Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 This is how you lose the time war  By Max Gladstone and Al Mohatar  Published Year: 2019 Page Count: 170 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Multiverse, Time Travel, Shape Shifters, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5 👏👏👏👏👏 Amazing. Brilliant work. Did a magic play with words. Weaved a tale that is mesmerizing while keeping it short!  Although I didn't understand it fully - despite reading it in two iterations - I loved the vivid imagery, cinematic prose and wonderful narration style. In my first attempt to read this book, I went fast in my perusal and understood very little. Then I quit that attempt and started new. I read the paragraphs real slow and made myself some mental notes as the plot unfurled. It is an amazing experience - walking in the shoes of the main characters, Blue and Red.  So, first of all, my question is - what are they? They are definitely not human beings. While I came to...

 The Marriage Portrait  By Maggie O'Farrell  Published Year : 2022  Page count : 376 Pages  Medium used : Kindle PW  Genre : Historical Fiction, Italy, Uxoricide, Suspense, Psychological Fiction, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I was wavering between a 4 and 4.5 rating while reading the book. But the last few pages solidified my decision into a firm 5 point category. The prose is so delicious and refreshing. The suspense is both chilling and thrilling to unravel. The plot is riveting. Lucrezia de Medici, the duchess of Ferrara and daughter of Duke of Tuscany, one year into her marriage, senses that her husband is set to kill her. The book opens on a note of his being coy and nice to her, where she is not fooled for a second. This sense of danger with no hope for escape is shocking and revelatory of the times the narrative takes place in. There is also a sense of adventure, in planning for escape from her enslaved, dreary existence juxtaposed with the da...

 Helen of Troy  By Margaret George (2006) (800 pages Kindle Digital Edition) Rating : 2/5  Genres : Historical,  Mythology,  Greeks, Trojan war. WARNING!!! STAY AWAY FROM THIS PIECE OF DESPICABLE WORK !!  The worst book on the Trojan war I have come across!! 🤢🤢🤢 I stopped reading and decided to shelve this at 50 percent of the book.(I am glad I didn't splurge money on buying a hardcopy like I initially intended to!)  It is an understatement to say that I am just disappointed! I feel cheated and played. I had such high hopes for this! Having read her 'Memoirs of Cleopatra', I wanted to get dragged hopelessly into the world of ancient Greece and get a new look at this most retold old tale. Such books are like fiction within fiction - because the existence of Helen and the occurrence of Trojan War could have been artistic creations of Homer. The intricate details within the story are the added speculation,fantasy - adding layers and putting pieces of p...

The Kite Runner  By Khaled Hosseini  Genre : Afghanistan, classics,good-prose ,2023-read, Historical Fiction  Rating 5/5  This story spans the time period from 1975 to 2002 threading its way through Afghanistan and America. The story sees the country of Afghanistan peaceful in the early to late 1970s, struggling and haggling under the tyranny of Russia through 1980s and stifling under the overtake and rule of the Taliban. This is one of those countries where going back to a peaceful past is no longer possible. Even those who were acquainted with that period are running in short supply. May God help and provide for the still suffering. There is little that we as spectators know of these countries and the plight of such people unless books such as these - although fiction - are written and Khaled Hosseini is a crusader for their cause!! This book has proved to be a challenge for finishing in one read. I remember vividly the number of times I gave it a ...

Pachinko (2017) By Min Jin Lee  Genres : historical fiction, japan, Korea, ww2  Rating 5/5 😍😍😍 This book is a National Book Award finalist.  I am going all gaga over this book and gushing over it like I haven't done in a while. I just loved it. Reading this is like flipping pages in a photo album. Happiness,sadness,surprise,jolts of shock all come and go .. while life is happening outside and independent of them. 😏 I think the essence/soul of this story is a thriving love between Hansu and Sunja that supercedes the passage of time, distance,status, power and doesn't bother about wrinkled faces, sun blotches hands, shrinking body frames etc.  I took my sweet time reading this wonderful concotion .. savoring every well formed sentence and making notes all over the text. Its a very engaging book and although there is no oppressive/fretful ambience like in 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' ,the suspense is riveting nevertheless. I wanted nothing but good things to happ...

The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) By Philippa Gregory  667 pages (Kindle Digital Edition)  Genres : Historical Fiction, Tudors, England, Boleyns. Rating : 4/5  I am reading this book after Wolf Hall. It adds a lot of context and familiarity to the plot. But I didn't see Anne's disgrace coming. I didn't expect her fate to end in such a tragic state. Spoken in the narrative tongue of Mary Boleyn,  the book takes us through the historical romance of Henry Tudor with Mary herself, with Anne Boleyn - her elder sister even while he was married to Katherine of Aragorn for over 20 years and waiting for the marriage to be annulled.  Henry Tudor has been married long time to Katherine of Aragorn and he hasn't got a son on her. He only ever got a daughter followed by a stream of miscarriages or still births. Disappointed and with a wandering eye, he takes Mary Boleyn who is married to William Carey as his lover. They have two children - a girl and a boy. But to...

