Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 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...

 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...

 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...

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 Searcher (2020) By Tana French  388 pages (Kindle Digital Edition) Rating 4/5  Genres : Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller, Defective, Noir, 2023-read  The author transports the reader into the world of a fictitious town in Ireland through the eyes of a retired American cop Cal Hooper .. makes us walk in his shoes ..  see the things he sees, feel the things he feels .. it is grand! She also takes time to build the people in the story into proper characters with their own personalities, eccentricities and natures .. so when they do something, it doesn't raise eyebrows coming from them.  This story mainly revolves around : A missing boy. A creature that is attacking at night and mutilating the bodies of sheep and ewes. Few people trying to figure out a mystery. Few others warning them off and knowing more than they let on. Its good! A cop with Chicago P.D. takes voluntary retirement and moves to a small rural area in Ireland to settle into an unchalle...

Gone Girl [2012] by Gillian Flynn  470 Pages {Kindle Digital Edition} Genre: Psychological Fiction, suspense, murder, thriller, best seller Rating 5/5 ✌👀👀👩   Someone in the need of a good mystery thriller to curl feet on bed and sink into? This would be a perfect fit! The mindboggling plot unravels fast and steady releasing more shattering and shaky pieces to put the puzzle together.  I have never come to hate or fear a fictional character so much .. that's how good the character of Amy is developed. If there is a gauge to warn us of such disturbed/destructive people as Amy in our vicinity/life .. it would be so much better! Flynn has managed to create Nick and Amy so good they become personal - take Nick's side or Amy's side but not both. Husband and wife play at a zero sum game .. Amy framing and proving him to be her murderer while Nick trying and struggling hard to prove otherwise. It is fun until it is not. An innocent man could have lost his life for the vic...

Solaris (1961) By Stanislaw Lem  Genres : scifi, horror, suspense, classics  207 pages (Kindle Digital Edition) Rating 4/5 😀 . I have enjoyed this book the way I had enjoyed very few books. This has some of the most horrific and memorable scenes I have ever read. Paging through it is an immersive experience  .. where the cause of mystery is revealed to the reader and the main character at the start but it nevertheless doesn't stop being suspenseful. I picked it from the list of best scifi novels of all time. And it definitely makes for some super cool, horror and romantic science fiction ever written! 🤗 Kelvin arrives on planet Solaris as a psychologist researcher and docks himself to the space station. The surface of the planet is covered with ocean and there is no other visible life on the planet. Since the planet has been discovered, there has been much speculation and theoretical expostulation about the nature of the ocean .. eventually they realize it t...

The House of Seven Gables (1851)  by Nathaniel Hawthorne 271 pages (Kindle Digital Edition) Rating 5/5 🥰🥰🥰 I wish I never get to see or stay in one of the houses that resemble this house of seven gables. Fabled in a mysterious dark past, damp, mottled and decaying, it would not just send a resident into the state of depression but also steal their wits and sanity. The plot starts with introducing us to the long term sole resident of the house and ends with her deserting the house with a throng of relatives making way for progressive change and improvement.  I liked the pacing and the placement of the different elements in the plot. All the characters - no matter how small and trivial - are well defined and their involvement makes the story whole and complete. There is a picturesque nature to the narrative .. felt like watching a movie in 3D. The character that I most loved is that of the old,senile and tender gentleman Clifford who as it turns out is the main ch...

Hidden Pictures (2022) By Jason Reklulak  Rating : 5/5  Genres : horror, suspense,twist, fiction  284 pages (Kindle Digital Edition)  A fantastic story with a terrific twist and a terrific ending! Loved this and couldn't put it down at all. I picked this after the goodreads choice awards are announced and this book won the award for horror genre. Finished it in a day and half .. the story is shrouded in mystery and suspense right from the start and I didn't see the twist coming..  A girl who is a drug addict but has been sober for over 20 months is hired as a nanny for the summer by a rich family. She has to look after their five year old kid Teddy and is given a cottage to live in. As the story unfolds, she learns that there is a spirit following Teddy and is trying to tell a story through his paintings/pictures. There is also a psychic woman Mitzi living as their neighbor who helps spin up a ouja board for communicating with the spirit. So who...

