Nagasravika's Book Reviews Blog

 A Slow Fire Burning  By Paula Hawkins  Published year: 2021  Published: Penguin Books  Page count : 358 pages  Medium : Paperback  Genre : Mystery,Suspense, Thriller, Drama, Fiction, 2023-read.  Rating : 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐  Paula Hawkins makes for a very good story teller. The writing and prose are very engaging and gripping throughout. At the outset, this is a murder investigation but also has lot of other plot lines and drama going on. A young man is found murdered in his boat house and five characters acquainted with him are intricately drawn into the investigation. They have their grievances with each other. Some are trying to throw a protective rope to another, some are trying to falsely frame another, some are just slinking away from it all because they can't deal with it. But on the whole, there is no escape from their haunted thoughts.  I felt major disappointment at how easily this crime got solved. I mean after leafing through 300 pages,...

 Anansi Boys (American Gods #2)  By Neil Gaiman  Published year : 2005  Page count : 451 pages  Medium used : Paperback  Genre : Fantasy, Mythology, Fiction, Spiders, Gods.  Rating : 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Spider God,called Anansi,steals the stories and songs from another god Tiger thousands of years ago through mischief and trickery. He tricks the other animals too and almost all of them harbor ego bruises as a result. Anansi has two children - Fat Charlie and Spider. They somehow get entangled in the wrong bargain with a bird and tiger who want vengeance from Anansi. Anansi is dead and he can do but little to help his kids. With little help from other minor gods and figuring things out as they wade through the web of adventure and trickery, the two brothers defeat evil forces, lock them up behind inescapable bars and make a happy ending for themselves.  Loved the world of these minor animal Gods. The concept is novel and the charisma projected by Anansi and...

  Only Murders In The Building  Season 1 Review  #tvseries #comedy #mystery #drama #goodcasting Rating 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Loved the actors and the amazing comedy timing and murder mystery solving skillset they bring online to the show. It is really hard to pick one among the three for the best .. but I think I will go with Martin Short (playing the role of Oliver Putnam) .. he is just awesome! Thr show is also very clean .. I mean it's like watching a show from a retro time where there was very less usage of expletives or desecration of the idea of God. On the downside , felt there is a little haphazardness to the placement of different elements in the episodes. Think the second season will be a improvement .. nah. I strongly hope that would be the case !  😃 😃 😃  Three novice, mystery podcast lovers from an apartment building complex come together and join forces to solve a murder case when an young man in the apartment dies and it is closed off prematurely a...

 Everything, Everything  By Nicola Yoon  Published : 2015 Page Count: 300 pages  Medium : Paperback  Genre : Drama, Young Adult, Romance, Fiction.  Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Not my usual go-to genre but I enjoyed this book very much. The surprise twist that came towards the climax, I was able to figure out way earlier .. but that did nothing to my surprise and thrill when it is officially unraveled in the plot. :)  I loved all the illustrations and the little notes, hand drawn pictures scattered throughout the book. Highly recommend to all romance and youth literature out there. The story is very neat and the characters are too pure. A teenager Madeline Whittier has never left the safety and secure confines of her house in all her eighteen years of life because she is suffering from a rare condition of SCID which could spell death anytime due to any unknown cause if she is unsheltered and unprotected. Her mother takes diligent and meticulous care of her. She ...

 My Sister's Keeper By Jodi Picoult  Published year : 2004  Page count : 412 Medium used : Paperback   Genre : Court Room Drama, Family Issues, Fiction, 2023-read. Rating : 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The twist at the end is jarring. I was pretty unmoved and really reading with  some detachment, counting the time it is taking me to finish this novel, because the course of action to be taken is so obvious to me but everyone in the story is just clueless and acting in order to complicate matters. But the ending is a gut punch and I didn't see it coming! It shows the hand of God playing in our lives everyday.  Till the last few pages, the author has us believe that the parents - especially the mother - are callous enough to just focus on one of their three children and literally throw the other two into winds of non existence. They were so concerned with the health and well being of their second daughter Kate that they will go to any distance, put their other daughter Anna ...

