Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 Where are the Children?  By Mary Higgins Clarke  Published : 1975 Page count : 166 pages  Medium Used : Kindle PW  Genre : Suspense, Mystery, Murder, Fiction, 2024-read  Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A couple of kids, Michael and Missy, go missing. Either they are kidnapped by someone or are killed .. by their own mother who had a history of killing her kids. Yes, some six years ago, she stood and got off from the trial of accused for murdering her children - Peter and Lisa. She got off that trial without conviction because the key witness bolted and disappeared. Things don't look very bright for her this time since everyone is looking directly at her and not at other options. A man from her past, reappears and actually takes the children hostage. He has diabolical and creepy plans in mind. He almost makes them happen. Different folks come together to form a team unraveling the mystery. Who was the man from her past? What has he got on her that he wants to keep hurti...

 The Woman in the Window  By A.J.Finn (2018) (430 pages Kindle Digital Edition) Genre : Contemporary, Fiction, Thriller, Psychological Fiction, Suspense,Detective, Mystery,Child abuse,Alcoholism.  Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀 Simply superb! Loved it! Wish I had picked this sooner! One in its own class! 🥰🥰 Translated into over 40 languages and millions of copies sold worldwide! A major motion picture from Fox, available on Netflix! Eager to watch Amy Adams and Julian Moore blow my mind! Will check this out.😀😇 A child psychologist,Anna Fox,has experienced severe trauma and is reduced to stay indoors with doors locked and shutters closed shut . She is suffering from Agoraphobia - fear of open spaces and crowded places. No one visits her except her psychiatrist and aerobic trainer. No one calls her except her distant, separated husband and daughter. Her day is split between watching black and white movies on repeat, excessive drinking, online chatting and snooping on her neigh...

Verity  By Colleen Hoover  Rating 4/5  Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller. Finished this with my heart in my mouth..sitting on the edge of my seat. Goosebumps on my arms and chills down my spine.  I was expecting that the answer to this mystery would be found in the villainification of the husband but it didn't. There is a twist or there isn't. Which version of Verity is to be believed and which is fake? Its a thoroughly knitted plot solid and hard core. Would highly recommend. I have taken off one point because like graphical abuse, too much of sexual descriptions and steamy scenes make me a bit uncomfortable. But they are obviously necessary to make the plot what it is. Interesting and gripping !! 

The Lady in the Lake [1943] By Raymond Chandler 233 pages (Kindle Digital Edition) Rating  4/5  Genres : Mystery, Fiction, Hardboiled, Noir. A rich man engages Philip Marlowe to figure the whereabouts of his missing wife. She had gone missing a month ago and had sent a wire saying that she was getting married to someone. The man denies any such arrangement and this has the husband worried about the welfare of his wife. After Marlowe takes up the case, he uncovers another case linked to this in which a neighbor's wife has also gone missing the same day as the rich man's wife. A dead body is recovered from the lake near the cabin and the very next day, more dead bodies turn up. Key people linked with the case start getting murdered and who has the most to gain from this? Or is this all linked to covering up some past history? A game being played by two ex lovers endangering many lives?  I love whodunit and hardboiled noir fiction very much. Though there are witt...

The Beast Within  By Emile Zola  Rating 5/5 😄😃😃😃 Genres : psychological fiction, fiction, violence, murder, suspense  Its a solid, hard core 5 point from me. Emile Zola is a treasure and a brilliant writer that I haven't stumbled upon till now. I vaguely remember reading bits and pieces of Nana by him but not fully. This book has him embodying every single character and writing it from their perspective of how they feel and why they make a certain choice of action. He is one time in the head of a murderer, another time  in that of his victim. He is one time  in the head of a woman vulnerable and weak, another time in that of a ruthless,unflinching  amazon. It is hard to not read on as the story is unraveling in such a mysterious way..there is no knowing who is going to get killed next..who is going to murder whom, for what motive and how?! Its full of suspense and mystery but it also has many scenes of graphical violence which sensitive read...

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 Stepford Wives  By Ira Levin  Rating 3.5/5  Genre Horror, Fiction, Mystery. Very fast read.  Obviously,  this book is not as scary as Ira's most successful book Rosemary's Baby but for someone having to go through this, it is quite nerve wracking and nightmarish. I felt Ira Levin has left a lot to the imagination and not explained how exactly and what exactly happened to all those wives of Stepford..that turned their minds and souls into mush. I think it also makes one wonder with all the focus on the wives, what is also happening to the husbands..are they just becoming complicit in the wicked scheme for the benefits or are they getting brain washed ? I would have loved to have more clarity on these fronts..but for now I m assuming whatever makes most sense to me.  The plot is Joanna and her husband Walter buy a new house in Stepford town and move in with their kids. Right off the bat, she notices something off with the neighborhood wives. T...

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...

I'm Thinking of Ending Things  By Iain Reid  Genres: psychological thriller, 2022-read, philosophy, psyche, mystery, mental illness  Rating 5/5 ☺☺☺ Terrific. Eerie and ominous. A quick and short read but with a lasting impact. This book is a 2006  debut novel from a Canadian author Iain Reid and he makes a definitive mark with this one. Without giving away the secret/twist in the story,  this is a play of psychological guessing game on the reader till the very end. What the narrator is actually describing is not fully grasped/understood without the full context at the end. Ofcourse there are hints all through but they don't strike home the message.  Getting into the plot, Jake is a student in the preparation to become a professor. He meets a young woman at a pub and they begin connecting. While he is tall and wiry in frame, she is short and a bit roundish - contrasting him. They are both introverted, shy and non social people wishing not to talk...

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 ...

 Song of Kali  By Dan Simmons Rating : 2.75/5 Genres : supernatural, theology, dark fiction, fiction, mystery, suspense, 2021-read.  This book is extremely gripping - till the end. But I couldn't give it more than what rating I have given it. Why? First, it had me simmering with rage and there is more than one scene which left me cringing - the author is outright blasphemous in using curse words against the deity and over blowing/exaggerating about his experiences in India. Second, I think he is confused between - kali, the demon who defines the age of kali vs Kaali the goddess who is known as all powerful. I had to remind myself that this is not a memoir but only a work of fiction. It felt like a slowly unwinding nightmare. This work of Dan Simmons beats many of the recent works of Stephen King - in horror and in touching the morbid, graphic violence, grisly ideas too deep.  The narrator is a writer and he gets commissioned to obtain a manuscript of p...

 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...

The Last Thing He Told Me  by Laura Dave (2021) Genres: Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Fiction, Female Centered, 2021-read Rating: 3.5/5 👼👼 I finish off this book with a sense of warmth and gratitude in my heart. I started this book yesterday and couldn't put it down - even after the plot veers off into an area I thought could get disappointing. But ofcourse, it didn't. :) I thoroughly enjoyed both the explicable and the inexplicable aspects to the narrator's personality and her sometimes irrational actions. She put pure love and selflessness as her shield to get her and her ward (her step daughter put into her care) through a very difficult - if not impossible - situation. I hesitated to give this a 5-pointer because of some plot holes I felt are too glaring to ignore and of which I will mention shortly.  A little background into the story. The narrator of the story Hannah is nearing 40 years and is a wood turner(means a "carpenter" - she designs and makes fu...