Reading on a Rainy Day

Published : 2015   ||    Format : ebook   ||    Location : A different Earth One line summary : When the world is ending, what is more important - survival or revenge? If you are Essun, your answer may be revenge, but in her search for it, she has to figure out how to survive as well. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind. Thoughts : I must have had this book on my Kindle ever since it was released. There was a lot of hype then and although I always enjoy epic fantasy series, I don’t read them often enough due to having to wait for the next book (in the case of ongoing series) or not being sure if the series is for me (even though I know I don't need to read the rest of the series, it still feels like a commitment). This quarter, one of my online book clubs is reading N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy . I decided it was finally time to read the books.  First of all, trigger warnings - there is a lot ...

Over the past couple of months, I've read a few books that I didn't get a chance to review yet. These were all enjoyable in different ways and are recommended reads. A Will to Kill by R. V. Raman I've been looking for an Indian mystery for a while now. So when I came across A Will to Kill in Netgalley set in one of my favorite places in India (also close to my home town), I just had to request it. In so many ways, this is a typical Agatha Christie type mystery - there's a death (in an isolated mansion, no less) and the investigator/detective tries to solve the mystery. Harith Athreya is visiting the owner of the mansion, Bhaskar Fernandez, where a small gathering has been planned for the owner's relatives and friends. Bhaskar has written two wills - and how he dies will determine which will goes into effect. That night, there is a murder and Athreya spends the next few days trying to find the culprit. I generally enjoy the Agatha Christie class of murder mysteries....

On first glance, this is a series that only some would consider to be their cup of tea. After all, it involves a complex inter-galactic network of living beings, much like Star Wars , with some characters appearing human while many are not. It is a still-running series, like The Walking Dead and superhero comics, so it requires a different kind of reading - one with lots of waiting, recollecting, and rereading. This is also a series that may need the right mindset before you start it, because sometimes you want to read about humans in a real world, and fantasy just wouldn't cut it. This is where Saga breaks a lot of conventions. Yes, it involves very fanciful-looking characters. Yes, it is sort of in the space-operatic genre, though it actually is not (bear with me here). Yes, it is fantasy too, which is a genre you either read or don't. But, it is also none of those things. It is not about fanciful characters or space opera or fantasy. It is very much about this world th...

She asks, "Are you okay?" Eleanor nods slowly, and Agnes turns to the backseat to ask Esmeralda the same question, but the words catch in her throat, because she sees the U-Haul van, and there's not even time to say, "No," not even time for Esmeralda to turn and see it coming; there is only time for Agnes to want to do those things, and then it happens, and it cannot be undone. Identical twins, Eleanor and Esmeralda Witt, don't really have the happiest upbringing thanks to their depressed mother but when Esmeralda dies in an accident, their family further unravels with no scope for recovery. Eight years later, Eleanor's parents are divorced, her mom drinks herself to oblivion every day and night, while Eleanor grows up overnight. One day, when Eleanor tries to leave the school cafeteria, she finds herself transported to a strange world - a cornfield where she comes across a younger version of herself playing with a friend. Thus begins a strange ph...

Absolutely. Justice served with a side of pineapple. That's what I'm here for. If you told me that I could potentially love a book that featured vampires, werewolves, and other paranormal characters, I would have smiled politely and promptly forgotten the book you were trying to recommend. (I do love Bram Stoker's Dracula though - one of the most original books I've ever read.) If I had spent any amount of time on Sunbolt's Goodreads page and saw that it was categorized under Paranormal Fantasy, I would probably not have given it even a few pages. But Jenny's review couple of months ago and my general lack of awareness regarding what the book was about worked in Sunbolt 's favor. And boy, am I glad I read it! Before you turn away, let me emphasize that although I did mention vampires and werewolves in the above paragraph,  Sunbolt  is less about them than it is about this magical world where many of these kinds of charactes co-exist. (Plus, no one...

