Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 Every Heart a Doorway  (Wayward Children #1) By Seanan McGuire  Locus, Nebula, Hugo award winner. Published Year : 2016 Page Count: 170 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Fantasy, Mythical Beings, Magic, Sorcery, Multiverse, Murder Mystery, Crime, Thriller,  2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 😇😇😇😇🥰 This is my first book by the author. I am completely taken in by her imagination. Some of the scenes are filled with gore, some are so novel and full of humor that I was laughing out loud throughout.  So brilliant. The prose is amazing and by the time I neared the end, I was wondering if I might not underline every sentence in the book. The writing is not complex and narration has a visceral quality. Totally immersive and gripping! I went into the book blind .. with no idea about the story or the genre .. and it paid off. I am amazed at the talent of the author who could spin such a splendid tale in so short number of pages. Amazing, amazing, amazin...

 The Alienist  By Caleb Carr Published Year: 1994 Page Count: 614 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Historical Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Psychological, Psychiatrists, Suspense, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 I had to recheck that this is not a narration of real life events but, indeed, is a work of fiction several times. The inclusion of real life people/characters like Theodore Roosevelt and J.P.Morgan didn't help my case.  Brilliant! Fascinating!! Kept me on the edge till the very end. Even when I know its time for curtains to be pulled up, I was craving for more. A new perspective of looking at the mind and psyche of a serial killer. We read a lot about serial killers and how they carry on their terror reign until they are caught or killed but we don't stop a second to reflect on why they have become so and what actually triggers them about their victims. Even in this book, I didn't understand why the man is gravitated to immigrant children...

 The Mammoth book of Time Travel  By Mike Ashley  Published Year: 2013 Page count : 544 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Science Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Time Travel, Multiverse, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃 Just sensational! Thought provoking. Mind bending. I am a huge fan of Science Fiction..especially the stories involving time travel and multiverse. This book contains 25 sensational stories that involve some version of time travel and occasional parallel worlds themes. Loved it very much. The organization of the stories is also such that as I progressed with the book,the stories got more nuanced and intricate. I read some of them with great love and interest. How the authors handled the paradoxes that arise with multiple versions of same person as a result of time travel was of major interest to me. Do check this out! 

 The Doors of Eden  By Adrian Tchaikovsky  Published Year: 2020 Page Count: 607 pages Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : LGBTQ, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Multiverse, Thriller, Science and Tech, Multiple Earths, Evolution Stories, 2025-read.  Rating :5/5 What an amazing ride! What a brilliant read! What a spectacular author!! Mind Blowing imagination. Such a prolific writer.. for me, he is alike to Stephen King of Science Fiction. I have admired the vision and the world creation of Adrian Tchaikovsky since I first read The Children of Time and he hasn't disappointed,ever since, even once. With this book too, Adrian did what he does and knows to do best! He spun a revolutionary tale of multiple worlds and evolutionary stories of different entities on them. These worlds have been existing for billions of years and some organisms on them have perished, some have found cures for cancer, some have very advanced technology to ours, some are not so advanced as us etc....

 The Wedding People  By Alison Espach  Published Year: 2024 Page Count : 384 pages Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Contemporary Fiction, Romance, Weddings, Life Lessons, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5  I could see the ending but not predict the events leading to it. I want to say this book is very predictable but that won't be entirely right. More than their impulsive actions, the lead characters leave it to the events or the stars to bring them together. I liked this very much and it made them seem so matured and controlled. At one point, I felt a mild panic that it is all slipping out of hand but then the universe does what it should. At the outset this reads like watching an Indian Bollywood movie. Yes it is a much tested and worked recipe. But that is not entirely right as well. The main characters are more nuanced than simple film actors. I loved reading this. This has so much depth than usual romance books. There is no smut what so ever and that is a bi...

 Fairy Tale  by Stephen King  Published Year : 2022 Page Count : 607 pages Medium Used : Kindle Scribe Genre : Dark Fantasy, Multiverse, Parallel Words, Magic and Sorcery, Young Adult, Prince and Princesses, 2025-Read. Rating : 4.75/5 Stephen King, I am surprised to say, has thoroughly impressed me with this book. It is not his comfortable space of horror and creepy settings but he has written it with flair and acumen. He has created a world that was in chaos and ailing but is reverted to normalcy when a seventeen year old makes his journey to the world to rescue his dying German Shepard dog. There is a staircase with one hundred and eighty five steps leading from a shed in Illinios to the underground world. The boy and his predecessor who owned the shed took great care to keep this pathway hidden from the  prying eyes of humans who would - who knows - obviously go to great lengths to seize and exploit a new, untouched, nascent world. The people in this world are stu...

 Lock In  (Lock In #1) By John Scalzi  Published Year: 2014 Page Count: 288 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Science Fiction, Fantasy, Action, Robots, Neural Networks, Murder Mystery, Thriller, 2025-read. Rating : 4.25/5  I liked the overall story and the premise. I felt at places it got too technical for my understanding. But that was also simplified with further reading. I thought they were able to figure out the culprit rather too easily. How can the culprit(s) be so sloppy and careless in what they have done? They did all these murders, attacks and damages but didn't bother covering their tracks. Well, some people really can be so foolish!! I am disappointed a bit that there is no major twist to the plot. This is fairly straightforward and the knowledge of who the culprit was came early on taking away the edge.  This book introduces us to a time somewhere in the future. The Hadens Syndrome virus  had wiped away many people .. it starts a...