Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 The Girl in the Tower  (The Winternight Triology #3) By Katherine Arden  Published Year: 2017 Page Count : 345 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Russia, Witches, Sorcery, Fairy Tales, Pagan gods, Christianity, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 Mind blowing. Mesmerizing. I simply couldn't put this book down.  I read part one of the series long back and barely remember anything of the plot. But still, I wasn't at a loss to understand this story. I would say it is standalone to a certain extent. I just loved the fight between good and evil. I loved the magic and the atmosphere the story is set in. Character and world development are pristine.  Coming to the plot. Vasya has escaped her home and sets out on a journey to travel the world alone with her magical, chyerti horse, Solovey. The Winter King and frost demon is against this idea because it is dangerous and not safe for her. She resists his persuasive arguments...

 The Black Prism  (LightBringer #1) By Brent Weeks  Published Year: 2010 Page Count: 660 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : High Fantasy, Magic, Chromaturgy, Action, War, Adventure, 2025-read.  Rating : 4.25/5 The last 200 pages just blew my mind. It felt like they were written by a different person from the author of the first part of the story. I was gripped as the details of the war between the Prism, his drafters, soldiers and the Lord Omnicrome are expounded. The author has introduced a new, fantastic world where people use/draft magic according to their abilities by drafting colors from light and surroundings. They can make any of the materials that can be made with any of the seven colors : sub-red(heat), red, orange, yellow, green, blue, superviolet. Some can draft only one color and they are at the bottom rung of the populace. Some can do multiple and they are bichrome or polychrome. Only one person in an age of seven years can draft all the co...

Sri Ramakrishna - short life story  At every time of spiritual crisis in Indian national life there has been born a saint or a prophet who has saved the nation from the impending danger. Sri Krishna, Buddha, Shankara, Nanak, Chaitanya - each fulfilled a great demand of the age in which he was born. The village of Kamarpukur is situated in the western extremity of the District of Hooghly, on the road leading to the holy place of Puri or Jagannath. The village was highly prosperous and noted for its manifold arts and crafts. One day, while returning from a neighboring village, Khudiram strangely came into possession of the emblem of his tutelary deity Raghuvir in a paddy field. He took it home and began to worship it as his own Ishta. The effulgent One beckoned to Khudiram, who, coming near, prostrated himself before Him and heard the luminous Person saying, ëI am well pleased at your sincere devotion. I shall be born in your cottage and accept you as my father. Khudiram awoke with h...

Short Stories of Ray Bradbury There will come Soft Rains  This short story of the aftermath of a Radiation war that wipes out humanity is only 5 pages long. A house continues its solitary, methodical and robot-controlled existence unaware that no one exists.  An accidental fire brings down the house and no one knows, what's remaining continues as if nothing passed! This gives me the shivers. We are endlessly trying and competing to build a world that, in the end, cares for us naught. Our existence and end could mean nothing to it!!

 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child  (Harry Potter #8) (A Play) By JK Rowling, Jack Thorne, John Tiffany  A new play by Jack Thorne  Published Year: 2016 Premiered  Page Count: 326 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Alternate Reality, Time Travel, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magic, Sorcery, 2025-read,Harry Potter.  Rating : 4/5  What I liked about this book?   I liked how easy it felt reading. How fast my reading went. That could be explained by the fact that the target audience for this book are people way younger than me. The plot logic doesn't hold much complexity - atleast not too much for me to fathom at this point.  The first books I read, almost 18 years ago - the books that introduced me to the world of fiction are Harry Potter books. My brother gifted them to me on the occasion of our high school graduation. And I cherished the series very much back then. But most of the story and the plot line, I forgot now. Picking ...

 Regretting You  By Colleen Hoover  Published Year:  Page Count: 346 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Romance, Teenage, Contemporary Fiction,2025-read.  Rating : 5/5  Wow. Hoover can write. She had my complete attention while reading this book. The prose is great. The pacing is fast. I tried to jot down some points I didn't like about this story but I couldn't come up with many. Unlike most romance novels, this one doesn't have too much smut or overt sexuality. I am secretly thankful for that. When I was reading Verity by Hoover, the too many sexual descriptions had me cringing and nauseated. They were a big turn off for me. But this story has not one but two romantic tracks going on.. and strangely its mother and daughter .. and there is no smut in it. I am amazed. I also liked the maturity which the mother attains alongside her daughter when both their trust and faith are at crossroads. I felt there is too much crying and raw emotional dis...

 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World  By Elif Shafak  Published Year: 2019 [Viking] Page Count: 303 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Istanbul, Prostitution, 2025-read.  Rating : 2.5/5  I felt the story and narration get a tad boring at times in the middle of the book. I also felt that the author could have taken more time to establish an emotional connection between the main character and her reader. Things - unfortunate, abusive - are happening to her and there is only apathy from my side because Leila, the main character, comes off as detached - that she couldn't or wouldn't be bothered by those odious things. The political, anarchist/leftist angle that the author tried to briefly introduce with the husband of Leila felt superficial. It only felt like a interjection, that was made to fill the space and make more complicated, in an otherwise non-political book.  And Leila doesn't act or think like a prostitute, ...