isn’t because of how unhip or out-of-the-know she feels her parents are but because of something specific that happened in their past. The story builds to a full revelation of it but suffice it to say that a poor business decision on their part had a profound impact on her. Profound. We are led to believe that the ethical conundrum which drives Reshma was caused by that event.
For their part, the parents are benignly negligent; they don’t know about her drug addiction or about all the things she does to succeed at school and life which are less than ethical. The author makes it clear that they aren’t directly to blame – as in they put no pressure on her to succeed – but in doing so also shows they don’t seem to care for her very much. We see no real moments of affection or playfulness that would show they are interested in their daughter – unless calling the psychologist every time she does something they feel is odd can be counted as love.
The second aspect that makes this novel unique is the complete nastiness of the heroine. Reshma sued the school to keep her class rank when changes to the system would have put it in jeopardy. That’s problematic because it screwed over another group of students, all of them also vying for the top spot. She kicks people when they are down. She is completely self-absorbed. She uses people and manipulates them and stalks, threatens and terrorizes as needed. She’s made herself enemies and it puts her in a bad position when we come to the big reveal. Normally, that’s a moment that makes the reader really feel for the primary character but in this case it isn’t easy to scrounge up sympathy for this teen bully who put herself into that corner.
Part of the big reveal is an aspect of the book I found very well done; the character of teacher Ms. Ratcliffe. Ms. Ratcliffe teaches AP Literature and is a complete thorn in Reshma’s side but Reshma has to take her class. AP classes get additional points when calculating GPAs and in order to stay on top Reshma not only needs all her classes to be AP but she needs to excel at them. Most of her teachers get this and set up guidelines which are clear and obtainable. Not Ms. Ratcliffe. She grades the papers not on technical merit but emotive, which puts Reshma at a complete disadvantage. She is so bottled up and afraid to take a look at her own feelings that she has no intention of bleeding all over a paper for Ms. Ratcliffe. The conflict between the two puts them into an explosive situation which comes to a dramatic, unexpected solution. I appreciated that the author shows both characters as being to blame rather than just one or the other and thought this portion of the book was the best handled aspect of the novel.
That said, I didn’t love this story. Reshma is an understandable but uncomfortable protagonist. I really wish the author had explored the big event that formed her (and how the family handled it) a bit more thoroughly. For an instigating factor, it was woefully underdeveloped. I appreciated the look at the injustice and racial prejudice in the school system but felt that could have been explored more thoroughly as well. In other words, my primary complaint is that the author had many interesting ideas from Adderall drug addiction to the usual story of mean girls and turbulent high school romance but adding those to a book that also dealt with prejudice in the school system and the big formative event of Reshma’s life was too much for any one novel to handle. The book would perhaps have been a bit better with a bit more focus.
Enter Title Here is an interesting and somewhat different teen angst novel. For readers of that market, this might be a provocative reading choice. The prose is excellent and the story contains some unique features. However, if that type of book isn’t your cuppa this story won’t work for you. It just doesn’t have what it takes to appeal to a wider audience.
07/16: A review of Enter Title Here by Rahul Kanakia (Disney Hyperion)
7/16/2016
Picture
Happy Saturday, guys!
I'm sure most of you are out catching Pokémon right now, but why not take a break and read?
And if you're looking for a book that will blow your mind just like a good catch, look no further than Enter Title Here. I was already excited for the book when I heard it was pitched as House of Cards meets Gossip Girl, but Rahul - who is also a very, very nice and considerate guy - defied my expectations even further.
Read on for more! :)
-J
Title information:
Hardcover, 352 pages
Expected publication: August 2nd 2016 by Disney-Hyperion
Format read: ARC via publisher
ISBN: 1484723872
Amazon
Indiebound
Book Depository
Two-second recap:
Enter Title Here is a book that turns YA on its head. With an unforgettable antihero and a meta take on novel writing, this is the twenty-first century's answer to Better Luck Tomorrow, and a book you will highly enjoy.
