Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 The Miniaturist  (The Miniaturist #1) By Jesse Burton  Published Year : 2014 (by Picador) Page count: 425 Pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Suspense, Supernatural, Religion, Church, Court Room Drama, 2024-read.  Rating : 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Verdict : I liked and enjoyed reading this. It is quite suspenseful and gloomy at times. The world building is immaculate. Characters are very well developed. The writing felt a bit unpracticed and amateurish.  Nella is eighteen years old. She just got married and moves to her husband's house in Amsterdam,Netherlands from Assendelft,Netherlands. He lives with his sister, Marin who is a spinster and a very secretive character. What Marin professes to the world and what she practices are quite different/opposite. Like the multiple layers of cloth she wears, truth with her comes in different shades and layers. The household has two servants - Cornelia, who was taken in as an orphan and Otto, who was bought as a servant. The...

 The Heretic Queen  By Michelle Moran  Published year: 2008 Page count : 368 pages  Medium used : Kindle Paperwhite  Genre : Speculative Fiction, Historical fiction, Ramses 2, Nefertari.  Rating : 2/5 First off, I didn't understand why this book is named so. Who is the main character? Nefertiti or Nefertari? And what's the point of naming it heretic queen if the author is showing that in reality Nefertiti wasn't heretic?   This book is more speculative fiction than historical. Everything I have learnt and read about the Ramses II and Nefertari from other books is tossed to the wind. Michelle Moran took lot of liberties, at lots of places and this is a hopeless turn off for me. She tried to cram lot of events together without offering any explanations. She turned good people bad and marred their images in my mind. I agree that most historical fiction books have speculation and conjecture at the core of the narrative but this book just deviates from...

 The Way of Kings  [Stormlight Archive #1] By Brandon Sanderson  Published Year: 2010 Page count: 1252 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Fantasy, Epic, High Fantasy, Cosmere Universe, Adventure, Fiction, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5  First off, this is such a big book. It took me a while to finish. But at the end of it, felt totally worth the time and effort.  It is hard to pick one favorite character in this one. This is my first book by the author and it totally blew me away. I have come to care so much for the characters and their desires that I was held in a rock solid grip by the turn of all events.  At the base, the story is telling about a great darkness/desolation/dark times coming and capturing the efforts of a selected bunch of heroes. One of them is given visions of all the ancient history the human kind has gone through. An other might be a reincarnation of a great warrior from the past. Another is trying to undi what many are wo...

 Dune Messiah  [Dune Series #2] By Frank Herbert  Published Year: 1969 Page count: 236 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Science Fiction, Fantasy, Maud Dib, Prescience, 2024-read.  Rating : 3/5  I had difficulty in recognizing some of the characters that are introduced in this and referring to Wikipedia cleared my doubts. I think the gap between my reading of first part and this one has been huge and the cause for this conundrum. Nevertheless, I seek to remove this issue with the next book in the series by starting off right away on that! The world building is super and sucked me in. But I had some trouble imagining a planet that is mostly desert and also has modern developments erected in it. The prose is flawless but the flow of Herbert's thoughts are difficult to catch sometimes.  Paul Atriedes has been ruling for a long time and during this period, the universe is brought, by force and mass killing, under his "jihad" rule. Yet, for the at...

 The Dark Tower Series #1  The Gunslinger  By Stephen King  Published Year: 1982 Page count : 234 pages  Medium Used : Paperback  Genre : Adventure, Bibilical, Fiction, Suspense, 2024-read,PostApocalypticFuture. Rating : 3.5/5  I think this is my first book with Stephen King that is less than 300 pages. I felt some magic of King is missing in this book, which left me with more questions than the answers it provided towards the end. First off, the man in black and thr gunslinger .. who are these two characters? Are they even human? The Man in black - in whose chase the Gunslinger goes - says he is immortal and made so by the man in the dark tower.. but what about the gunslinger ? How did the gunslinger get on his trail? What is this dark tower and how does one get to it?  The book would be mind blowing,I feel, if all the aspects of it are known. But since a lot of it is kept under wraps  - perhaps to be disclosed in later parts - this one feel...

 Study for Obedience  By Sarah Bernstein  #Shortlisted for Booker Prize 2023 Published Year: 2023  Page count : 105 pages Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Psychological Fiction, Suspense,Good Prose, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5  Eerie. Ominous. The main character comes off as a self proclaimed masochist. She tells that all her life, since her childhood, she has tried to please people and be obedient to all their wishes and psychic desires. It felt,from her story, like she could perceive the desires of their souls through some psychic ability. But always she ended up being abused and abandoned like a stranger, one who cannot mingle with them and be accepted. She subjugates her opinions and thoughts for the benefit of others as we see but she is still frowned at - i haven't understood why this must be so. It's strange and uncanny.  The prose is good but the sentences in some places are so long, I couldn't follow what she was trying to convey. I had to re...

 Maestro (2023) : Movie Review  Released Year: 2023 Written and Directed by: Bradley Cooper  Cast : Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan.  Genre : Musical, Biographical, BasedOnRealStory, 2024-watched.  Rating : 8/10  Its a beautiful movie. Its a beautifully made movie. Bradley Cooper seems to have really altered himself and put himself in the shoes of Leonard Bernstein, the highly successful and world famous music composer. His hardwork and devotion to the role shows. It just shines through and lights every frame he is on. His make up is also really good  - reflecting his different ages when young vs old.  I also like Carey Mulligan's acting. Her role shows that deep and enduring love will last no matter how many temptations come in the way. I thought her performance was better as an older woman. This is their story  - Leonard Bernstein and his wife - and it shows the value of endurance, kindness and hanging in there for time to heal all wounds!...