Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 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 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...

 Parasite (2013) By Mira Grant  Genres : science fiction, horror, thriller  410 pages (Kindle Digital Edition) Rating 4/5 🤪🤪 I am making this note having finished half of the book. The twist that is thrown at me 50 percent into the book has left me completely speechless. I shuddered and stared off into space with unblinking eyes trying to make sense of the implications of what is just disclosed. I have been under the assumption that this is a very predictably overrated book since I started reading.  I have only been paying it little attention and drifting off occasionally into random musings on other things. But I am knocked out of my stupor by what I have just read!! Upon finishing the book :  I have read some good reviews about the book but also some very strongly negative reviews on goodreads. I quizzed myself if I should actually pick this up based on the poor reviews and ratings. But to be honest, having just finished, I would say I enjoy...

The Gone World  By Tom Sweterlitsch (2018) 365 pages (kindle digital edition)  Genres : Science Fiction,Thriller, Time Travel, Dystopian Fiction  Rating : 4/5 😍😋 Edit : Writing this review I understood how incredibly complex this story is .. to be explained in a few short sentences .. making for an abridged version of the plot. This is a mixture of both science fiction (involving time travel, space travel) and crime thriller.  Not a typical crime detective story or science fiction, this story has got a 'feel' to it .. that felt very much like a "soul". The character development is good - especially the main character. We get to see how immensely stubborn and iron willed the main character Shannon can be in the face of repeated crisis not leaving the consequences to chance.  Its an amazing portrayal of an alternative reality where time and space travel is authorized for agents of military who leverage it for solving criminal cases. Shannon Moss is an agent of t...

Gravity  by Tess Gerritsen #books #reviews #suspense #scifi #thriller My Rating : 5/5 😃🥰 Awesome! Loved it! At times felt the handicap of not being familiar with all the medical and technical jargon being thrown around but otherwise a very perfect fit into the kind of books that click with me. :D Space exploration .. add to it a tinge of selfless love and also throw into the mix  pathological viruses with a 100 percent mortality rate .. it makes for a sleep foregoing, eye riveting thriller that kept me awake all night last night.  Getting into the plot line, a space mission aboard International space station goes awry when one by one all the scientists onboard start dying due to a virus that absorbs the DNA of its host into its own genome and propagates, thrives, profligates. Where did this virus come from? How to fight it into remission? How does a physician Jack save his wife Emma who is infected with the virus and is fighting it as a sole survivor on the space statio...

Upgrade : A Novel  By Blake Crouch  Rating: 4/5 🥂🔮🎯 Genres : Science Fiction, Thriller, 2022-read, Virus, Genetic Alteration  Well. First things first. This is not a horror novel but it might as well fall into that list. The premise and the setting is damn scary. Because it is utterly plausible and there won't be a damn thing anyone can do should it happen. Some maniac and genius scientist with a god/savior complex working on gene manipulation experiments and releasing a virus out into the human world .. to turn everyone into an "upgraded" version of themselves .. so the survival of the fittest would ensue and kill away all the rest .. no matter how big a number is to be sacrificed in the process. Well, if this is not the negative side to a genius mind and their detached/self serving actions, don't know what is.  Coming to the story, Logan Ramsay is an agent working for the GPA .. which deals with arrest and prevention of genetic manipulation expe...

The Butterfly Garden  By Don Hutchinson  Rating 3.5/5 Genres : Thriller, Mystery, Fiction  This book didn't meet the hype surrounding it for me. I expected something more darker and nauseating but only got a vanilla version of something truly sinister. Some of the reasons  made towards explaining away the events didn't sound convincing enough. For example, the man - the Gardener - has been committing his atrocities for 30 years without getting caught. And there is a fire breakout and police arrival at the same time when the girls escape. Maya/Inara who is sort of the leader behind the managing of the girls and running things with the Gardener has known of the place before being kidnapped because her friend was an escaped victim from the very same place in the past? Far too many coincidences to overlook.  So the story is this. A psychopathic man calling himself the Gardener kidnaps young girls between ages 16 to 21 and locks them up in his harem/garde...

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 Maidens By Alex Michaelides Genre : Suspense, Thriller, Greece, Mythology, Horror, detective, whod-unit, female-oriented, 2021-read Rating : 4.5/5 👌👌 Woo Hoo! I just finished this book and I feel like I have been taken for quite a ride by the author. He gave my taut imagination a spin making me guess and second guess at a game I eventually lost. He threw me - a hooked reader at that point -  off into wrong directions about who might be the murderer and right enough, I took the bait each time. So as the end was nearing, there were multiple suspects and with a pounding heart, I kept reading ignoring sleep and late hour of the day. But I felt that the end fell a bit flat for me - after all the expectation, it was like an anti-climax.😕 Something that could have been a little different and improvised upon. 🙄🤔 But still, this is one hell of a book!! I thought this engaged me more than his first book The Silent Patient which was a rage and a massive success. When this b...

