Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 Eclipse  (The Twilight Saga #3) By Stephenie Meyer  Published Year: 2007 Page Count : 560 pages  Medium Used : Paperback  Genre : Teen Drama, Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction, Vampires, Werewolves, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5 🤣🤣🤣🤣 This is the second time I am reading this book. It must have been almost a half decade since my first reading. The last time, I gave this book only a 2 point rating. I definitely liked it more now. I consider myself more evolved and discerning, compared to 5 years ago.  The most notable and my favorite aspect about Stephenie Meyer's writing is how inclusive she is with all the characters. None of them are left out. She pulls all of them into the context and it gives a warm, big family feeling. I simply love this.  In this book, many things are happening in Bella's life. She is nearing graduation. Her time to applying for colleges is nearing and she gets accepted for a university in Alaska. She has mentally set a date for her transformation into a v

 Tell Me Everything  (AMGASH #5)  By Elizabeth Strout Published Year: 10 September 2024 Page Count: 300 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Contemporary Fiction, Drama, Murder Mystery, 2024-read.  Rating : 4/5 The prose is so good and comforting. I couldn't put this book away for long. I picked the book because it is a recent release and the title felt immersive. Few pages into the book, I realized, that most of the characters have long histories and this is a book (5th!!) in a series. But I read it anyway and it could be read as a standalone as well.. only we will not have a complete picture of all the people and their interrelationships.  The three main characters are Olive Kittredge, Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess. There are multiple books each with these as the main characters, drawing up to this one. (I should check them out. I love the author already!) So, in this book, Bob Burgess and Lucy Barton are close friends and Bob nurses a secret crush on Lucy - despite being married

 The Devourers  By Indra Das  Published Year: 2015 [debut novel] Page Count: 327 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Supernatural, Werewolves, Shape-shifting, 2024-read.  Rating : 2/5  I wanted to read some good books by Indian authors, having just wrapped Tomb of Sand by Geethanjali Shree . This one really made me excited till a certain point. After about 40%, it just became obnoxiously nauseating. I mean .. I just wanted to fling my kindle to the wall and DNf. Yet,I persisted. I dont think I have gained anything from reading this book.  A total waste of time. Such rakshasas or half werewolves (with two halves of a split soul) who are immortal and can shape shift into their were wolf bodies cannot exist in reality right?  Some scenes are just so yuck and eww for me. Like exchanging half gorged, half chewed animal fat. Like the homosexual smut scenes between the human and the shape-shifting rakshasa. And the practice of their masters having sex with a newly born shape shifter so that

 Tomb of Sand  By Geethanjali Shree  Translated by Daisy Rockwell  Winner of English Pen Award, Winner of International Booker Prize 2022 . Published Year : 2021 Page Count: 735 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Drama, Historical fiction, India-Pakistan Partition, Humor, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5  Must read for all Indian bibliophiles. This book is a  celebration to what means being an Indian and unapologetic about it. Its really a heavy weight book .. not just in the number of pages but also the topics touched .. but it is delivered with such light hearted humor that felt is very impactful. It also sings an ode to the way things have turned out and are turning about every single day. Divisions between people. Loss of touch with ancient roots and customs. Modern generation and technology. No more joint family systems and even if there, the constant competition they are put into.  Loved the book thoroughly. The main character in the book is Ma. This is the story with most of the mai

 Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman  By Haruki Murakami  (A Collection of Short Stories) Published Year: 2007(by Vintage)  Page Count: 435 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Mixed, Short Stories, 2024-read.  Rating : 4/5 This book took me longer to read than expected .. perhaps because I was juggling it with other books as well. I wanted to read something by Murakami and went for this one because it only recently arrived in my mail box. Some of these stories .. which are magical, containing supernatural .. made me think and ponder a lot. For instance, a woman suddenly starts forgetting her name and how is it resolved without the help of western, omnipresent meds. A woman can't stop shoping for new clothes and what happens when her husband puts a stop to her unnatural addiction? And so on.. This book is a collection of selected short stories by Murakami. Some of them are small, some are big. Some have a twist .. in the form of an unexpected monkey or they are just explained away with a

 Amsterdam  by Ian McEwan  Winner of Booker Prize 1998 Published Year: 1997 Page Count: 178 pages  Medium Used: Paperback Genre: Drama, Domestic Fiction, Euthanasia, Booker Prize, 2024-read. Rating: 3/5  Some Spoilers ahead!! I don't know what it is - either the prose or the story itself - I found my mind wandering into a thousand different places, into a thousand different concepts while reading this book. I had to backtrack and re-read some sections. I can't comment on whether this book deserves a booker or not - it is different from the other books I read which have won the Booker. This book seems more moral based and nuanced. Two men - who both dated the same woman that is now dead from a mental deprivation - who also make a mutual pact to euthanize the other should a mental deprivation set in within themselves - actually go through it at the end!!  I think they both harbored mutual hatred towards the end and killed each other in cold blood. They justified to each other tha