The Paris Library  By Janet Charles  Rating 3/5  Genres : Historical Fiction, World War 2, Romance  This story is based on a set of true events that happened in Paris during the World War 2. A bunch of librarians risked everything to provide literary support to subscribers and prisoners/patients of war by delivering books to cheer them up and keep them in high spirits. Some of them got booted for aiding jewish readers, some were sent packing back to their homelands but the group's indomitable resolve to do their part kept them afloat till the very end .. when the war is finally over and German occupancy of Paris came to an end.  Its a great idea in theory but I felt that the execution/narrative failed to really stir any hard emotions for me. Perhaps because the World/Paris where war was under progress, where people are suffering and getting sent to concentration camps and the World/Paris where the librarians were cheerfully carrying on their book del...

The Penelopiad [2005] By Margaret Atwood  Rating : 4/5 🎃🔮 Genres : Greek, Mythology, Alternate History, Historical Fiction. I think Margaret Atwood's writing this short book(of just over 100 pages recounting such an important classic tale) has accomplished two things. And even though the book is small, I felt she has conveyed what she wanted to .. without deviating from her central theme. One,according to her introduction in the book, is she wanted to present an alternate case/myth to the single authoritative voice on the greek tale - Odyssey by Homer. Second, through keeping the focus directed towards the "wronged" women in the Odyssey - namely Penelope and the twelve maids who were hanged in haste by the boisterous and assuming Odysseus, she championed the causes of victimized women from the tale.  The story starts with the birth of Penelope to the then king of Sparta Icarus and a naiad mother and details some notable childhood events from her life. Her fa...

 Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell #1) [2009] by Hillary Mantel  Rating: 4/5 Genres : Historical Fiction, Booker Prize Winner 2009, England, Royalty, Treachery  This is not one of the most easiest of books to quickly navigate through. For one, it refers to a period of time and events that are not part of common knowledge. And second, there are a lot of characters some with no significance or bearing on the plot and they make it a little confusing to follow the narrative. Otherwise, there is ample wit and veiled humor that makes even ruthlessness seem funny in the actions of kings and queens or their high appointed officials. Hillary Mantel's style of writing is also very picturesque and some conversational exchanges between the main characters are worth bookmarking and reading over and over.  It also felt strangely funny at times that so much narrative has gone into explaining the circumstances surrounding a king marry his second wife while making his first marriage void. ?...

Fingersmith  By Sarah Waters  Rating 5/5  Genres : Historical Fiction, Romance, Lesbian love, Suspense, Twisted Tale Multiple twists in the story make it quite suspenseful and put me on the edge - especially as it drew towards the end. Although it has elements of lesbian romance and love, I didn't find it getting too deep, going into the zone of gross/uncomfortable. What the author tried to portray is true/selfless love between two girls who are forced into plotting against each other by circumstances and their desire to gain some vile objective. But the pursuit of this vileness hasn't smeared their love - only edified it because of how easily they sacrifice it.  The scenes in the madhouse has me shocked and reeling at the absurdity of it all - how easily a woman could get committed to a madhouse and not see the outside world forever if her husband chooses so - during the times the book is set up in. The more truthful the committed patient tries to be, th...

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue  By V.E.Schwab  Rating: 4/5 Genres : Historical Fiction, young adult, Soul, Devil, Romance, 2022-read  This is my first book by the author and I am pleasantly surprised by the depth and insight she has into human nature and her grip over human emotions. I am trying to search for the right keyword to describe this book..its not great or amazing or any of those things..I would say the word would be impactful, heavy, deep and literally dealing in soul. A young girl makes a deal with the devil/darkness/God of the woods and sets off a game spanning over 300 years with him chasing after her trying to seize her soul..but she successfully evading him. He pushes her into situations where embittered, frustrated and broken she should be ready to offer him her soul but adamant and stubborn as she is, she chooses to live time and time again. Yes! Addie LaRue is a young girl of 23 who born in a small village town of France has big drea...

