Nagasravika's Book Reviews Blog

 A Gathering of Shadows  (Shades Of Magic #2) By V. E. Schwab  Published Year: 2016 Page Count: 512 pages  Medium Used: Oneplus Nord Ce6  Genre: High Fantasy, Fantasy, Action, Magic and Sorcery, Multiverse, Romance,Romantasy, LGBTQ, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎  Absolutely digged this! Schwab is a gifted, brilliant writer that her prose and narration kept me hooked through out. In the first book, there was too much happening. We were introduced to this world of magic and sorcery. We saw the main characters - Kell from Red London and Lila from Grey London - overtake evil kings and queens and save a world from consumption by black magic. Then Lila leaves Kell in pursuit of an adventure and thrill. She doesn't want to be bound to anyone or anything and wants instead to have some risk in her life. Doesn't want to be saddled to a boring and secure life. She is a different creature as everyone agrees. A girl cast from a different mold. At the end ...

 The Wind - Up Bird Chronicle  By Haruki Murakami  Published Year: 1997 [ English Version] Page Count: 605 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Fantasy,  Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, World War II, Nomonhan incident, Romance, Multiverse, Weird Characters, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 Perhaps the first book of Murakami that I have given a 5 star rating. I have loved all his works but never found something that resonated deep with me. Like this one did. For once, I thought he set the smut and sexual stuff between main characters on a back seat. The main theme is to rid the world of a monstrous personality with some secret power and then win his wife back, rescued from the clutches of this dark person. There are a horde of very unusual and troubling characters( some are very weird) who share their pasts and stories with the narrator. Sometimes they make sense and sometimes they don't. Some explanations made me laugh out loud, some had me c...

 The Talisman  (The Talisman #1) By Stephen King, Peter Straub  Published Year: 1984 Page Count: 765 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Multiverse, Science Fiction,  Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Young Adult, Coming-of-age, Adventure,  Action, 2026-read.  Rating : 5/5 😃😃😃😃🥳 I would say what a sensational book! The collaboration between two masters of horror and fantasy worked splendidly. I could easily discern the author by his writing style. The clonky book is broken into four parts - i think the 1st and 4th are written by Straub while the middle two are Mr. King's work. There isn't a book I haven't liked of King yet and this is my introduction to Straub. I liked the nuances and knowledge transfer that was happening from their minds into mine throughout the plot. Purely magical and addictive! I couldn't put down the book. Even if I was only managing to read about a hundred pages a day, the story lingered in my mind. I was churning through the e...

 Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3) By Seanan McGuire  Published Year: 2018 Page Count: 174 pages  Medium Used : Kindle Scribe  Genre: Novella, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Multiverse, Multiple Worlds, Academia, Adventure, 2025-read.  Rating: 3.65/5  Weaving this series around children at a school for special kids, magical worlds which are tempered and curated for each of their innate desires, which feel like true "home" for them, is very appealing to me. It feels warm, cozy and like a drug to my imagination. 🥰 Even when I come across one not so spectacular a story(a partial dud, in short😆) like this one - it doesn't put any significant dent in my opinion of the over all series. I guess what I didn't like about this book is that it is set in a very bright, colorful and frothing Sugar world where everything is made up of sugar syrup, candy or bread. I would have liked a world that is more darker.🤫 I am drawn to the drowned worlds, the underground wo...

 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...