The Heart Asks Pleasure First

An extraordinary debut novel. Parikh explores friendship and love, communalism and xenophobia, loss and legacy — all through stunning prose, rich imagery and gorgeous verse. Exquisite storytelling, complex characters, and a masterfully crafted narrative that travels back and forth, while never sacrificing pace and urgency. This book is an experience — one that invites you in with the promise of young love and timeless longing, then showers you with poetry and nostalgia, and leaves you with a bruised heart, an altered world view and an uplifted soul.

Don't miss this luminous novel that is poetry in prose form with a story line that will make your heart contract. Poignant and beautiful, the imagery itself will have you losing yourself in the book along the way.

How often do you read a book about which you want to talk a lot but are not able to find the right words to describe the way it made you feel because you are scared that your words won’t be able to do justice to the beauty of the book.THE HEART ASKS PLEASURE FIRST is not just a book for me but a world in which I lived in with Daya and Aaftab. While reading this book I was transported to a different world. This is one of its kind book that requires your patience and complete attention. If you are reading other books simultaneously with this book, then it would be injustice with this book. When you give it your full attention you’ll be able to fully absorb everything it offers.This book made me feel each and every feeling that exists in the world- I laughed, cried, felt loved, hurt, raged and what not. There were moments when I read some lines again and again to absorb it all in me. It left me speechless as well as thinking about a lot of things at a lot of places and I think when a book makes you think that is good. I can re-read this book n no. of times. I loved the way the author has written the book from the start to the end, not even at a single place I felt that it’s her debut book. She felt so experienced. She knew what she was supposed to do with the story to the reader and how. I’m surely going to look out for more of her work.I loved how amazingly and beautifully she has crafted not only Daya and Aaftab’s love story but Daya’s parents, Asha and Gyan’s too, Daya and Wasim’s relationship, Aaftab and Wasim’s brotherhood and Kamla’s relationship with Asha. The way each and every character is developed is amazing and shows the work the author has put into this book. All the characters had a story of their own too which was well told. The writing style is different yet engaging that you’ll want to save some lines to go back later and feel their warmth again and again. It made me long for more and more for each character. The ending of the book is something I didn’t think of to be honest I didn’t want this book to end. I was continuously longing for more and more of the stories of these characters. I wanted to get into the book and hug some of them and tell them that I could feel their pain. I’m so much in love with this book that I’m still drooling over it. I want to recommend this book to each and every one of you. Please, please, please do read it, it will give you the sukoon you didn’t even know you were in need of.

"He bowed to her like she was God and he knelt before her like he was preparing to pray. He entered her like she was the entire world, from the east like the sun enters the day with nothing but the need to fill it with light."..The Heart Seeks Pleasure First by @karuna has consumed me as a whole. So much so that I don't think my review can justify the splendor of this book. After I finished reading it, I looked at the wall and zoned out thinking about Daya-Aftab and their yearning for each other, Gyan-Daya and their perfect romance, and Wasim and his selfless love. This book has touched my heart in places that I never thought existed. It has broken my heart and healed it. No other book can surpass this. At least not yet...This book is about love, grief, loss, yearning, religion, literature, art, and friendship. I could never place them all perfectly in one story until I read this one. Daya, a dance student in Wales happens to meet Aftab, a law student from Pakistan on a sunny afternoon by chance. Their love blossoms but secretly. They long for each other but only in the shadows of the room..I will go back to reading this book time and again because I know for a fact that it has the power to heal. ❤🌻

An extraordinary debut novel. Parikh explores friendship and love, communalism and xenophobia, loss and legacy — all through stunning prose, rich imagery and gorgeous poetry. Exquisite storytelling, complex characters, and a masterfully crafted narrative that travels back and forth, while never sacrificing pace and urgency. This book is an experience — one that invites you in with the promise of young love and timeless longing, then showers you with verse, couplets and nostalgia, and leaves you with a bruised heart, an altered world view and an uplifted soul.

This book will break your heart and yet fill you with the kind of romance that is addictive. The beautiful poetry will stay with you long after you have finished reading. The author makes you think about religion and your relationship with faith.I want to grow up and be Asha, and be lucky enough to have a friend like Wasim.This novel is a real treat.