If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. After hearing so much about this trilogy , I had to get to it at some point. In general, I enjoy books about magic - I just don't read enough of them. The Magicians , the first book in this trilogy, starts off with Quentin revealing his immense obsession with the Fillory books, a fantasy series written by an author long dead. To say that he was obsessed is an understatement. Quentin fervently wished that the Fillory world was real, that he was living in it and not in the real world, which to him is very boring to him. He also mentions this through much of the book that you won't be forgetting that for the rest of your life. Luckily for him, he gets an invite to attend a secret school, Brakebills Academy, in upstate New York, where all the invited students have to pass a series of tests before they can snag an admission to attend classes there. This school is secret because...

"I love chocolate cake for breakfast," Peggy stalls, "it sets me up for the day. A little decadence is good for the soul." The House at the End of Hope Street got on my radar only recently, when Wendy mentioned the book as one of her top favorites . The premise of the book sounded fabulous and my library had a copy as well. I started reading this book shortly before leaving for my Canada trip and what I thought would be a fast read ended up taking about 2-3 weeks total. Not because the book was hard to read or boring. On the contrary, it was quite entertaining, but it was not a book I could race through. Distraught from a tragic experience, Alba was walking through her hometown when she comes across a house she had never seen before. The owner of the house, Peggy, invites her in but tells her that she can only stay for 99 days and has to turn her life around before then. Alba is glad for the offer - she didn't think she could face her family just yet....

Last weekend, I was browsing through my bookstore, when I came across a copy of Haruki Murakami's The Strange Library - all shrink-wrapped and looking like a book-lover's toy. Seriously, how do you resist a book like that? Even if I didn't like Murakami, I would probably walk out of the store with that book. I love books (and food) that are interactive. It feels almost four-dimensional to me. There's the mental pleasure of being lost in the book and there's the physical pleasure of just wrapping that treasure open and wading in with excitement. The front of the book has two flaps that snap together, very much like your typical cereal box. And then you flip the pages to read. As for the plot, The Strange Library was... well, strange. A boy goes to a library to borrow some books, instead he is sent to the mysterious basement where he had never set foot in. There he meets a strange man who have some twisted devilish motivation for running that place. The boy i...

It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. I had watched Life of Pi , the movie, early this year and remember liking it a lot. The visuals were fabulous, the tiger majestic and the story compelling. The ending was twisty enough for me to question everything I saw on the movie until then. Piscine Molitar Patel, aka Pi, prefaces his story by saying that it will make his interviewer believe in God. I can't say that his story had any such impact on me, since I knew this was fiction, but were his story true, then it would be one of the most spirited stories of human courage I would have ever come across. Pi's family in Pondicherry was sailing to Canada soon, along with some of the animals from the zoo that Pi's father managed. The ship however sinks one night when Pi was out on the deck, and that more than anything else, save...

The ease. Us, the children … I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery. Dana had just moved to a new apartment with her husband, Kevin, and was helping him set up his bookshelf, when she started feeling very dizzy. The sensation was immediate and unexpected, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a strange place. The apartment and the books had vanished; Kevin was also nowhere near her. Instead she found herself at a riverside, staring at someone struggling in the river. Keeping her worries and questions aside, she jumped into the river and carried the nearly drowning boy to the shore. A woman came to her, wailing that her son was dead. Dana simply kept her cool, yelled at the woman to be quiet, gave the boy CPR and announced to the mother that the boy will live. The woman's husband arrived on the scene with a gun pointed at Dana's face. Terrified for her life, Dana felt the same dizziness overwhelm her and within seconds, she had ...

Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world. When he was a young child, our nameless narrator's family was pretty well-off and had a big house that he lived in with his parents and sister. But when they hit against slightly hard times, the boy had to give up his bedroom with its perfect-sized washbasin, as tall as him, so that boarders could stay there. One such boarder was an opal miner, who fatally hits the boy's cat on the day he arrives and commits suicide the next day. This death sets in motion a very strange sequence of events - his neighbors suddenly seem to receive a lot of money, leading to a lot of ill-will, a strange family at the end of the lane seems to know everything there is to know about eve...

