A matriarch tries to orchestrate her own obituaries, and everything goes wrong
Dava Shastri's Last Day — Kirthana Ramisetti
Under-the-Radar Book of the Week
Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti
Content warnings listed in the footnote of this newsletter.1
What It’s About
Dava Shastri is a legend. One of the world’s wealthiest women, she’s known for being an innovator, an inspiration, a benefactor, a star. But when she’s diagnosed with brain cancer at age 70, she collapses.
All Dava knows is that her reputation cannot be destroyed by this diagnosis — so she refuses to tell anyone about it, including her own family. Having kept it a secret until her deathbed, Dava summons her children and their families to their holiday house to announce the news and take her death into her own hands. She releases her obituary a day before she will die by doctor-assisted suicide so she can read what others will say about her legacy.
But it doesn’t go according to plan, and secrets Dava thought she buried begin to surface, leaving her scrambling to explain a lifetime of hiding the truth to her children and repair their relationships before it’s too late.
Why You Should Read It
This was a fascinating look at a complicated woman who wanted it all — and seemingly achieved it. Dava was obsessed with her legacy and making sure she got to leave something behind, and her children felt many different ways about it, whether good or bad, and the decisions she’d made in her life to get to this point. I really appreciated the look at a woman choosing for herself and her family, even if those choices didn’t always align. If you loved the female agency in Barbie but want the rich-people drama of White Lotus, this should be your next read.
Also for fans of The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand, and Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan.
Misc.
Approximately 50 percent of my books are now packed in boxes and ready for the move! In the meantime, I’ve been grabbing some older backlist titles that have been on my shelf forever — here are two that I’ve read a few chapters of each, and they’re both grabbing my attention. The Survival Kit (2011), which looks harder to get a copy of today, follows a teen in the wake of her mom’s death. The Electric Kingdom (2021), which is a more recent title, is set after a deadly invasion of Flu Flies, and follows several people as they try to make lives for themselves.
For a fun experiment, take a look at your shelves (real or virtual) and let me know what the oldest book is or the book that’s been there the longest is. Grab it and read it this week!
More Books
Can’t get enough, or looking for a different recommendation? Browse the archives, or check out some popular past recommendations:
Read a contemporary sci-fi novel that asks big questions about life and its meaning
Read a book about a bank heist, con artists, and falling in love
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Content warnings include doctor-assisted suicide, cancer, death of a loved one, marital affair, alcohol abuse.
Loved this one.
I LOVE the way you wrote about the book.