Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 The Wings of the Dove  By Henry James Rating : 3/5 Genres: classics, drama, fiction, 2021-read. The plot is good --  but the writing is not. I picked this book wearily knowing the author - having read his other classic The Turn of the Screw. Something in his style of writing calls for skipping chunks of text and not miss much in the line of story/plot. It's not an easy read this big book - if he hasn't delved so much into the characters' inner conflicts, psychological reactions, thoughts, feelings to the extent he has - I believe this book would have been much shorter and manageable. At the level of modern day and age, the plot feels trite anyways - it's like walking in tested waters.  Basic theme : A couple of lovers try to scheme and trick a rich young heiress into winning over her wealth for their own. What hand has fate dealt these ingrates? Is their earning worth the price paid for it?  Kate Croy and Merton Densher have fallen in love through m...

 The Two Towers by J.R.R.Tolkein  (Lord Of The Rings series book #2) Genres: Fantasy, Classics, Fiction, Hobbits, Wizards, Giants, 2021-read, reviewed, awesome read.  Rating 5/5 😍🥳 Whew! "I loved it" would be an understatement for this great classical work by Tolkein!! I found this book smoother, swifter and even better - if that's even possible - than the first part. ✌ I wish hobbits are not a fictitious lot - but that they truly exist and I come across them in reality. Ahh, I know. It's wishful thinking. Hobbits - like rabbits - are harmless, simple minded, meek, short and stout people who are content to live in their holes underground surrounded by greenery, singing their tales of lore, feasting and merry making. Tolkein takes them into the mouths of danger and gives them shades of chivalry even perhaps they were not aware of. Bilbo baggins is something of a legend for adventure and bravery in the Shire but this book shows all the hobbits have somethi...

Valis  By Philip k. Dick  Rating: 4.75/5 Genres: Science fiction, suspense, thriller, good vs evil, theology, mental illness, insanity, novel plot, 2021-read, reviewed. Just like living things have an 'aura'  around them with which some could guess their health/well being, books also seem to have a kind of aura around them. If it's a book written by Philip k Dick, one can be assured that it has some element of surprise, novelty, drugs, madness and a promise of a fun ride. Valis is a pleasure to read.I ran through the pages with my eyes glued to my kindle. I couldn't put this book down. Philip Dick is one of the very established authors in the genre of science fiction but for the first 20-30 percent of the book , I wondered if he diverged into a memoir. Yet, his writing is so hilarious that on the one hand I was telling myself  'what a poor fellow this Horselover Fat( an alter ego of Philip, the narrator) is' and on the other hand laughing my head off...

The Bell Jar  By Sylvia Plath Genre: Suspense, Mental health, madness, insanity, 2021-read, good prose, modern classics Rating: 4/5 A student one minute is pursuing the most envious and successful life and the next minute is undergoing shock treatments under harsh conditions of mental asylums to help cope with her life. What's happened? A fast paced and gripping page turner. Disturbing and strange read which is heart pounding and equally seductive in style. Very thought provoking in its own way. I took my sweet time getting through this book and now I can't seem to get it out of my head. A scene never lingers or tarries at one point or gets too much into detail..it just moves forward into another.. seamlessly blending the two together. The chain of events are broken off and joined by links of continuity that keeps the prose going. But although a book on mental detachment, depression and other mental health issues, it had some strong laugh-out-loud moments and the na...

 Big Little Lies [2014] By Liane Moriarty  Genre: Suspense, Fiction, Drama, Contemporary, 2021-read,female-oriented, murder, mystery, reviewed  Rating : 3/5 This book is perfect example of what makes for good TV but poor reading. It's a strange relationship I had with it. I wanted to put it away and pick something else so bad but I couldn't bring myself to do so. Having watched the very successful TV series with the same name starring Nicole Kidman didn't help either. It is boring for the most part and only got remotely interesting towards the end. I was asking myself why the heck do I care about the personal lives of some small town people and try wrapping my head around their petty skirmishes, illicit affairs and even poke into some damning domestic violence? Also what is this book trying to convey? That it's ok for women to put up with domestic violence? Or is it ok for the abusing husband to be murdered?  It's a small town called Pirriwee in Australi...

The Haunting of the Hill House (1959)  by Shirley Jackson  Genre: Gothic, Fiction, Horror, suspense, 2021-read, Classics  Rating : 3.75/5 This is a story of a failed experiment by a fanatic scientist at researching the happenings of a hill house. Unlike the poltergeist kind of events where a house drived it's inhabitants away, this one sucks them right in.  It's a cute, elegant looking house perched on top of a hill. It has been built over 80 years ago but no one has inhabited it atleast for the last 20 years. People in the neighborhood didn't like it and there are many stories of deaths associated with the place. Either the earlier inhabitants were taken by death or madness but they all loved the place dearly. A scholar, doctor Montague - with an idea to foster his career and give it a boost - decides to conduct some experiments within the hill house and publish a research paper. He is joined by three other people - Luke, Theodora and Eleanor - upon invitation. The ...