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 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 Troop  By Nick cutter  Rating : 3.5/5  Genres : Horror, suspense, 2021-read, virus, worms, epidemic, self immolation, investigation. So, its more creepy and filled with literally creeping things- worms - than horror. I guess the plot could have been written better- making it more raw and intense.  At no point during the read did I feel really worried for the boys even though I guessed right of the bat that none of them are going to escape. And the unnecessary animal cruelty and violence felt like an attempt made by the author to make it more horrid but I only felt empty queasiness and skipped parts of the plot where its there.  Its a hard book to finish in one go. I had to take breaks in between and tried to get away from the horror but I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I tried to sleep it off but my dreams are filled with images of crawling multitude of worms. Its an understatement in the least to say this is a disturbing book.  Getti...

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 ...

 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...

Valis  By Philip k. Dick  Rating: 4.75/5 Genres: Science fiction, suspense, thriller, good vs evil, theology, mental illness, insanity, novel plot, 2021-read, reviewed. Just like living things have an 'aura'  around them with which some could guess their health/well being, books also seem to have a kind of aura around them. If it's a book written by Philip k Dick, one can be assured that it has some element of surprise, novelty, drugs, madness and a promise of a fun ride. Valis is a pleasure to read.I ran through the pages with my eyes glued to my kindle. I couldn't put this book down. Philip Dick is one of the very established authors in the genre of science fiction but for the first 20-30 percent of the book , I wondered if he diverged into a memoir. Yet, his writing is so hilarious that on the one hand I was telling myself  'what a poor fellow this Horselover Fat( an alter ego of Philip, the narrator) is' and on the other hand laughing my head off...

The Bell Jar  By Sylvia Plath Genre: Suspense, Mental health, madness, insanity, 2021-read, good prose, modern classics Rating: 4/5 A student one minute is pursuing the most envious and successful life and the next minute is undergoing shock treatments under harsh conditions of mental asylums to help cope with her life. What's happened? A fast paced and gripping page turner. Disturbing and strange read which is heart pounding and equally seductive in style. Very thought provoking in its own way. I took my sweet time getting through this book and now I can't seem to get it out of my head. A scene never lingers or tarries at one point or gets too much into detail..it just moves forward into another.. seamlessly blending the two together. The chain of events are broken off and joined by links of continuity that keeps the prose going. But although a book on mental detachment, depression and other mental health issues, it had some strong laugh-out-loud moments and the na...

 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 Haunting of the Hill House (1959)  by Shirley Jackson  Genre: Gothic, Fiction, Horror, suspense, 2021-read, Classics  Rating : 3.75/5 This is a story of a failed experiment by a fanatic scientist at researching the happenings of a hill house. Unlike the poltergeist kind of events where a house drived it's inhabitants away, this one sucks them right in.  It's a cute, elegant looking house perched on top of a hill. It has been built over 80 years ago but no one has inhabited it atleast for the last 20 years. People in the neighborhood didn't like it and there are many stories of deaths associated with the place. Either the earlier inhabitants were taken by death or madness but they all loved the place dearly. A scholar, doctor Montague - with an idea to foster his career and give it a boost - decides to conduct some experiments within the hill house and publish a research paper. He is joined by three other people - Luke, Theodora and Eleanor - upon invitation. The ...

 The Case Against Satan (1962) By Ray Russell  Genre:  Paranormal, supernatural, fiction, good-evil, god-demon, possession, exorcism, classics, priests, monasteries, 2021-read, horror, suspense, mystery, detective. Rating: 4.5/5 🎈💃💃 Some of the scenes and episodes in the book had me shaking with fear and gave me serious goosebumps. I conjured black shapes out of thin air in my imagination and had to put the book away to distract myself with something like light reading. This book is a story on demonic possession and exorcism but with many other elements added to the plot.  A sixteen year old girl Susan Garth is brought to consult a priest Halloran because she has started acting odd of late. She shuns visiting the church, calls her father slanderous names and when alone in the presence of the priest, she attempts to seduce him and strangle him. Horrified and disturbed, the priest chooses to get transferred to an orphanage. His replacement, Father Gregory , when pre...