Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 Ancillary Sword  [Imperial Radch #2] By Ann Leckie  Published Year: 2014 Page Count: 310 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Space Opera, Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Ancillaries, Action, Adventure, 2025-read.  Rating : 3/5  Having finished this book, I feel incomplete and dissatisfied. I wanted to read more and digest more but the end came abruptly. I feel a void within myself as to why so little of the Radchaai saga is covered in this book. Compared to the first book in the series, this one is a no brainer. This one doesn't involve much in the way of using AI or ancillaries and hasn't got any interesting twists, suspense moments at all. It is insipid and bland to my taste but the writing is good and prose is gripping.  Breq is given second name as Mianaai and sent to protect and take control of an Athoek station. The gates around the station are damaged and they find a Sword of Atagaris ship standing near a ghost gate. In contin...

 Sign of the Unicorn(#3 of The Chronicles of Amber) and  The Hand of Oberon (#4 of The Chronicles of Amber) Published Year : 1975, 1976 Page Count : 320  pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Magic, Sorcery, High Fantasy, Multiverse, Shadows, Awesome-Prose, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 The plot thickened and got better and better as I kept reading. I couldn't put the book down. Its a fantastic read. This is the story where siblings .. brothers and sisters ..  fight among themselves while playing a high stakes game with the end goal being the throne in Amber. The story continues from where it left off in The Guns of Avalon and adds more information to what has happened and also going forward using that knowledge.  There are three places where the family brood of Oberon, the king of Amber, can walk the Pattern to gain control over the shadows. These shadows are like multiple universes with Amber at its center. There is a Pattern in the under...

 A Master of Djinn  By Djèli Clark  Published Year: 2021 Page Count: 405 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Fantasy,Science Fiction,Magic, Sorcery, Multiverse, Alternate history, Djinns, Ifrits, Mystery,Murder, Detective, Homicide, 2025-read, Lesbian.  Rating : 5/5 💝💝 As the genre section of this review shows, there are a lot of elements in this plot. But it is very well put together and detailed in description that made the book a gripping narrative. Most of the characters in the plot are either human, djinn, ifrit or half djinns. I have gained a lot of information and knowledge on djinns and the various ways of dealing with them. I found all the characters, even the most sinister and ambitious ones, to be highly endearing. I didn't want even the djinn to suffer and self mutilate even if it is only temporary! Egypt, in this alternate universe, is a well developed, superpower country with Cairo overflowing with sky scrapers,mansions, lodging Europeans...

 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...