Nagasravika's Book Reviews Blog

 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...

The Strange Library  By Haruki Murakami Genre : Novella, Horror, Gothic🎃, Fantasy 🎉 Rating 5/5 🎃 This is perhaps the first book by Murakami that I have felt unqueasy reading. It has no sexual content .. obviously because it is about a horrid experience by a child at a library .. and very picturesque in the imagery as usual with all his novels .. I just loved it. Next time I think of a library, I might give myself in to wondering what wonderful things or horrible things are going down in its basement .. lol  A kid walks into a library to return a set of books and loan some more and meets an old man librarian. The old man gives him three thick volumes on the topic the boy wants to learn about and tells him he has to read those books on premises only. He takes the boy into a basement which is organized like a maze like structure. The boy is locked into a room, his feet chained to a heavy iron ball to prevent movement and escape. A strange wool/sheep man is assigned...

Candide by Voltaire  Rating : 4/5  Genres : Satire, Classics, Novella  This is a really short book. But it covers huge ground - i mean literally! The main character in the story, Candide, walks/treads all over multiple continents and lands facing mishap after mishap with a singular pursuit in mind - to reach and unite his lover. It is a satire on the philosophy that says 'everything happens for the best'. The narrative is outright hilarious at places even where one is supposed to be moved to compassion and tears at the bad luck that strikes the main characters in the play. It goes on in a totally un-serious vein where we see people dead in earlier chapters springing back to life in the later ones. 🤣🤣 Candide gets thrown out of his kingdom because he has fallen in love with the king's daughter. He had a teacher who drilled into him the philosophy that everything that happens is for the best and as life takes him through different twists and turns throwing him...