Nagasravika's Book Reviews Blog

 The Consuming Fire  (The Interdependency #2) By John Scalzi  Published Year: 2018 Page Count: 360 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Fantasy, Hard Science fiction, Court Intrigues, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😍😍😍😍😍 My review to book one in the series :  The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi Book Review Carenia - her official title, Grayland - has assumed the powers as emperox of the Interdependency and is now facing an unprecedented problem of the empire on collapse. There is ample, undubious math proof that, within a decade, all the systems of the flow stream connected empire will become isolated, unconnected and taken over by despair, hopelessness and possibly violence. She wants to help cart as many people as she can to the only isolated and functionable habitat on the planet, the End. At the start of the book, she spouts out visions of prophetic nature in order to influence the common folk into believing her/Marce...

 The Collapsing Empire  (The Interdependency #1) By John Scalzi  2018 Locus Award Winner  Published Year: 2017 Page Count: 370 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Hard Science fiction, Space Opera, Game for Throne, Thriller, Court Intrigues, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😍😍😍😍😍 The Interdependency is the nation of systems where humans are spread out across the universe. There are around 47 habitable systems in all. On some of them, like the Hub, they live underground. On some, they don't have feasibility to inhabit the planet and hence live on scientific habitats or space stations. Only End is the planet where they live on the surface. These human occupied outposts are interconnected by flow streams. Where even if they use their fastest spaceships called Tenners, it would take them anywhere from decades to centuries to plod between these habitats, using and traveling through Flow, they can reduce the time to weeks or months. ...

 Prince of Thorns  (Broken Empire #1) By Mark Lawrence  Published Year: 2011 Page Count: 375 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: High Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Mages, Magic, Gore, Psychological Thriller, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 A boy of 10, bent on revenge for the murder of his mother and brother, gathers a band of thugs and marches forth. But his path is magically modified and we get to read his escapades and adventures for the next four years in first person narrative.  A young prince of nine years old, Jorg witnesses his mother and younger brother being brutally murdered by the troops of Count Renar. The prince survived the attack because he is thrown into the briar bush with thorns and either fear or absence of bravery keeps him silent and rooted to his spot. The thorns embed under his skin, causing fevers that last for weeks. After he recovers, he collects a band of outlaws/misfits/thugs and goes on a ride for vengeance. Something suspicious happe...

 They Both Die at the End  ( They Both Die at the End #1) By Adam Silvera  Published Year: 2017 Page Count: 370 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Speculative Fiction, LGBTQ, Coming Of Age, Young Adult, Facing Death, 2026-read. Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 Death Cast is a company that has come into existence six years ago, in 2011. By some miraculous maneuvering, they can predict the death of a person within a 24 hour window. Every morning, the company representatives, called Heralds, call up the people who are dying that day (within the next 24 hours) and alert them to the bad news. Mateo is spending his time alone in his apartment when he gets the call. His mother died in child birth and his father is in a coma. He is eighteen years old and completely freaks out. He wants to go visit his dad and bid his goodbyes but is scared to leave the safe haven of his apartment. Rufus is a seventeen year old teen who is thrashing up his girlfriend's new bf,Peck,when he get...

 The Cruel Prince  (Elfhame #1, The Folk of the Air #1) By Holly Black Published Year: 2018 Page Count: 370 pages Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: High Fantasy, Suspense, Game for the Throne, Faeries, Cruelty, Princes, 2026-read. Rating : 5/5 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Jude and Taryn are twin sisters, spending a lazy, normal day with their parents who are busy doing household chores. They have an elder step sister Vivienne from their mother. A stranger pays an unexpected visit and murders the parents, whisks away the children from mortal world to his world of Faerie. Vivienne is his daughter and he feels obligated to not leave the offspring from his unfaithful wife behind. This stranger happens to be the war hungry and brutal military general of Faerie, Madoc. Ten years pass in Faerie, with the children developing into teenagers. While Vivienne doesn't like the world of Faerie, doesn't forgive her father Madoc for the murder of her mother and takes a girl friend from the human world, the t...

 You Should Have Known  By Jean Hanff Korelitz Published Year: 2014 Page Count: 425 pages Medium Used: iPad Air  Genre: Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Murder Mystery, Detectives, Drama, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😇😇😇🤗🤗 Grace Reinhart Sachs had been married to Jonathan Sachs for over eighteen years. They have a young son of eleven, Henry who is very well behaving, well mannered kid for his age. Grace is a psychotherapist, counseling in marriage issues and has a private practice in New York. Jonathan is a pediatric oncologist, dealing with cancer cases in children. Grace considers hers to be a happy family and herself, lacking in nothing. She is a very understanding and accommodating wife who gives her husband his space and time to deal with his work. The main character is Grace and we see a third person's perspective of her life and circumstances in the unraveling plotline. According to her, Jonathan is often gripped with pain and misery of other people, usually...

 We Used to Live Here  By Marcus Kleiwer  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 270 pages  Medium Used; Kindle Scribe  Genre: Dark, Lesbians, Horror, Alternate Realities, Ghosts, Murder, Suspense. Thriller, 2026-read.  Rating: 4.5/5 😀😀😀😀🤞 Eve and Charlie are a couple who purchase, renovate and sell houses for profit. They have bought a mansion 3709, situated on a 5 acre plot, surrounded by mountains, forests and ponds, on Heritage Lane. It is a secluded spot, located far from nearby establishments. For example, It would take over 2 hours to get help in case of medical emergencies or police assistance. But still, they love the house and buy it. The interior is cluttered with relics, old furniture covered in dust and they project an year for clearing it up. They plan on demolishing the house and building new from scratch.  One day, a family of five arrive on their footstep with a strange request. Charlie is out of the house and Eve receives them. The Fau...

