The Literary Academy · Book Review

I Still Blame Spring: A Book Summary, Review & the Themes That Stuck With Me

By Baban Chahal

A collection that sat on my desk for longer than most books do — mostly because I kept going back to re-read three or four lines at a time instead of moving on to the next page.

Reading time: 12–15 minutes

Why "Spring" Is the Right Word

Some books tell you something you didn't know. This one just puts language to something you already felt and never got around to saying. That's the space I Still Blame Spring works in, and the title tells you that before you've even opened the cover.

Spring is supposed to be the hopeful season — new leaves, longer days, the sense that things are starting over. Chahal takes that and turns it slightly sideways: what if a season stops being about renewal and becomes, instead, the thing you associate with someone you can't quite let go of? Once a specific spring gets tangled up with a specific person, the season itself changes meaning. It stops being neutral.

That's really the engine of the whole book. Not every poem needs to explain a feeling from start to finish — sometimes a handful of well chosen words does more work than a full paragraph would.

About I Still Blame Spring

The collection moves through the arc of falling in love, noticing the small things that end up mattering more than the big ones, and then sitting with what's left when the feeling isn't returned the way you hoped. Chahal isn't interested in love as a clean, happy subject — there's plenty of anticipation and vulnerability here, but also disappointment, and the strange way heartbreak can quietly reattach itself to ordinary things: a street, a playlist, a particular kind of afternoon light.

If you're the kind of reader who likes thinking about how personal experience turns into something worth writing down, this book gives you plenty to chew on — not just about the relationship it's describing, but about the difference between remembering someone and staying stuck on them.

What the Title Is Really Doing

"Blame" is doing a lot of quiet work here. Spring is supposed to be blameless — it's the season everyone likes. Putting "blame" next to it creates a small contradiction that makes you want to know what actually happened. That's a smart piece of titling, and it sets up the emotional register for everything that follows.

About Baban Chahal

Baban Chahal writes from a clearly personal, reflective place — the poems read like they were written to process something real rather than to perform an emotion for an audience. That's part of what makes the collection land: it doesn't feel staged.

The Themes That Actually Carry the Book

1. Love, Before It Gets Complicated

There's a real honesty in how the book handles the early, uncertain stage of caring about someone — before you know if it's mutual, before you know how it ends. Chahal doesn't rush past that part, which is where a lot of the book's warmth comes from.

2. The Small Moments That Won't Leave

Memory doesn't usually save the big, dramatic scenes. It saves an ordinary Tuesday, a message you reread too many times, a street you now can't walk down without thinking of someone. That's the kind of memory this book is built around, and it's precise about it.

3. Heartbreak That Isn't Tidy

Not every heartbreak in this book comes from a breakup. Some of it comes from feelings that were never returned at all, or from a relationship that never became what it could have been. That's a harder kind of loss to write about — there's no clean ending to point to — and Chahal doesn't try to force one.

4. What Healing Actually Looks Like Here

The healing in this book isn't presented as a finish line. It's more like a shift in how the speaker relates to the memory — less about forgetting, more about no longer being pulled under by it.

Reading this section back, the line that stuck with me most wasn't even the most dramatic one — it was the realization that the season hadn't changed. I had.

Why These Poems Get Under Your Skin

There's a reason a book like this can hit harder than a straightforward breakup story: it's not really describing an event, it's describing how memory works. Once something is emotionally loaded, your brain hangs on to it differently than it does to the hundred other ordinary days around it. An afternoon that felt unremarkable at the time can turn into the one you keep coming back to, simply because of who you were with.

That's why a specific song, a specific street, or — in this case — a specific season can bring a whole relationship rushing back years later. The season hasn't changed. What it means to you has.

There's also something true here about unspoken feelings specifically. Uncertainty is harder to sit with than a clear no. When you don't know where you stand with someone, the mind tends to replay the same handful of moments over and over, looking for an answer that was never going to arrive. Chahal writes into that discomfort instead of rushing past it, which is part of why the collection feels so lived-in.

What I Took From It

I don't think you need to have read this exact book to use what's in it. A few things I pulled out and actually tried:

Write the memory down straight, before you dress it up

Before nostalgia gets a chance to edit the story, write down what actually happened and what you actually felt. You can add the romanticized version later if you want — but get the plain one down first.

Get specific about what you're feeling

"Sad" covers a lot of ground. Disappointed, lonely, nostalgic, and grateful are all different feelings that get flattened into "sad" if you're not paying attention. Naming the actual feeling makes it a lot easier to do something useful with it.

Don't confuse remembering someone with staying stuck on them

You don't have to forget a person to move forward. Those are two different things, and this book is pretty clear-eyed about the difference.

Final Review

I Still Blame Spring works because it doesn't oversell itself. It's not trying to be a grand statement about love — it's a close, specific look at one emotional arc, told through images rather than explanations. The title alone does more character work than most opening chapters manage.

If you've ever had a season, a song, or a street quietly turn into something you couldn't hear or walk past the same way again, this collection will feel less like a stranger's story and more like someone finally putting your own into words.

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Navjeevan Kumar | The Literary Academy

Writes about books, self-improvement and the ideas that stick with readers long after the last page.