Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

The Women of Troy (2021) Pat Barker  Rating 3/5  Genres : Historical fiction, ancient Greece, Achilles, speculative fiction, women, 2022-read.  This book is a sequel to The Silence of Girls by Pat Barker and covers the story from where the part 1 has stopped. This book - the plot,  character development and the pace of the story - just felt okayish. I remember - even if it was quite sometime in thr past - the first book in the series was really amazing..then ofcourse it had the mighty Achilles while this book has not one single notable character in itself. It's a bit boring..on the whole.   Achilles is dead. The Trojans seem invincible and the Greeks very likely to taste defeat. Odysseus makes a plan for deception of the Trojan Horse with greeks hidden inside. Pyrrhus - son of Achilles - comes to avenge his father and take on his glory. The starting scene in the book has him  huddled within the horse with the other greek soldiers as it gets pulled through the gates of T

The Secret History  By Donna Tartt  Rating 5/5 Genres : Historical fiction,  Greek history, Dionysian, Mystery, Murder, Fiction, 2022-read. A group of students of Ancient Greek - in their pursuit and experiments of recreating Dionysian-like loss of self control and touching the other worldly experiences commit a heinous crime - they kill a random farmer on his land.  In their attempt to hide it and escape the noose, commit one more murder - of their boisterous and blackmailing friend/team mate. Though they seem to escape the scrutiny of the authorities that eagerly brush aside the event as an accident,  their own collective conscience and burdened souls catch up with them. Each goes down a spiral of their own..does it ever end? Is the end only the death of all those involved except the master mind behind the murders from the start? Its an unstoppable reading marathon for me. I just couldn't put the book down. All the Greek lore got to me very viscerally. At Hampden Coll

Recursion By Blake Crouch  Rating 4/5 Genres : Science Fiction, Time Travel, 2022-read  This is a good book. Its thought provoking. Very very scary to being a real plausibility. Its confusing to say the least. I definitely had some doubts reading the book and still have them left unclarified. I have read Blake Crouch's Dark Matter in the past and absolutely loved it. He takes popular contemplative concepts from physics and builds these extensive stories around them - which can only pique general interest and stimulate thought. Like in Dark Matter where a machine/room is constructed that makes travel between the multiverse worlds possible -  in this one, a 'memory chair' is invented that allows for travel across time and space - like someone could move to a time in the past and alter reality/the chain of events that follow. As a stand alone book its great but in comparison, it falls short of Dark Matter - which was much more engaging and mysterious. Nevertheless,

Annihilation  by Jeff Vandermeer  Rating : 4/5  Genres : Fantasy, Science Fiction, 2022-read, novel plot, Mystery  I was torn between giving this a 4 vs a little  higher rating but finally settled on round 4. What a crazy story this is. It has formed the very definition of a "novel concept" in my mind. I guess this is one of those stories where we can interpret the concept in any of the many number of ways. It is terrifying and very addictive till the mystery is unveiled at the very end. The narrator is a biologist who has had an obsession with wildlife animals festering in abandoned water bodies since her childhood. She has learnt to rely on immersing herself in watching the mysteries and dynamics of such wild creatures as a coping/escape mechanism from her reckless and self centered parents. She is highly introverted and has problems opening up in her relationship with her husband.  There is an area X near a military outpost which is cut off from human populatio

Foundation's Edge  By Issac Asimov Rating 5/5  Genres : Science fiction, 2022-read,classics. Marvelous! A work of pure genius!! Issac Asimov in my opinion remains the true master and peerless genius of the science fiction genre. I savored every drop of this tasty and twisty nectar that is loaded with a bountiful of surprises and wit. This book is the fourth in the Foundation book series by Issac Asimov and all of them are a huge hit. This book follows the establishment of peace and restoration of sanguinity to the universe after the Mule has been vanquished. It portrays a mind game between forces and people controlling them who are one step ahead the other- holding one knife behind the back of the other.. A little background to the foundation series and this book. Human life which has originated on earth spread far and wide colonizing millions of planets in the universe. Hari Seldon was a psychohistorian who through several algorithms and analytical estimates predicts t

Kafka on the Shore  By Haruki Murakami  Rating 3/5  Genres: Metaphysical, magical realism, fiction, mysticism,2022-read Man! What the hell is this book? What is it about? Don't get me wrong. I am not giving this a lower rating because it's prose is bad/ unreadable or the story/plot is not good or any such thing..its purely because I didn't really get the crux of what the author is trying to tell. Its highly addictive but the story he is trying to narrate is lost on me. I want to find someone, anyone - who has read this book and totally understood every aspect of it. Like who can answer all the questions as to what the heck is going on..whats the meaning of a certain episode, the motivations and significanceof a certain act.. I also bet there won't be any two people who read this book and take away the same thing home..it seems to strike a different chord for each reading and for every person.. The three main characters are Kafka Tamura, Sabato Nakata and Mis

I'm Thinking of Ending Things  By Iain Reid  Genres: psychological thriller, 2022-read, philosophy, psyche, mystery, mental illness  Rating 5/5 ☺☺☺ Terrific. Eerie and ominous. A quick and short read but with a lasting impact. This book is a 2006  debut novel from a Canadian author Iain Reid and he makes a definitive mark with this one. Without giving away the secret/twist in the story,  this is a play of psychological guessing game on the reader till the very end. What the narrator is actually describing is not fully grasped/understood without the full context at the end. Ofcourse there are hints all through but they don't strike home the message.  Getting into the plot, Jake is a student in the preparation to become a professor. He meets a young woman at a pub and they begin connecting. While he is tall and wiry in frame, she is short and a bit roundish - contrasting him. They are both introverted, shy and non social people wishing not to talk or interact with oth

The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006) by Scott Lynch Genres : Fantasy, Fiction, 2022-read, awesome-read, thieves, masquerades, disguises. Rating 5/5 Masterful. Simply awesome. In this 2006 novel which forms the first part of the franchise  'Gentlemen Bastards' by American author Scott Lynch, we meet Locke Lamora - the master of disguises and play acting - and his band of thieves. I just loved the archaic style of prose - I  overlooked a few occasional jabs of crudity and crassness which were lobbed off as humor/wit. The imaginary world on which the city of Camorr is situated is extremely well constructed/developed - some material and character inventions of the author are Elderglass, Wraithstone, Bondsmagi the sorcerers, black alchemists and physikers who are like doctors, dog-leeches like street physicians. The characters are solidly defined - even the smaller ones that appear only in one or two scenes have a lot of depth and their actions are very much in lieu of wha