I will be upfront and admit that I decided to buy this because of Emma Stone. I knew she was in the movie that they made out of this, and I knew that it was widely, wildly praised. Thank GOD for Hollywood, I say. If not for them, I would never have ventured into these pages, and my life would have been a little bit sadder.

I sat still for a long time after finishing this, staring out of the window at nighttime India (I was reading this aboard the Delhi-Kolkata Rajdhani) and breathing deeply to calm the racing heart, the lump in the throat. Remember 'To Kill a Mockingbird'? If I didn't know better, I would've thought it to be written by Harper Lee herself, a sequel to that monumental work of American literature.

Read it, even if it's the only thing you read this year.