Then the thing happened, the Unthinkable Thing. Rashid went out on to the stage in front of that vast jungle of a crowd, and Haroun watched from the wings - and the poor storyteller opened his mouth, and the crowd squealed in excitement - and now Rashid Khalifa, standing there with his mouth hanging open, found that it was as empty as his heart. Set somewhere in the land of Aladdin and Sinbad, Haroun lives in a city so sad that it had forgotten its own name. The people had forgotten how to laugh or smile, and even the fish that lived in the nearby sea were called glumfish. In this land of the sad, Haroun's father, Rashid, was the cheerful storyteller, whose never-ending stream of tales made people either very happy or very jealous. One day, Rashid's wife runs away with the neighbor, leaving Rashid heart-broken and incapable of making new stories, and Haroun unable to concentrate on anything for longer than eleven minutes. On the eve of a possible career- and life-destro...

"Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in, Mr. Nakata. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still." Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore primarily follows fifteen-year old solitary Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home because he can no longer stand the presence of his malevolent father. His father had prophesied that Kafka would fulfill the Oedipal curse - that he would murder his father, and sleep with his mother and sister. His mother had run away with his sister when he was four, so he had no memory of how they looked. To escape the curse, he leaves Tokyo and travels down to Takamatsu, where he whiles away his time at a private library and the local gym. In alter...

In April, I started squeezing in some short reads or books worthy of being branded guilt-pleasure by the likes of me who see mainly huge or deep tomes on my nightstand every day. I often feel a craving for something light, but I rarely give in to it because, I would already have about 10+ books on my to-read-next list. I quite enjoyed this branching out, besides it did put me sooner on track for the next big book! But since they are mostly light reads, I figured a quick short review would suffice. Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata   ( WOW! ): I first heard of this book on Candace's Beth Fish Reads . I already loved the sound of this book when I saw it a few days later at my library. And I think it's highly unfair of me to write a mini review for this one, since I absolutely LOVED this book. The main character, Katie, is probably one of my favorites among young bookish characters. Her innocence is so characteristic of children her age, which essentially means that for grownu...

When I started typing this post, I had to squeal out loud and couldn't stop grinning. After six months, I'm catching up with my Revisiting Hogwarts posts. *squeeeeee* Six months may not be a long time but it is to me because I have been blogging for less than 10 months only. So, it was also an amusing trip to those initial months and seeing if my style of writing really changed or if it is the same. (Spoiler alert: the Revisting Hogwarts feature assumes that you have at least 10 OWLs and 5 NEWTs.) "We start by recruiting members," said Hermione happily. "I thought two Sickles to join - that buys a badge - and the proceeds can fund our leaflet campaign. You’re treasurer, Ron - I’ve got you a collecting tin upstairs - and Harry, you’re secretary, so you might want to write down everything I’m saying now, as a record of our first meeting." There was a pause in which Hermione beamed at the pair of them, and Harry sat, torn between exasperation at H...

Title : The Arrival Author : Shaun Tan First Published : 2007 Publisher : Arthur A. Levine Books Source : Library | Sheila's review was what compelled me to pick this book right away 128 pages In a nutshell A man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship to cross the ocean. He's embarking on the most painful yet important journey of his life- he's leaving home to build a better future for his family. Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant's experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can't communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character's isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy. What more can I say about this book that has been raved about a lot already? I think... When I first decided to read this, I wasn't sure exactly how I will find it. In spit...

Over the past fortnight, I re-read the third book of the Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban . For the first time, as I read these books, I pause to think. I've been reading with breaks in between and also writing up posts on my re-read experience, while also marking out my favorite quotes from the books. (Previously, I just raced through the pages. It's hard to slow down.) It's been a thrilling ride! The third book has always seemed to me the "coming-of-age" book. The series is beginning to take shape slowly. Some of the principal characters of the rest of the series (Lupin, Sirius, Wormtail, Buckbeak, Trelawney, Dementors) make their first appearances here. The relationships between the characters are defined strongly. In addition, we are introduced to the Knight Bus, Divination class, Hogsmeade and the Marauder's Map. Moreover, this book had some of the best magical vignettes ever. I enjoyed the DADA class the best...