The Awful Age by Tisha Khosla [Paperback]

A coming-of-age story full of nuance, sincerity and wisdom. When you’ve been tricked and the cards are decked against you, it’s time to open a new set of cards. However, unlike a game of cards, in life, rules are meant to be rewritten or you lose the chance to play your winning hand. And while it sucks to be defeated by others, to fail yourself is a loss from which you may never recover. So, when a pragmatic Tiana finds the courage to clash with her dogmatic teachers, it was bound to shake up the school. For Tiana, the most important lessons in high school were learnt outside the classroom because beyond the textbooks, her teachers were imparting their patronizing sexist ideologies and censorship of speech, all in the name of discipline. Tiana had had enough. After being wrongfully suspended and then going back to her boarding school, where she wasn’t wanted, it took a lot of courage and shrewdness to prove her innocence. All this, while being a part of multiple love triangles, dealing with jealous friends, a duplicitous cousin and egocentric teachers. Welcome to the new term.