Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

The Housemaid  (The Housemaid #1) By Freida McFadden  Published Year: 2022 Page Count : 287 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Mystery, Murder, Suspense, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Fiction, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5  God!! What a book! What a story! I got up this morning and my first thoughts are to recapture where I left off the story last night! I got addicted to the two women characters - Millie and Nina. What appears on the surface is definitely not what lies beneath. This story proves it. Do we really know the people, who hold infinite grace and charm, enough to trust them? This story makes us question our convictions twice! If something feels too good to be true and real, probably it isn't! The most normal looking families could be the most dysfunctional. An unsuspecting and naive newcomer might have the surprise of their life when they learn the truth! I sincerely hope that this book doesn't put thoughts into already some sick, perverted mi...

 Exhalation: Short Stories  By Ted Chiang  Published Year : 2019 (Alfred A. Knopf)  Page Count: 317 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Science Fiction, Multiverse, Technology, Time Travel, Aliens, Robots, Humanity, Theology, 2024-read.  Rating :  5/5  These stories will remain with the reader long after the book is put aside. I feel, as humanity makes more strides in the direction of developing AI and realizing their dreams of contact with Aliens or making time/multiverse traveler feasible, they become less 'human'. That they embrace the culture and outlook of people who wouldn't attribute much to a God or divine plan or work on cultivating 'generosity'. But Ted Chiang has shown precisely thats where I could be wrong in my visions/fears for the future. He has,through this set of brilliant,articulate and lurid story collection, tried to cross 'theology' and 'humanism' with hard core 'science' using fiction as a vehicle.   All the...

Murder in the Family  By Cara Hunter  Published year: 2023 Page Count: 475 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Murder Mystery, Suspense, Screenplay, Book Review, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I so thoroughly enjoyed it. This is my first book with Cara Hunter but it has quickly propelled her into the list of my must-check-out authors. This seems to be the first of a kind book in creating an atmosphere of the reader brainstorming with the detective/expert panel which is resolving the case. The unraveling happens like a screenplay .. fully packed with witness interviews, montages of images and it sort of branches off into different angles before striking the target. And the funny part is that the target hit at the end might not be legit. The author seemed to have hinted at a sequel or there being a different explanation to the mystery. Anyways, I am eager to know and read what it would be. The reading is a very engaging and refreshing experience.  A man, 2...

 The Space Between Worlds  (The Space Between Worlds #1) By Micaiah Johnson  Published Year: 2020 Page Count: 305 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Science Fiction, Fantasy, SFF, Adventure, Multiverse, Technology and Space, 2024-read.  Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Such beautiful book. The writing is terrific. The prose is so good and the world building is next level! I read a digital edition of this book and have large swathes of paragraphs highlighted .. thats how good the writing felt! It expertly weaves the worlds of multiverse, space - time travel and fantasy into a beautiful science fiction, fantasy story. The plot is complex but is also laid out in a fashion that makes everything clear. I find that not everyone has the ability to tackle the confusion and conundrums that multiverse - with multiple selves of a person,different times and relationships -  creates. Michaiah has navigated this tough space by limiting the number of focused worlds to two and ...

 Clockwork Angel  (Infernal Devices #1) By Cassandra Clare  Published Year : 2010  Page Count: 485 pages  Medium Used : Paperback  Genre : Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Fiction, Vampires, 2024-read, Adventure.  Rating : 3.5/5 ⭐⭐⭐💫 I think when I saw the huge number of ratings and the average rating for this book on GoodReads, I built high expectations for this book. Having just finished, I don't understand what the gaga is all about.  The biggest achievement for the author in this is her ability to pull together vampires, warlocks, demons,angels and modern day Robots all into one plot. The spin off that these Downworld creatures being offspring of demons - either born of them or infested by them - is too fantastic. She has taken some liberties with the logic but made the plot stick to her rationality.  I thought the prose is good. The twist that came in, is a breath knocker. The characters have depth and are well drawn. The pacing and the placement ...

 Dark Season 2  (Watched on Netflix) Rating : 7/10 #timetravel #multiverse #tvseries #review  Most of the players can be seen hauling around suitcases carrying time machine equipment in this season. They have all become aware of the time travel and the mind numbing relationships that are fostered as a result. There is an apocalypse coming up that wipes away humanity and two sides are known to exist - Adam's which wants to bring time to an end and usher into a new world, Claudia's side that wants to save the world as it is. I felt the story has become more scientific in nature with lesser scope to drama as seen in season 1. Ulrich got very little screen time. Jonas Kahnewald emerges to be the main character that plays both good and bad sides. He will be seen shuttling between the 50s, 80s, current time and the 2020 when the apocalypse occurs. There are also some mechanisms devised by the scientific community to travel between times not separated by 33 years. A set date can...

 A Journey Through Time  (Eine Reise durch die Zeit) By H.G.Tannhaus  Published Year:  Page Count: 270 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Multiverse, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Watches, 2024-read.  Rating : 4/5  A very interesting book. This is the book that is carried around and much shown in the Netflix Series : Dark. The author Tannhaus names one of the main characters after his name. This book deals in time travel and shows the nonlinearity of time and how altering a time line could result in alternative worlds/dimensions. The translation from German to English is decent..although at places, the translator got the grammer and gender pronouns wrong. This kind of confused me a bit and I had to re-read few sentences to understand the meaning.  For someone who is new to the concept of time travel and multiverse, this narrative could become quite incomprehensible. I didn't quite follow why the heroic feats need the main character, Charl...