Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 Regretting You  By Colleen Hoover  Published Year:  Page Count: 346 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Romance, Teenage, Contemporary Fiction,2025-read.  Rating : 5/5  Wow. Hoover can write. She had my complete attention while reading this book. The prose is great. The pacing is fast. I tried to jot down some points I didn't like about this story but I couldn't come up with many. Unlike most romance novels, this one doesn't have too much smut or overt sexuality. I am secretly thankful for that. When I was reading Verity by Hoover, the too many sexual descriptions had me cringing and nauseated. They were a big turn off for me. But this story has not one but two romantic tracks going on.. and strangely its mother and daughter .. and there is no smut in it. I am amazed. I also liked the maturity which the mother attains alongside her daughter when both their trust and faith are at crossroads. I felt there is too much crying and raw emotional dis...

 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World  By Elif Shafak  Published Year: 2019 [Viking] Page Count: 303 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Istanbul, Prostitution, 2025-read.  Rating : 2.5/5  I felt the story and narration get a tad boring at times in the middle of the book. I also felt that the author could have taken more time to establish an emotional connection between the main character and her reader. Things - unfortunate, abusive - are happening to her and there is only apathy from my side because Leila, the main character, comes off as detached - that she couldn't or wouldn't be bothered by those odious things. The political, anarchist/leftist angle that the author tried to briefly introduce with the husband of Leila felt superficial. It only felt like a interjection, that was made to fill the space and make more complicated, in an otherwise non-political book.  And Leila doesn't act or think like a prostitute, ...

 Somewhere in Time  By Richard Matheson  Published Year: 1975 Page Count: 263 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Fantasy, Time Travel, Science Fiction, Romance, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 💝💝💝💝💝 What a beautiful book! I forgot time and kept flipping through the pages until I realized I was at the end. The prose is so beautiful and engrossing. The pacing is fast and world is beautifully set within a hotel in California.The times change between years 1971 and 1896.  A man, diagnosed with terminal cancer of brain, travels to a hotel in California. There, as by coincidence or through divine intervention, he sees a picture of an actress from the past. He falls desperately in love with her and becomes obsessed with the idea of traveling into the past to meet her. He finds some ledger from the past date of 1896,  in which he sees his initials signed as a guest at this hotel.  Confirming his notion that he did indeed travel to that past date of...

 Words of Radiance  (The Stormlight Archive #2) By Brandon Sanderson  Published Year: 2014 Page Count: 1303 pages  Medium Used: Paperback [Mass Paperback Edition] Genre : High Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Magic, 2025-read.  Rating : 4/5 🥳🥳🥳🥳 Some Spoilers Ahead !!  Jasnah and Shallan are traveling on a ship that is carrying them to the Shattered Plains. Jasnah makes a match between Shallan Davar and Adolin Kholin, cousin to the king and son of Dalinar. They are also about to reveal some major findings from their research into the nature and return of Voidbringers and the magical city Urithiru. But enroute, pirates raid the ship and Shallan escapes presuming Jasnah to be dead. She uses her Lightweaving capacity to reach the Shattered Plains and  later on to become a trusted member of a shadow group Ghostbloods. She learns of the secret desires of Brightwood Amaram to bring back voidbringers and desolation into the world.  Dalinar is intent on se...

 Sign of Chaos  (The Chronicles of Amber #8) (Amber: Merlin Cycle #3) By Roger Zelazny  Published Year: 1987 Page Count: 220 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magic, Sorcery, Multiverse, Shadows, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 The pace is fast as with the whole series. I couldn't put it down or take a break because the turn of events kept me on an unbreakable edge.  Merlin is summoned by Rinaldo into a dream like reality without even using a Trump card to do it. Someone has fed him LSD, hallucinogens before letting him loose to navigate the shadows. As the story unfolds, we learn that Merlin's cousin from the Court of Chaos, Jurt, is trying to murder him so that he could clear up succession challengers to the throne. He has sent a fire eagle after him for this precise purpose. It found him in the imaginary shadow world and is killed by Merlin. Merlin has Jasra as his prisoner and knows about the reason for Dalt's rev...

 Blood of Amber  (The Chronicles of Amber #7) (Amber : Merlin Cycle #2) By Roger Zelazny  Published Year: 1986 Page Count: 215 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Action, Adventure, Shadows, Multiverse, Sorcery,Magic, High Fantasy, Amber Family, 2025-read.  Rating : 4.5/5  There is a lot going on in Merlin's world and his stream of consciousness is an endless flow of experiences, analysis and conclusions. This book is longer than the others in the series so far. There are many special incidents in the book that need memorization, in order to follow what might come next.  Following from the 6th book in the series, Merlin is locked in the blue crystal cave by Luke/Rinaldo, his cousin. All ways and means of escape are barred him. He has been languishing within the cave and wishing for an escape when it comes in the form of Jasra, Rinaldo's mother. He beats her and escapes to Amber, into the security of his family palace. A group of hooligans attemp...