Synopsis:
I’m your protagonist—Reshma Kapoor—and if you have the free time to read this book, then you’re probably nothing like me.
Reshma is a college counselor’s dream. She’s the top-ranked senior at her ultra-competitive Silicon Valley high school, with a spotless academic record and a long roster of extracurriculars. But there are plenty of perfect students in the country, and if Reshma wants to get into Stanford, and into med school after that, she needs the hook to beat them all.
What's a habitual over-achiever to do? Land herself a literary agent, of course. Which is exactly what Reshma does after agent Linda Montrose spots an article she wrote for Huffington Post. Linda wants to represent Reshma, and, with her new agent's help scoring a book deal, Reshma knows she’ll finally have the key to Stanford.
But she’s convinced no one would want to read a novel about a study machine like her. To make herself a more relatable protagonist, she must start doing all the regular American girl stuff she normally ignores. For starters, she has to make a friend, then get a boyfriend. And she's already planned the perfect ending: after struggling for three hundred pages with her own perfectionism, Reshma will learn that meaningful relationships can be more important than success—a character arc librarians and critics alike will enjoy.
Of course, even with a mastermind like Reshma in charge, things can’t always go as planned. And when the valedictorian spot begins to slip from her grasp, she’ll have to decide just how far she’ll go for that satisfying ending. (Note: It’s pretty far.)
In this wholly unique, wickedly funny debut novel, Rahul Kanakia consciously uses the rules of storytelling—and then breaks them to pieces.
Full review:
The first thing you need to know about Reshma Kapoor is that yes: she is an awful person. She does things in the name of high GPAs and a general desire to win, that would absolutely make Blair Waldorf go, "Whoa. Maybe we should calm down a little."
But that's what's so fantastic and compelling about Enter Title Here. Rahul Kanakia has written a book where Reshma is very much an awful and troubled antihero, but readers are still skillfully drawn into her journey, and left feeling nothing sympathy and empathy until the very last page.
When we first meet Reshma, she's at a place that anyone can relate to: it's senior year, and she's desperate to get into Stanford, her first-choice college. However, that desperation evolves into questionable behavior, as she struggles to figure out what can make her stand out from the thousands of other high school students with similar backgrounds, who are also vying for a spot.
Enter writing, and the promise of a literary agent. Kanakia unabashedly goes meta with the book, having Reshma write a book about "Reshma" and her high school experiences. (The book essentially functions as the manuscript, in some sense.) Along the way, the real Reshma is forced to continuously up the ante on her behavior, in ways that had me cringing, and feeling empathy that she would feel pushed to such lengths - e.g. suing the school to get a certain ranking; trying to force friendships and more.
(So basically, it's Blair Waldorf on Adderall - which will actually make sense, once you read this book)
While it's easy to hate Reshma for being so desperate and calculating, Kanakia is careful to have moments of clarity shine through her machinations. Her need to prove herself to an unrelenting critic of her own imagination is palpable, and readers can't help but feel sympathy for her as she's forced to counter each negative action with an even more grandiose reaction. Her behavior is basically akin to a person lying: you have to tell an even bigger lie each time, to cover it up.
When her house of cards begins to teeter, Kanakia brilliantly shows the struggle Reshman undergoes between wanting to be good, and wanting to win. There are clear-cut moments when the pendulum could have swung in a more forgiving direction, but Reshma's desire to be on top is too ingrained in her for her to change. Though it's never outright stated, Reshma's struggles are also a pointed reminder of the challenges that real-world high school seniors likely undergo every year, and older readers can stand to learn from this vivid representation of their daily stressors.
Final verdict:
Enter Title Here is one of the weirdest books I've read all year, and that's absolutely a compliment.
Kanakia turns the structure and conceit of a YA novel on its head, and produces a work starring an antihero that's not only fascinating, but also an empathetic look at many of the challenges that real-world high school students likely face on a daily basis.
Reshma is initially highly unlikable, but readers will come away having an appreciation of her journey, and learning a little more about themselves at the end of the day. Strongly recommend.