Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 So Let Them Burn  (Divine Traitors #1) by Kamilah Cole Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 334 pages Medium Used: Kindle Paperwhite  Genre: Dragons, Gods, Magic, Young Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Sister Bond, Political Intrigue, 2026-read. Rating: 4.85/5 When I started to think about the apt rating for this book, I was conflicted between bestowing it a 5 pointer or a lower 4.5. I finally settled with a 4.85 because while it wasn't a story that was blowing me away, it was logically sound and highlighted the moral ambiguities, natural flaws in human nature impressively. There were a couple of places where I had to back up a bit and rewind to understand the author's sound and clever conclusion! There are quite a few things that impressed me and educated me in this book. First off, the writing is great. It is very riveting and gave off a refreshing vibe. Even when good and evil are fighting off each other, the vibe is not one of  despondency. I liked how dragons -  ...

 The Prisoner of Heaven  (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books #3) By Carlos Ruiz Zafon  Published Year: 2011 Page Count: 280 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Historical Fiction, Drama, Schizophrenia, Devil, Prison Escape, Spain, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 What a sensational read! I was hooked from the beginning till the last page. Although there is less action and less twists in this one than the other two books in the series, it didn't disappoint me. I was enamored with it all the same. I just fell in love with the brilliant prose and the sensational story telling of the author. I just wondered if the story title should have been a bit different because the character after whom it is titled had very little on screen presence. His was a subtle and nuanced presence - despite that he was the linchpin weaving the important events shaping the complex lives of the main characters. 😇 Digging into the story a bit, this story, for the most part, is told ...

 The Tenant  By Freida McFadden  Published Year: 2025 Page Count: 380 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Thriller, Murder Mystery, Drama, Suspense, Action, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Wow. What a fantastic read. The twists - well, the one major one actually - blew my mind. My heart leapt into my throat and my brain did a sky dive into an abyss of unexpected thrill. Miss McFadden has proven herself again as a master of her craft. Superb story telling. Creating blood curdling thrillers and murder mysteries. She had me hanging onto every sentence and it really worked because I wrapped this book in under a day. I was fully engrossed and some of the moments are etched into my memory. It is so good - don't miss up on this read! I liked how well the author has written both male and female voices/povs without blurring the lines between. This book has earned second place in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Mystery Thrillers and its totally worth my ti...

 Someone You Can Build A Nest In  By John Wiswell  Won 2024 Nebula Award Won 2025 Locus Award for Best First Novel  Finalist in 2025 Hugo Award  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 310 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre: LGBTQ,Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Horror, Action, Drama, Romance, Monsters, 2026-read.  Rating: 5/5😇😇😇🥰🥰 Loved this one! Absolutely. Reading this, I couldn't slurp in the chapters continuously. I took them in snatches, got a break going elsewhere (into other books, silly 😋) and returning to digest more of this story. This is not an ordinary tale. John Wiswell is an immense talent. What he has created is not just a monster that lived while the story was read and forgotten afterwards. This creature thrives in memory and imagination. It doesn't have one concrete shape or name or body parts, organs..anything for that matter. It is a shape shifter that can ingest bodies whole. It has no conscience that stops her from harming...

 The Housemaid is Watching  ( The Housemaid #3) By Freida McFadden  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 402 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre: Thriller, Murder Mystery, Suspense, Drama, Family Dynamics, 2026-read.  Rating : 4/5  I really, really didn't like the ending. The last three to four chapters are so incredulous that it is hard to accept them as plausible. Yes, I agree the author wanted to add an element of surprise and also bring Millie's family out of the trenches but the way she did it is laughable! You don't just go and threaten a person into taking the fall for something they haven't done, right? Is it ok to do bad things to bad people and get away with it? The answer seems to be an yes here. Shouldn't it be the job of the justice department to decide who goes free and who gets punished, once all the secrets are laid bare in front of them?  Apparently not. It is easy to trick the system, to fool the people involved. Just so unbelie...

 The Iron Trial  (The Magisterium #1) By Cassandra Clare, Holly Black  Published Year: 2014  Page Count: 276 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Fantasy, Magic, Sorcery, Dark Fantasy, High Fantasy, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 At the beginning, the plot felt a lot like reading from the Harry Potter series. I would definitely say that the authors have taken inspiration from it. But only just an inspiration. A basic outline. The rest is their own brain material. The main character cast consists of two boys and a girl. They are in their first year of training at a school for magical kids. There is a dark lord called the Enemy of Death who happens to be an ex-student of the school. But that's where the similarities end. There are wild creatures that are ingested with chaos - the Enemy of death has put chaos into their souls and made them his spies. There are creatures which have given up their souls to the elements of nature like Earth, Fire,...