 The Vegetarian  By Han Kang (South Korea) Published Year: 2007 Page Count: 166 pages  Medium used : Kindle PW  Genre : Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Suspense, Trees, Child Abuse, Sexism, 2023-read. Man Booker International Prize Winner  Rating : 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The narration/text-prose flows right out of the page into reader's mind - making this an easy to imagine and memorize most of the scenes novel. While the text is easy, the underlying implications and messages are a bit harder to grasp. What the narrator, through multiple characters associated with the protagonist,is trying to convey about her internal struggle or the absolute lack of it - is a brilliant mind bender. Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Totally a worthy read!!  Yeong-hye is a married woman, who due to a series of horrid dreams, makes a decision to stop eating meat. She stops buying it,cooking it and eating it. She loses lot of weight and becomes a bundle of bones encased by a thin layer of transl...

 Malibu Rising  By Taylor Jenkins Reid  Year Published: 2021 Page Count: 369 pages Medium used : Paperback  Genre : Contemporary Fiction, Siblings, 2023-read. Rating : 5/5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ With Miss Reid's books, I find it hard to go down from the 5 pointer rating I usually give to awesome, great books. Her writing is so picturesque and cinematic. The lure of her characters and their strength in vulnerability is such a drawing force that even the most weakest seem adorable. This book is very heart warming and bristling with hope and optimism - even for those little kids that are abandoned and left alone by their parents who either are too selfish or incapable of taking care of them.  This story details the journey of four siblings who make it big in the world despite facing many challenges early on. They have the privilege of great parentage and loving mother, but yet,  they are forced to make it on their own. Like in most cases, fate smiles on them in the form of work...

 The Woman in Me  By Britney Spears  Published Year : 2023 October  Page Count: 161 pages Medium Used : Kindle PW Genre : Contemporary, Memoir, Mental Illness, Conservatorship, 2023-read.  Rating : 5/5🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Wow. What a book! Britney Spears has very deftly channeled her inner emotional voice into words and touched the very core of my soul with her narrative. Her life has been - for a lack of better word - wasted and misappropriated.  She has remained a naive, gullible and vulnerable child all through - but also a bit over the top paranoid and parochial. She just looked at things that were happening to her from her point of view and not how her actions might have warranted those measures to be taken. She just lacked the perspective. She was a perfect abuse material - wanting to please everyone, wanting to be perfect all the time, trying to shut out the overwhelming negative media coverage by hiding in her mansion etc. She was very passive and didn't rais...

 The Secret Scripture  By Sébastien Barry Year Published: 2008 Page count : 312  Medium used : Paperback  Genre : Suspense, Fiction, Mental Health, WW2. Rating : 3.5/5 ⭐⭐⭐🖖 I am confounded by this book. What the hell is going on. What the heck is the truth and what ain't? There are two versions to an old woman's past - one is too fantastic to believe and the other too contradictory to her memories that it must be a convenient and false fabrication.  A young girl,Roseanne,is made to suffer for the mistakes of her parents - a father whom she adored but unknown to herself, is a nightmare policeman for his own countrymen, her eerie,silent and withdrawn mother who is unquestionably committed to a mental asylum like the girl herself would later be. Roseanne is married to a man whom she deeply loves, Tom McNealty, who later annuls their marriage so that he could marry again on the pretext that she is a "nymphomaniac". She has no support, she has no proof. She has lite...

 Throne of Glass  By Sarah J Mass  Published year : 2012  Page count : 406  Medium used : Paperback  Genre : Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Multiverse, Magic, Mystery,Thriller. Rating : 5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A wonderful and eye opening read. Makes us look around, question and ponder if what meets the eye is what truly is! If what we see and perceive is not an illusion behind which there exists, a scary reality waiting to pounce upon and take over! What if there are portals to other worlds or universes that can be controlled and manipulated by entities - not entirely good or bad - which can summon dangerous beings into ours and we need a shield of protection against defeat. Very thoughtful and ingenious work by Miss Sarah J Maas. Highly recommend to all scifi lovers and magic lovers out there!  Celaena Sardothien is the best assassin in all the empire of Eurilea. She is condemned to suffer the fate of a slave in the salt mines of Endovier. She is rescued b...