Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

The Satanic Verses  By Salman Rushdie  Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize 1988 Rating 4.5/5🙃😇 Genres : Fantasy,Fiction,Magical Realism, Indian Author. What a crazy, wild story this has turned out to be!!  Reading some sections of the book, I was enthralled and speechless at how fantastic it was! Rushdie has combined many folklore and mystical beliefs held by Indians into making some highly creative stories within the main story.  There are also parts which left me dumbfounded for his overt disrespect and disregard for the teachings of not just Muslims but other religions as well. I think I was over 90 percent into the book and was feeling wonderful and joyous at the humorously witty, magical narrative when he makes fun of a hindu God, Lord Shiva. Being a devout Hindu, I felt outraged. I fully comprehended and understood why this book got so much negative reception upon release in 1988. It was banned by many countries and Iran most of all, issued a fa...

Kafka on the Shore  By Haruki Murakami  Rating 3/5  Genres: Metaphysical, magical realism, fiction, mysticism,2022-read Man! What the hell is this book? What is it about? Don't get me wrong. I am not giving this a lower rating because it's prose is bad/ unreadable or the story/plot is not good or any such thing..its purely because I didn't really get the crux of what the author is trying to tell. Its highly addictive but the story he is trying to narrate is lost on me. I want to find someone, anyone - who has read this book and totally understood every aspect of it. Like who can answer all the questions as to what the heck is going on..whats the meaning of a certain episode, the motivations and significanceof a certain act.. I also bet there won't be any two people who read this book and take away the same thing home..it seems to strike a different chord for each reading and for every person.. The three main characters are Kafka Tamura, Sabato Nakata and Mis...

 The House of the Spirits By Isabel Allende  Rating 5/5  Genres : Magical Realism,  Drama, Romance, Politics, Fantasy  In some 400 odd pages, the author covers the life history and important events of three generations of the Trueba and Del Valle families. The plot is just awesome and the prose style is magical and very mesmerizing. I just got sucked into the surreal and eccentric world of Clara Esteban who is a dreamy character conversing with spirits and with her head lost in the clouds and wild imagination.  Esteban Trueba is a practical young man who falls head over heels in love with an angelic looking woman Rosa del valle. But before they could get married, Rosa dies in a tragic accident. This breaks Esteban's heart  and he devotes himself completely to the task of repairing his land and setting it up into a successful business center. To quench his sexual appetites, he occasionally turns into a monster ravaging the worker and peasant...

The Lost Apothecary  By Sarah Penner  Rating: a solid 5/5 Genres: Historical fiction, 18th century England, magical realism, awesome read, 2021-read, reviewed  My God! What an amazing book. I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I started on this one but I just couldn't put it down.  I usually read multiple books together but after I picked this one - I could focus only on this till I finished it! Its just very gripping!  This is a story of uncovering some mystical events that happened during the late 18th century in England with a fictitious female apothecary, Nella. She inherited and learnt her trade from her late mother who wanted her shop to be a rescue from women's maladies. When Nella is young, she is betrayed by a man and later when chance presents, she dispenses her medicine in heavy dose leading to his death. This starts her journey in which not only helping and healing the physical ailments of women, she also becomes the dispenser of poiso...

 The Return of the King  (#3 Lord of the Rings series) By J.R.R. Tolkien  Rating : 3.75/5  Genres : Fantasy,  fiction,  classics, 2021-read, magical realism, fairy tales, paranormal, supernatural, good vs evil This book marks the end to the saga started with the formation of the fellowship of ring 💍  in part-1 of the series. Its a culmination to all things - dark and light. In a tale of fight between an overpowering and encroaching darkness against forces of good/light - a ring forged by the dark lord himself becomes key to victory. Since the story must end, it is naturally anticipated that the ring gets where it should - thrown into the pits of fire smoldering in Mount Doom of Mordor - the province where the dark lord and his servants/soldiers reside. And that's what happens. Frodo and Sam through many perils and tribulations take the ring to the precipice of Mount Doom but Frodo becomes unwilling and possessive of the ring at the last mo...

The Ocean at the end of the Lane by Neil Gaiman Tags: Mysticism, Magical realism, fiction, horror, fantasy, alternate world, dark fantasy, good prose, 2021-read Rating 5/5 😍 I loved this book so much! I am so grateful to authors like Neil Gaiman who don't seem to really inhabit - atleast in their heads - the same droll and mundane world that we do. They live in fantastic universes constituting magical creatures that are both good and evil. His prose is a flowing river that sweeps and consumes  it's reader away into the world it's creating. I liked to inhabit it so much and didn't want to come out that I read the book  "cover to cover" - not even stopping at the acknowledgements page as I usually do. 🙃🙃 The narrator of the story is a small boy of age seven whose life is forever changed when unusual things start happening in his neighborhood. People get money out of nowhere and there are also unexplained suicides,murders and other unpleasant events. A black m...