There are some books you don’t “start.” You gather the courage to open them.   When I picked up Coping With Cancer by Ramendra Kumar, I wasn’t just holding a Kindle edition. I was holding the possibility of fear. Cancer is not an abstract word for me. I know a couple of survivors personally. I’ve seen hospital corridors. I’ve heard the silence after a diagnosis. So yes, it took something in me to turn those first few pages.   And within minutes, I realized this wasn’t a book

Some books don’t take you back to school. They take you back to a feeling. A tightness in the chest. A silence you learned to live with. IX B: The Fragile Heart of an Achiever did that to me—not by reminding me of my own classroom, but by pulling me into a memory I hadn’t connected to school life until now.   I grew up in a co-ed environment. Boys, girls, shared benches, shared laughter, shared awkwardness. So, when people talk about the “only boys’ school experience,” I usua