books you may love: Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

It's been a helluva week. It's been a helluva few months, in fact. To say that 2026 began on a dismal note and has so far devolved into something far worse, specifically mental health-wise, is an understatement.

In the same breath, it must also be said that books have been a saviour. A lifeline I hold on to desperately to see me through the madness of chaos and uncertainty.

I don't think even the pandemic was quite so stressful. Or was it? And I've simply forgotten how bad it was because it's now so far behind in the past? But more on that later.

The book that saved me this week was Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins.

I had borrowed it from the library a few weeks ago, and it sat on my bedside table, patiently awaiting its turn. I didn't open it until a couple of days ago, and I tore through it and savoured it at the same time, so riveting it was.

Lux is a young woman who lives in Hawaii with her boyfriend, Nico, who comes from a rich family but choses to live in relative squalor instead, working at the marina. Lux herself works as a cleaner in a hotel, a job she's fired from in the very first chapter.

Lux and Nico had had plans to sail around the world in Nico's boat, which is sadly in dire need of repairs.

Enter Amma and Brittany, two friends who are looking to hire Nico to take them to a remote island in the Pacific called Meroe Island for a two-week visit. The place has a grim historical background, serving as an air base during WWII, and home to a shipwreck that saw the surviving crew turn to cannibalism in the end.

(Turns out, Meroe Island is a real place of India in the Bay of Bengal.)

Once there, the foursome encounters another couple — Jake and Eliza — and the six of them quickly bond and hang out and explore the island together.

What do you get when you put six hot young men and women together in a remote island, completely off the grid?

Add in a healthy dose of secrets from the past that each one of them is saddled with, and you get a suspenseful romp in a beautiful locale teeming with a sense of 'something terrible is about to happen but we don't know yet what it is and who'll be the first victim'.

There's something to be said about reading a story set in a warm tropical locale while it's —15 degree Celsius outside.

My head had been grey with fearful thoughts of an upcoming trip for much of these past couple of months, and reading this book — although it was a suspense and meant to evoke a sense of dread, which it does, unforgivingly — there was a constant picture of blue skies and sunshine and a whiff of saltwater in my head. Such an immersive read it was!

Hawkins provides such sharp insights into her characters it was breathtaking.

Eliza is almost seventeen when it all comes crashing down.

Before that night in April, her life hadn't exactly been charmed. There was never enough money, her dad split before she even really knew him, and she and Mum had moved so many times. They'd lived in big cities like London and Manchester, and tiny villages with names that sound like something out of a storybook—but, for Eliza, they were still just a series of council flats and shitty schools.

She's glided by, Eliza has, because she's pretty, because she's quick, because she worked out that thing, that secret, that takes most people ages to learn — no one really wants you to be yourself. They only want themselves reflected back at them.

Eliza is very good at doing that.

So while she never has the nicest clothes or the hottest brands, she always has friends, always finds herself at the centre of things, and that's where she likes to be, where she feels the most in control.

~ An excerpt from Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

And here's the character, Eliza, presented from the point of view of the main protagonist of the book, Lux.

Eliza who, for whatever reason, I still want to please.

That's her superpower. She presents you with a version of yourself that you could be, if you were just brave enough to try.

~ An excerpt from Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

I know someone like that.

Someone who makes me want to do all I can to help her whenever she reaches out, because there's something about her that makes me want to do my best, be my best, be like her sometimes, walking through this world with confidence and poise, with tremendous self-assurance and a certainty that people will do her bidding. She only has to ask.

Reckless Girls saved me at a time when I was drowning in anxiety. I have travel plans coming up, but the news — even though largely unrelated (yet) to my destination — has sent me reeling.

These past couple of months haven't been my best. I've spiralled into anxiety every weekend when I haven't been able to work to keep fearful thoughts at bay. I feel tremendous guilt at spiralling in front of little D.

It's also recently come to light that my Vitamin D levels are far below threshold, so I'm glad there's something I can do to remedy these constant dips into dark madness.

But there are two things I need to give up — following the news, and my morning cuppa. While the news settles like sediment in the depths of my subconscious, each new snippet of doom and devastation adding to that murky layer, caffeine has been whipping up that layer like a tornado.

Was it always like this? I don't know.

But it has become like this now. Which means I'm more determined than ever to give up drinking coffee. It's been on my mind for a while now.

There was a time when I had gotten addicted to Earth's Own Barista Edition to make my cup of coffee. So much so that whenever it ran out in the stores, we'd go hunting for it everywhere. We've even ordered a pack of dozen cartons from Amazon a couple of times.