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? By Henry Farrell Genre : Thriller, horror, psychological fiction,classics, best-twists, good prose, 2021-read, macabre Rating : 5/5 🎈🎈 What a twist! Didn't see that one coming! It's true what they say - all that glitters is not gold. What looks beautiful on the outside need not be so on the inside. "Beautiful people could also be very bad". This is a story of jealousy,hatred, selfishness, vengeance and the repercussions that one has to face when they can't keep these emotions in check. It's a classic story from the 1960s which got made into a successful movie with the same name starring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis who were arch rivals. It also was the book that kind of revived the slow going career of Henry Farrell and brought him back into the game with full force. 💃 Baby Jane Hudson was a star. She was hailed the most talented and famous child star by everyone. Mostly her father and family who felt they owed all the...

 Dark Matter  by Blake Crouch  Genres : Science Fiction, Thriller, Parallel universes, suspense, gruesome, romance, alternative worlds, 2021-read, thought-provoking,good-twist Rating : 5/5 ✌👍 Fun, super fun, exhilarating, mind bending/head spinning and absolutely unpredictable!!!  I am feeling a little shaky as I write this - with a mixture of  excitement and fear at what I just concluded reading. This is absolutely one of the most imaginative, mind blowing sci-fi stories of all time - no doubt!  What Blake Crouch conceived in his head and put onto the paper for us to read is like nothing I had tasted  before.🙏😋 Its awesome and rich enough to tingle all my nerve centers of thought in brain. 💗  We all know of the three dimensional world we live in, the three dimensions x,y,z and also of a fourth called 'time' - which is not that hard to grasp. But physicists and proponents of Quantum mechanics suggest that there exists a fifth dimension - the s...

11/22/63  By Stephen King (2011)  Genre : Historical fiction,thriller, science fiction,time travel, horror, suspense,alternate reality,romance , 2021-read,big book, dystopian Rating 5/5 😍🥳 Stephen King - everyone knows is a genius with words. He has written a ton of books of which I had read a handful and liked them very much - but I say with conviction that this book is the best of all I had read. It's a blend of all elements that make up fiction. It's bone chilling,tenseful,fastastic, unputdownable - but  also  prompt to give nightmares to those that can't quite put it out of their mind. But still, I think Stephen King managed to infuse subtle - but certain - humor into this macabre and desolate story about a hanging-in-the-distance  bleak, dystopian future. 🤗 Coming to the story, Al Templeton is a cook at a diner and he finds this portal/"rabbit hole" that could transport him to a different time in the past. Precisely to a specific date and time in the yea...

Sooley  By John Grisham    Rating 5/5 No wonder its a New York Times best seller - I think John Grisham consistently features year after year in the lists of best sellers nationally.  This is one gem of a book! Profoundly moving and touching on a very deep level. I have read a few - popular - previous works of John Grisham but didn't know he could handle  emotional stuff with such flair and without overdoing it. Reading it made me appreciate life more and learn that while some use their talents to reap benefits for themselves - others become beacons of help to larger sections of humanity. Sooley falls into the second group.  Sooley is a good kid. He is truly a role model material. He is seventeen years of age and is from Lotta, a small village in South Sudan. He is ever growing and is way over 6 foot 2 when chosen to play in basketball showcase tournaments in USA by scout Ecko Lam. South Sudan has always been ravaged by wars and pillaging by rebels who can'...

A Children's Bible  By Lydia Millet  A National Book Award finalist 2020  Genre: Sci-fi, Dystopian Future, Thriller,2021-read, Dark, children-fiction          Rating 3/5 A very average read. This story is a peek into a plausible and possibly realistic future for humanity where global warming and other factors lead to a complete collapse of environmental balance/functioning. It signals an end to the human race/existing species while hoping for the rise of newer populations that could survive the conditions.  A bunch of kids and their parents move to a summer resort for the vacation. The strained quality of relationship between parents and children is evident in the narrator's outright contempt and hatred  towards the parents - they blame the parents for not doing their "part"/"duty" which resulted in the current state of their world - meaning I believe chaos, climate change etc. The parents on their turn are shown to be self indulgent, he...