Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 If We Were Villains  By M.L.Rio (2017) (428 pages Paperback) Genre : Coming-of-age, Contemporary, Shakespeare, Drama, Murder Mystery, Suspense , Playacting. Rating : 4/5 😃😃 The scenes are very vivid and brilliantly descriptive - they unfold before the eyes of the reader and the characters jump to life, out of paper. The emotions are raw and visceral. The story and the plot brought back visuals from 'The Secret History'by Donna Tartt and 'The Shawshank Redemption' by Stephen King. I thoroughly enjoyed both the books and the fondness is replicated here. I couldn't put the book down. I wanted to rip asunder the mystery and get to the bottom of the drama.  The main characters of the play/story are the seven fourth year theater art students of Dellacher University. The main focus of their curriculum is to learn, memorize and enact the various Shakespeare plays. The tightly knit friends become obsessed with these plays and of the Shakespearean characters. They personif...

Afterlives (2020) By Abdulrazak Gurnah (Nobel Prize Winner for Fiction) Genre : Historical Fiction, Drama, Colonization, Germany,  Africa. Rating : 5/5  This is my first book from this author and also covering the demography of Africa under German Colonization followed by British rule. Had some difficulty navigating through the terms initially but a little research eased the matters greatly.  Overall, Loved reading this book. :) Got to learn a lot of stuff about the schutztruppe of the Germans, askari of Africa and their practices, ruthlessness and unexposed/unfamiliar kindness of some of those Germans in control/power. This book has showed the positive side to the colonial occupation of German and British to Africa. Yes,the wars have resulted in lot of blood shed but here and there, there were kids,young boys who could vouch for the kindness of some german officers and lay their lives on line to pay back for it. :)  We see a couple of generations of Afri...

Absalom, Absalom!  By William Faulkner  Rating 4/5 Genres: Drama, classics, 2021-read, non linear story telling  This is the first book I have read by William Faulkner and its non linear story telling kept me hooked through out its rather simple  plot. He gives a gist of what had happened in the past and slowly unravels the whys, the whens and the where's by going back from the present into the past opening a window there, closing a window here and so forth. It got a bit tricky to keep track of what point in time he is referring to and who the characters in the context are. To put it mildly, it is a bit challenging of a novel which required occasional back and forth in reading also. He says something and the details or explanation to it come later..so one has to hold on to reading and it all becomes clear eventually.  This book tells the story of the family  of a fictitious Thomas Sutpen narrated by a young man Quentin Compson who got it from mu...

 The House of the Spirits By Isabel Allende  Rating 5/5  Genres : Magical Realism,  Drama, Romance, Politics, Fantasy  In some 400 odd pages, the author covers the life history and important events of three generations of the Trueba and Del Valle families. The plot is just awesome and the prose style is magical and very mesmerizing. I just got sucked into the surreal and eccentric world of Clara Esteban who is a dreamy character conversing with spirits and with her head lost in the clouds and wild imagination.  Esteban Trueba is a practical young man who falls head over heels in love with an angelic looking woman Rosa del valle. But before they could get married, Rosa dies in a tragic accident. This breaks Esteban's heart  and he devotes himself completely to the task of repairing his land and setting it up into a successful business center. To quench his sexual appetites, he occasionally turns into a monster ravaging the worker and peasant...

House of Leaves  By Mark Z. Danielezski  Rating 5/5  Genres : Horror, Mystery, Gothic, Drama  The structure of the book is very different. At times I had to remind myself that this is only a work of fiction. It tells a scientific expedition by a group of people along side with foot notes taken from journals, research papers and puts forth different sets of arguments for and against the events and the participants' reactions to them.  Some readers said this is a horror story while some felt it is a love story. I guess I will lean more towards the horror and mystery side than love although their is some deep realization and self sacrifice in the name of true love in the story.  It is very engrossing and I couldn't put it down trying to make out what it all amounts to in the end. I guess the end is a mystery to me although there are some opinions and theories put forth in the unraveling of the plot.  An old man Zampano who leads the life of a ...

 The Great Alone By Kristin Hannah Rating 5/5 Genres : Historical fiction,Alaska, romance,drama, violence, World War ii. I am not a hopeless romantic or a sentimental freak but this book had me tearing up real bad towards the end. Its a profoundly touching story that is bitter, scary,sad and beautiful all at the same time. It conveys a beautiful message that Love thrives and lasts - in some form or another - through time and forever. Alaska is referred to as the great alone In this story. People from far and away often make their homes in the state to live peaceful, independent and secluded lives. Those who are survivors can make it but those who can't, they go elsewhere. I didn't like Alaska- no, more like scared and horrified by it (although the heroine loves it and calls it her true home) - its a cold and isolated place with no electricity and where people lived entirely to survive the harsh climate and get through dangerous winters. Leni is a thirteen year ...

The Witch Elm  By Tana French Genres : Suspense,  Murder mystery,  Drama,  2021-read, detectives. Rating : 5/5  I enjoyed the unraveling of the plot. The mind bending and chilling conversations between the detectives and Toby are thoroughly enjoyable. The story is a cat and mouse chase -  with detectives trying to piece together a murder mystery, a burglary that almost left the victim dead - shrouded in a lot of family and emotional drama.  It starts with Toby, the narrator and protagonist calling himself lucky and ends with him accepting the fact that he is lucky with grace.  Toby is working as a PR guy in an art gallery. He gets involved in painting forgeries with his colleague and when his boss finds it out, Toby gets few days of suspension while the other gets laid off. After Toby gets back to work and smooth talks himself into the graces of his boss, one night while he is asleep in his apartment, a couple of burglars break in and ...

 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...

 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...