The Thorn Birds  By Colleen McCullough  Rating 3.75/5 Genres : Australia, Vatican city, Cardinal, Romance, Generational fiction, Historical fiction  Bah. I dont know. I felt this is just an ok sort of book. The only aspect that stirred me and struck a chord with me is the all encompassing, soul level love between Maggie and Father Ralph de Bricassart. Everything else - no matter how juicy,emotional or dramatic just failed to make an impact. The story covers the lives of three generations of women of the Cleary/Armstrong family line - their cherished dreams and dashed hopes, their hurts and heartbreaks over unrequited, failed loves..their finally getting what they wanted but it not being fully enough.. well, it sounds and feels like a roller coaster.  And whats more..there is plenty of repeat in the events of their lives..what has happened to the mother, happens to the daughter and so on..  Coming to the story. Maggie Cleary is brought up with a ...

The Thirteenth Tale  By Diane Setterfield  Rating 4/5  Genre : Mystery, Gothic, Historical fiction, classics, Biographical fiction.  This is really good. A very successful and aging author Vida Winter calls for a practically unknown biographer to record her life history..which she hasn't shared with anyone..which if sees the light of the day could startle the world. Sounds familiar? Doesn't it sound very much like the backdrop to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo? Yes, but that's where the similarity ends. The past of Vida Winter is far less complex/twisting, has an appealing Gothic feel to it and the mystery gets quite unpredictable..it almost goes out of hand. One the downside, I felt the mystery is rather too simplified..although the reader couldn't have been able to predict/figure it, the biographer sure didn't have much of a problem unraveling it.. Vida Winter's past is a mystery. She concocted a different tale to all the interviewers that came ...

The Confessions of Young Nero  By Margaret George  Rating 2.5/5  Genres Historical Fiction, Rome, Nero Boring. Very disappointed. I skimmed through many pages towards the end as the narrative drove me nuts with little to no story in it. I guess the major source of my disinterest in this book is that the hero Nero didn't appeal to me as a notable historical figure. The author has shown him in a positive light as opposed to the common dialogue/opinion that surrounds him. I imagine from these private notes of Nero that being an emperor of Rome is all about spending time with poetry,music, chariot racing and enjoying lavish life at villas with mistresses.. its all so boring..most of the places mentioned are also unfamiliar and never heard of..  I really did enjoy the book Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret but this one seems to be a failure. :( I am definitely going to do some initial research on books from now on..not to have to go through such ordeals again. ...

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 pull...

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 viscera...

The Memoirs of Cleopatra By Margaret George Rating 5/5 Genres : Historical fiction, ancient egypt, Cleopatra, Julius Ceasar,  Marc Antony, Octavianus Caesar It is little secret that I am obsessed with famous personages from Egypt. Starting with the notorious Akhenaten, Nefertiti and to Cleopatra, I never tire of reading different versions of their histories by different interpreters. Like all historical fiction based on actual living person from the past, this book is part fiction and part factual. But on the whole, it is very engrossing and gripping.  I took much longer to finish this than other books but I was savoring every part of its sweetness and mystique of Egypt it contained. Julius Ceasar and Marc Antony are two roman generals and leaders who fall completely and desperately in love with the mighty queen of Egypt, Cleopatra.  She was very young when her mother died and her father is not strong in character - being depicted as a dionysian with exub...

 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 Lost Apothecary  By Sarah Penner  Rating: a solid 5/5 Genres: Historical fiction, 18th century England, magical realism, awesome read, 2021-read, reviewed  My God! What an amazing book. I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I started on this one but I just couldn't put it down.  I usually read multiple books together but after I picked this one - I could focus only on this till I finished it! Its just very gripping!  This is a story of uncovering some mystical events that happened during the late 18th century in England with a fictitious female apothecary, Nella. She inherited and learnt her trade from her late mother who wanted her shop to be a rescue from women's maladies. When Nella is young, she is betrayed by a man and later when chance presents, she dispenses her medicine in heavy dose leading to his death. This starts her journey in which not only helping and healing the physical ailments of women, she also becomes the dispenser of poiso...

The Egyptian  By Mika Waltari Rating 5/5  Genres : Historical fiction, classics, Ancient Egypt, Akhenaten, Sinuhe, 2021-read, reviewed  This book is a masterpiece!! Just like any masterpiece, it is thorough, has depth and is fantastic. And also like most historical fiction,  it is based on few facts and rests itself on much conjecture/imagination of the author. Whoever tells it and however they tell it  - its the same story - story of the reign and ruin of Akhenaten,the false prophet and king of Egypt - at the core with only some details altered. But what makes this such a good read is the depth of the story  and the complete picture  that is conveyed to the reader through the eyes of a head physician to the Pharoah,  Sinuhe. I had great respect for him till the end when he gets himself embroiled in the affairs of kings and mixes politics into his former unbiased treatments there by using his potions to kill. He uses his noble professi...