 The Case Against Satan (1962) By Ray Russell  Genre:  Paranormal, supernatural, fiction, good-evil, god-demon, possession, exorcism, classics, priests, monasteries, 2021-read, horror, suspense, mystery, detective. Rating: 4.5/5 🎈💃💃 Some of the scenes and episodes in the book had me shaking with fear and gave me serious goosebumps. I conjured black shapes out of thin air in my imagination and had to put the book away to distract myself with something like light reading. This book is a story on demonic possession and exorcism but with many other elements added to the plot.  A sixteen year old girl Susan Garth is brought to consult a priest Halloran because she has started acting odd of late. She shuns visiting the church, calls her father slanderous names and when alone in the presence of the priest, she attempts to seduce him and strangle him. Horrified and disturbed, the priest chooses to get transferred to an orphanage. His replacement, Father Gregory , when pre...

 The Maidens By Alex Michaelides Genre : Suspense, Thriller, Greece, Mythology, Horror, detective, whod-unit, female-oriented, 2021-read Rating : 4.5/5 👌👌 Woo Hoo! I just finished this book and I feel like I have been taken for quite a ride by the author. He gave my taut imagination a spin making me guess and second guess at a game I eventually lost. He threw me - a hooked reader at that point -  off into wrong directions about who might be the murderer and right enough, I took the bait each time. So as the end was nearing, there were multiple suspects and with a pounding heart, I kept reading ignoring sleep and late hour of the day. But I felt that the end fell a bit flat for me - after all the expectation, it was like an anti-climax.😕 Something that could have been a little different and improvised upon. 🙄🤔 But still, this is one hell of a book!! I thought this engaged me more than his first book The Silent Patient which was a rage and a massive success. When this b...

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? By Henry Farrell Genre : Thriller, horror, psychological fiction,classics, best-twists, good prose, 2021-read, macabre Rating : 5/5 🎈🎈 What a twist! Didn't see that one coming! It's true what they say - all that glitters is not gold. What looks beautiful on the outside need not be so on the inside. "Beautiful people could also be very bad". This is a story of jealousy,hatred, selfishness, vengeance and the repercussions that one has to face when they can't keep these emotions in check. It's a classic story from the 1960s which got made into a successful movie with the same name starring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis who were arch rivals. It also was the book that kind of revived the slow going career of Henry Farrell and brought him back into the game with full force. 💃 Baby Jane Hudson was a star. She was hailed the most talented and famous child star by everyone. Mostly her father and family who felt they owed all the...

 Station Eleven By Emily St. John Mandel Genres : Suspense, post apocalyptic, horror, 2021-read, dystopian future, science fiction Rating 5/5 👌👌 A mutation of swine flu virus has wiped off 99 percent of human race from the face of planet earth. The one percent that survived - probably because they are immune to it or have quarantined themselves off well - are living scattered as on islands all over the planet. They plunder and pillage what they could salvage from eateries, hotels, airports and when all the food/essentials run out - they start hunting animals. There is a wide spread fear and suspicion about strangers who might be willing to kill for food/goods.  This new world has no electricity, no benefits that we take for granted - like transportation, internet, mobile communication etc. It's hard to imagine such an existence for a generation that has become excessively dependant on technology and comforts/luxuries right? 😮😧  Living through the nightmare of Cov...

 Akhenaten : Dweller in Truth By Naguib Mahfouz Genre : Historical Fiction, Ancient Egypt, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Biographical Fiction,2021-read Rating : 3.5/5 Akhenaten was a heretic king that took Egypt by storm. He with his wife had denounced all the existing gods and tried to establish a new religion with Sun God Aten as the supreme. Akhenaten made himself a prophet and priest in Aten's command. He created a new city Akhetaten where only Sun God is worshipped. He passed decrees ordering the  demolishing and closing of  temples for other gods(Amun) all across Egypt also stripping the powers of Amun priests. But his attempts to crusade for this new religion of "love,peace and equality" fails to sustain when internal strife in the form of civil wars and external threats in the form of enemy attacks rock the country. Instead of raising to meet the occassion as befitting a king, Akhenaten chooses to remain shrouded in his faith hoping "love" would conquer "wa...

Steppenwolf  By Hermann Hesse    Rating 4/5  Genre: Spirituality, Fiction, Suspense, Horror, Classics, 2021-read,  This is the kind of book that you either understand fully or understand nothing at all. It has very esoteric themes of identity -  core issues that lie within a soul rendering it despondent and unhappy, what steps a person takes to get over these and if there really is a way for a spiritually evolved soul - which wants nothing to do  with the material world - to find peace and content in it again.  Harry Haller is a strange tenant. He appears at a well kept, homely house and rents a upper floor apartment. He appears very shabby himself,reads a lot, drinks a lot and seems to be spending his time slothfully according his neighbour,the narrator of the story. Harry appears to love order in the house because he lacks it in his life, to be perpetually on the move, gloomy and lost beyond description. One day he disappears just as suddenly as...