I managed to cure that addiction when we went on a 5-week trip to the UK and India in the summer of 2024. I was still drinking coffee, but without access to Barista Edition. When I came back, I didn't go back to it.

We have a short trip coming up, and I wonder if that will cure me of my addiction to caffeine. That would be a blessing.

I haven't had travel anxiety in the past. I love to travel, and I always complain that we don't do as much of it as we'd like to. Budget, and time away from work and school are very real constraints.

But something about how the media portrays the state of the world has ratcheted up the volume and intensity of fears and worries swirling around in my anxious mind. Every place feels scary. Every moment feels as though things could go horribly wrong.

I've been practising many self-regulation tools. Deep breathings. Meditations. Journaling. CBT. Listening to talks by Tara Brach, one of the most compassionate meditation and wisdom teachers of our times.

Still, not enough.

Well, let me rephrase that. Enough to get by on most days, which is a huge success in itself in times like these.

Last week I spent an entire day debating whether to use Crimson Text or Crimson Pro as the font in the print edition of my forthcoming metaphysical fantasy novel, The Folly Of Memory, Book 1 of The Separation Of Souls Saga.

And then I berated myself for having spent so much time over such a seemingly 'trivial' decision.

KrA was telling me yesterday that these are parts of the creative process and that they'd take as long as they would.

He said that software developers spend far more time debating their choices for the name of a variable than on writing the actual code itself. The variable name needs to be concise and convey precisely what the variable does.

He usually has a calm, rational head. Which is why, even now as my anxiety is screaming at me to cancel all travel plans, I'm going to go with his assessment of the situation.

I know my tendency in these situations — if something goes wrong, even the slightest thing, I'd look to blame him for choosing to go on this trip.

So here's a promise I make to myself. No shaming and blaming. We'll face whatever comes, knowing that we made the best choice given the circumstances. I will not give into the temptation of resulting — determining the quality of a decision based on the quality of the outcome.

Hindsight can be a poor teacher when used wrongly. Using hindsight to evaluate past choices is like appearing for a test with questions on subject matters that were never taught (out of syllabus), then sitting down to learn those topics and evaluating our performance against the backdrop of this new knowledge.

What is it about living in this world that makes us want to optimize every moment of our lives, every decision we make?

That's such a tall order and quite frankly, a very debilitating one too.

In conclusion, I will leave you with something that lifted my spirits. A friend who's turning 50 today, sent me a picture of a paperback copy of a long-ago book of poems of mine that she had purchased from Amazon!

This book is a collection of 100 short poems and verses I wrote as part of a #100dayproject back in the day when I was on social media and enjoying the connection with friends, before it became a place exploding with ads and news and comparison and envy.

You couldn't be yourself anymore, you had to become what the algorithm thinks is worthy. Which is probably why that line in Reckless Girls resonated with me so much.

... that secret, that takes most people ages to learn — no one really wants you to be yourself. They only want themselves reflected back at them.

~ An excerpt from Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

I remember telling my friend that I wrote these poems when I was a different person, someone who had a greater zest for life and much more confidence to face all that life brings than the current version of me possesses.

I was so touched by my friend's gesture that I came back home and riffled through the pages of my own copy.

Here are a couple of my favourite verses.

Day 12 — Responsibility Of A Star

Mine is not to be the lone star.
Mine is not to shine the brightest of them all.
Mine,
like that of a million others,
is to play my part really well
in keeping the blackness
pinned to the skies above after nightfall.

#

Day 63 — Borrowed Light

In this search of stillness,
I yearn to be like the sun, unwavering,
unmoved by the turmoil of the planets around him.
But in truth I am like the moon,
the restless shape-shifter, truth-obscurer,
protector of lovers and thieves and cowards.
How can I be like the sun
when even my light is not my own?

Funnily enough, KrA gave me an answer to this conundrum yesterday. After a morning spent spiralling in anxiety, I spent the afternoon nagging him about how to become a different person.

How do I stop sinking into anxious thoughts and change myself to become a more positive person?

His answer was simple and wise. He said I ought to stop trying to change myself.

Instead, he reckoned, I'd be better off accepting that my default state is that of anxiety, and then, in full awareness and acceptance of that, employ tools to challenge my anxious thoughts and not keep fear from stopping me from living life.

It's such a freeing thought. Such a liberating course of action, isn't it?

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