Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 The Guns of Avalon  By Roger Zelazny  [The Chronicles of Amber #2] Published Year: 1972 Page Count: 182 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Adventure, Fantasy, Sorcery, Multiverse, Shadows, weird creatures, 2025-read.  Rating : 4.5/5 💝💫 I forgot  time and surroundings while reading this book. It is very captivating and the conversations between people are very enjoyable. I would have given it a 5 pointer but somehow, at some places, I didn't fully follow the landscape descriptions. Mr.Zelazny has very masterfully and skillfully included weird looking and behaving creatures into the narrative. Some writers spoil the fun and make it too noxious to read. Not this one!  There is plenty of suspense and intrigue. Brothers of royalty fighting among themselves for the throne, have to also, face evils that are coming into their world from somewhere out of the shadows (multiple universes). The main character ,Corwyn, acknowledges that he has placed a ...

 Nine Princes in Amber  (The Chronicles of Amber #1) By Roger Zelazny  Published Year: 1970 Page Count: 151 pages  Medium Used: Paperback [Fantasy Masterworks Edition] Genre : Classics, High Fantasy, Multiverse, Multiple Universes, Adventure, Magic, Sorcery, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 💝 Loved this book very much. Its like reading a story like Game of Thrones in first person narrative of one of the nine brothers alive, fighting for the throne of Amber. There is one real world, which contains Amber, and infinite number of shadow worlds or alternative realities along with it. The family of the Amber rulers, with Oberon as the father to the nine alive princes and four alive princesses, can navigate or walk through these shadows until they reach a version of reality they are seeking. In a way, they are creating this reality as they go along.  Corwyn, the narrator, wakes up in a hospital, with his memories compromised and only partially remembering his past. He le...

Small Things Like These  By Claire Keegan  Nominated, short listed for Man Booker 2022.  Published Year: 2021 Page Count: 67 pages   Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Ireland, Contemporary Fiction, Historical fiction, Catholic Church, Convents,2025-read.  Rating : 4/5  This is a small book but has shed light on some very prominent yet overlooked issue of the 20th century Ireland. How young, unmarried, mostly teenage mothers and their bastard, unacknowledged children are treated by the mother-baby homes which are under the control of catholic church and Ireland state. They are clearly inhumane and a bit brutal. I don't know and can't imagine  such cases existing in today's day and age as well.  Furlong is a devoted and hard working family man with a doting wife and five daughters. He works hard, day to night, to put food on the table and lead a debt free life. He accidentally finds out that a convent in his neighborhood run by nuns is actua...

 The Magic Flute  (Krishnavatara book #1) By K.M.Munshi  Published Year: 1966 Page Count: 328 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Hinduism, Lord Krishna, Radha, Spirituality, Mythology, 2025-read.  Rating : 3/5  This book is much altered from what the Mythological stories tell about the childhood and birth of lord Sree Krishna. He has mentioned the numerous demons that Krishna as a child slaughters and defeats but shows them as if their deaths are  coincidental accidents on his part rather than manifestations of his inherent godliness. I take offense to these kind of overtures. But I find that in most of these fictional works which depend on Mythology, only few really do justice to the miraculous events in the tales. I liked the book on Krishna by Shivaji Sawant which while portraying him as a human also shed light on his divine angle.  I should give this book an overall 2 point rating but I felt Krishna's character play with Radha,his lov...

 Gita Govinda  By Sri Jayadeva Goswami  Published Year : 12th century AD  Page Count : 230 pages  Medium Used : Kindle PW  Genre : Spirituality, Divine Love, Lord Sri Krishna, Radha Krishna, sexuality. Rating : 5/5  This book transported me into another world. A world filled with joy and brimming with unbridled happiness. A world that is devoid of stress and tension. Where God of Creation himself, in the form of Sri Krishna, dances and enjoys dalliances with a bunch of Vrindavan milk maids, prime among them being Radha.  Prior to this book,which came out in 12th century, Radha was pretty unknown because she wasn't mentioned in Bhagavata purana or Bhagavad Gita. This book not only introduced her to the public imagination but set fire to the bhakti movement in an unprecedented way that people started believing more in Radha's form of bhakti/love/devotion than any other kind. Every other God had a consort for worship alongside them except Krishna des...

 The Mayor of Casterbridge  By Thomas Hardy  Published Year: 1886 Page Count: 385 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Classics, Drama, Romance,Mortality, morality, 2025-read.  Rating : 4/5  Though this book was written in the late 19th century, reading it didn't feel unsettling or displaced in time for me. Most of the sentiments and fears that prevailed during that time, apparently, still remain. Someone feeling unspeakable guilt at their rash action, someone fearing the release of secret love letters to their husband, someone feeling unworthy of life when left alone in this world.. I can connect with all these sentiments. The world of Thomas Hardy's books welcomes me like bee to a honey pot.  I like the simple innocence of the characters and the bucolic nature of the surroundings. The writing is medium paced and prose felt a bit boring at times, with many extraneous descriptions, I felt, but there were no digressions. The character development...