 Private Rites  By Julia Armfield  Finalist for Arthur C Clarke Award 2025 Published Year: 2024  Page Count: 235 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Dystopian, Horror, Drama,Dysfunctional Families, Science Fiction, Coming of Age, LGBTQ,2026-read.  Rating: 3/5 😀😀😇 I came across this book while browsing the shelves of Arthur Clarke Award nominees for 2025. Immediately taken in by the idea of a story loosely based on King Lear and his three daughters, I picked it, setting aside three other books I was reading at that point. The dominant thought running in my mind all the time I was reading was, where is this story going? I also remember thinking, at multiple points, that the author is not a sensational storyteller. But I was resolute to not give in to the voice in my head prompting me to DnF and see the book through to the end. Having finished, I have ambivalent feelings for this. I liked the character development and appreciate the fact that there a...

 Sea of Tranquility  By Emily St. John Mandel  Published Year: 2022 Page Count: 166 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Colonization of Space, Mystery, Suspense, 2026-read.  Rating: 5/5 ❤❤❤❤❤ In the year 1912, on a Caiette island, off the shore of British Columbia, a young man experiences a time space anomaly. He stands under a maple tree and in a flash of darkness, hears violin playing, airship taking off before he is brought back to reality. He becomes aware of the presence of a priest nearby whom he hasn't seen before and soon after, the priest vanishes. The young man - a Edwin St. John - brushes away the experience as one where he is hallucinating and probably experienced some derangement of the brain. Similar experience is recorded towards the end of 20th century when a music composer Paul Smith, while playing his orchestra, shows a video footage where the glitch is obvious. Then, in a separate incident in the 22nd centu...

 The Widow  by John Grisham   Published Year: 2025 Page Count: 416 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe Genre: Court Room Drama, Suspense, Crime Thriller, Murder Mystery, Contemporary Fiction, 2026-read. Rating: 3.25/5 I guess I cannot write a review, driving my points across, without introducing all the main players in the story. Simon Latch is an estate lawyer - attorney and counselor at law - dealing in wills and bankruptcy cases from a small town of Braxton, Virginia. He has been at his gig for over eighteen years and is working his routine cases without much enthusiasm. He has a strained relationship with his wife, Paula and he seems to care enough for their kids to not miss any of the major events in their lives. He hasn't got divorced with his wife because they simply haven't got the money to go through with the proceedings. He regularly plays video poker and gambles small amounts at a joint run by a bookie Chub. His secretary Matilda has been working for him fo...

  The Little Stranger   By Sarah Waters   Published Year: 2009 Page Count: 512 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre : Historical Fiction, Supernatural, Horror, Ghost Stories, Haunted Houses , 2026-read.  Rating: 4/5  Hundreds Hall is a two century old mansion, flanked by farm lands and gardens, invariably on a spiral of decline, neglect and ruin. The inhabitants of this house are old Mrs. Ayers, her children Roderick and Caroline, a couple of housemaids Betty and Mrs. Belazely. The narrator, Dr. Faraday, is called up to the house for consultation of a sick Betty. This visit stirs up his memories of association with the house where his mother once worked as a maid. He laments at the ruin the house has fallen into and the near poverty the family has sunk into. After that he makes himself a frequent visitor at the house, first as a physician to help with Roderick's ruined leg and later turning himself into their family doctor. This story is narrated ...

 You Like It Darker  By Stephen King  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 500 pages  Medium Used: Kindle Scribe  Genre: Horror, Anthology, Short Stories, Supernatural, Mystery, Dark Fiction, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 I should say a very easy, breezy 5 pointer this one gets! I bow down before the creative genius of Stephen King. I salute his knack for writing and keeping the reader hooked no matter what subject he is talking about. Because he is very versatile and very prolific in his writing. Each of these short stories carries its own weight. Each one leaves its mark in a different but sure way. There are short stories and there are longer ones .. but all contain some amount of darkness, death, mystery in them. I especially enjoyed the ones which had supernatural elements added and those with cops and detectives. The old aged male characters, I felt, spoke the language of Mr.King - exactly the way he speaks. Their thoughts and behaviors reflected hi...

 Blindsight  By Peter Watts  Hugo Award Finalist Published Year: 2006 ( Tor Books ) Page Count: 390 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Aliens, Science Fiction, Horror, First Contact, Space Opera, Philosophy, 2026-read.  Rating: 3.5/5 The narrative didn't make sense all the time. Its not like the author went rambling or anything, its just his sentences failed to drive his point. For the most part though, it felt very engaging and gripping. I had some issues with the overall logic and didn't understand why an evolved species like humans or an intelligent species like the aliens/scramblers do what they do. I have enumerated some of these questions I had while reading down below. The horror angle to the plot .. I felt it initially when humans encounter the ship Rorschach and have an formal dialog with the aliens but later the author has made it mostly about explaining away his theories on consciousness and the nature of these aliens. More than horror, this f...

 The Descent  (The Descent #1) By Jeff Long  Published Year: 1999 Page Count: 575 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Horror, Science Fiction, Satan, Underworld, Gore and Macabre, Expedition into the Unknown, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 A deeply disturbing book(but my sweet sweet cup of tea!!!). This is not for the weak minded or the sensitive souls out there. I felt like every possible from of death through murder/torture is recounted here. After reading this and taking into account all the events of face off between the underground "savage" creatures labeled Hadals and the so called "civilized" humans, I am at a loss to decide who is more brutal and animalistic. My involvement with the story got too intense and I had to force myself off for a bit. As the story progressed, it only became more often. I had to turn myself away from this darkness so that I wouldn't get consumed by it. The author has come across as someone who has done a lot of resea...

 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,...