Big Mistake: An Anthology on Growing Up and Other Tough Stuff by Penguin

Big Mistake: An Anthology on Growing Up and Other Tough Stuff Reviews

• 
  Smriti

  This was nice. It was cute. It's probably necessary. A full review coming soon.
  
  Howver, my favourite amongst these 12 stories were Happy New Year, Crip Gang, A Bird Called Freedom (which was an excerpt of a book that’s coming in 2022 and I’m super excited about that), Big Mistake and Dropping The Act.
  Just an FYI.
  
• 
  Richa Sharma

  Acceptance! Ah! The dreaded feeling of getting yourself out there. Making new friends, finding your interests and experiencing awkward moments. I remember my adolescent days being full of insecurities and hesitation. The race for being the popular one, the beautiful one, the smarter one. I don't think I fit in those boxes. I was me trying hard to be someone else. That's why we all wished to just be independent adults, exploring the world with old childhood friends. How wrong were we?!
  
  Written to give a modern twist to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Big Mistake is a collection of stories to give comfort, courage and strength to the young adults all over. From the foreword to the groundbreaking stories on identity, family, body positivity and many other tough topics, the book is the one to read when going gets tough.
  
  This book has everything from fiction to non-fiction, from immersive stories to poetries with doodles. There's a story for everyone in this anthology, I just wish I read this book when I was young. That would have been a life-changing experience for young Richa. Well, I'm glad to have read it now. The inspiring stories from the real life achievers like Saina Nehwal, Parvati Sharma, Nikhil Taneja and others, will keep your heart in the book.
• 
  Chhavi

  I remember this one time in college - I was sitting on the stairs and reading, when this guy from my class came up to me and said, "get your head out from books and explore the real world." Funnily enough, he was a guy who was always drunk and high.
  
  Being a reader, I have always been 'pitied'. People just assume that I don't have a life. Or worse, they assume that I read to 'show off'.
  
  For them, this is just a carelessly passed comment. But at one point, this started affecting me so much that I stopped reading.
  
  'Big mistake' is an anthology of stories which are somewhat similar to mine, stories that speak of the fear of judgements.
  
  We meet new people in each story - a fat girl, a boy in love, a guilty friend, a rebellious maiden - and we hear their stories of overcoming judgements.
  
  The stories, though are claimed to be true, don't feel like real ones. But they still make you reminisce your own teenage. And this is why I am asking you to read it.
  
  This isn't just a collection of random stories. This is a collection of everyone's stories❤
• 
  Auraofthoughts

  Growing up brings with it myriad challenges which leaves a lasting impact in each one's mind. This young adult anthology showcases some of the bitter sweet experiences of authors while they reach adolescence.
  
  Points to ponder:
  Big Mistake is an anthology of 12 stories which insists the readers to pause and ponder about the situations they face while growing up.
  
  12 renounced personalities contribute their #ownvoices that resonate with the present generation. Saina Nehwal is one among the 12 contributors of this anthology. The thought provoking foreword by Shaheen Bhatt is a great piece of work.
  
  The story includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry from: Saina Nehwal, badminton superstar Parvati Sharma, author of several children's and adult novels Japleen Pasricha, founder-CEO of Feminism in India Nandana Dev Sen, writer, child-rights activist and award-winning actor Anusha Misra, founder of Revival Disability Magazine Nikhil Taneja, CEO of Yuvaa Andaleeb Wajid, author of over twenty-five novels Neha Singh, children's author, theatre practitioner and women's rights activist Jane De Suza, award-winning author of children's fiction Hannah Lalhlanpuii, debut author Sonaksha Iyengar, illustrator, graphic recorder and book designer Kautuk Srivastava, writer and comedian.
  
  Deep, reverberating pieces of wisdom that help sail the journey to adolescence with ease. It captures the fact that at times unknowingly the youth falls trap of unwelcoming situations or in a position that leaves them perplexed but, managing to overcome them builds a strong character and makes the journey smooth.
  
  Beautiful and thought provoking stories about love, family, relationship, ambitions, positivity and wit.
  
  Big Mistake can be a learning experience for the young generations to know how impulsive and subjective the situations might be.
  
  The book explores contrasting shades of insecurities yet assurances, conflict yet unanimity, fearfulness yet courage.
  
  Final word:
  Big Mistake is an experience that is consciously selected to help the young generation to understand the importance of myriad facets they face in life. This book definitely helps to accept challenges that life throws. Do you think growing up is really so hard?
• 
  Devanshi Sanghani

  Empathy is seen as a sign of weakness, and the highest form of this weakness is empathy for ourselves. One that allows us to accept that sometimes we don’t need to be heroes and sometimes we don’t have to be strong and sometimes people will be unkind and sometimes life won’t be fair and sometimes we will be rejected.
  
  Big mistake is an anthology on growing up and other though stuff and you will surely relate to it yourself in some parts. I was really excited to read this one because I judged this one on the basis of it’s cute bright cover however the start seemed like a slow one. There were in all 11 stories and 1 poem with an illustration. Some of the stories needed a slow read so as to understand what they were meaning to say to a reader while other stories were bold enough to highlight the morale that they wanted to deliver. Since being a fat person and a person who found her calling at the age of 23 I could most related myself with ‘The geometry of shapes‘ and ‘An accidental ambition’. There were some big realisations in this book like how we see disabled person or treat disabled person differently which we shouldn’t as well as the last chapter that included how maharashtrian’s felt about the Biharis even when Biharis ultimately in the end are Indians.
• 
  Aruna Kumar Gadepalli

  This anthology of 12 stories brings out various aspects of growing up. The foreword gives a glimpse of the reason for the anthology, one could say an introduction to these stories genesis. Thought provoking collection and probably to me it's call for awakening/awareness to bring out changes in the way one looks at life and the social norms in general. Well compiled anthology with diverse areas of life.
• 
  AS

  This anthology worked for me largely, with its various tonalities offered underneath the common theme, hitting the right note . There were few misses, but I suppose that comes with what you relate with. For that reason, I'm not going into what worked for me in detail.