Category: Author

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Review: The Keeper of Lost Things

Rating: 4 Stars

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan is a sweet book. It is a story of love and loss, and of lost things and people. As I write this, I realize that the simpler the story, the more difficult it is to write a review. Not because the story has nothing in it, but because it is a simple tale with no hidden meanings or life lessons.

Anthony Peardew collects lost things, not for himself, but in the hope that one day he can restore them to their real owners. So he goes about collecting objects he finds in different places; things like hair bobbles, jigsaw puzzle pieces, bracelets, and a biscuit tin containing some dead person’s ashes. All these things are kept safe in his study, duly labelled with the time and place of their discovery. But Anthony is growing old, and he needs to leave his collection with someone who will love it the same way he does, and who will work towards restoring the objects to their rightful owners.

Laura is Anthony’s assistant and as lost as one of Anthony’s things. When she finds out what Anthony has left her, she is overwhelmed by the task in front of her. With the help of a handsome gardener, a girl with Down Syndrome, a mangy dog, and a crazy ghost, Laura sets out to restore the lost things to their rightful owners, finding her own way in the process, and putting an end to the restlessness caused by a particular chain of events forty years ago.

The book is heartwarming and funny. It keeps going back and forth in time, with two different narratives that merge into one over a time period of forty years. Both stories are equally poignant with some laugh-out-loud and some heartbreaking moments. It took me a few days to read because I was on a break and busy with other things, but once I really got into it, I finished it in one night.

Read this book if you want a change of pace and some light hearted, sweet fun. This was a four star read for me.

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Review: Anatomy of a Scandal

Rating: 2 Stars

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan is a book I’m not too sure about. I have mixed feelings about this acclaimed courtroom drama that has everyone singing its praises. I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads, because I can’t see anything extraordinary in it. We all know that when it comes to legal thrillers, John Grisham is the master of this genre. There was a time when I used to read every book that he wrote. Compared to those, this is a very tame affair.
Warning: This review contains spoilers, and is reflective of how I felt while reading this book. Not everyone is expected to agree with me.

When James Whitehouse, a junior minister and the Prime Minister’s closest friend, is accused of rape by a colleague, his wife Sophie, knows that he is innocent. He may have indulged in a short-lived affair with the woman, but he was no rapist. So, even with all the anger and hurt about the affair, she is willing to stand by her husband when he needs her the most.

QC Kate Woodcroft knows that Whitehouse is guilty, and she will do everything to prove it in front of the jury. She might come off as insensitive and unfeeling when it comes to grilling witnesses, but she knows how to sway a jury, and she feels very strongly about making everyone see the truth.

As the drama unfolds in the courtroom, I couldn’t help but feel bored. The book was about fifty pages too long. There are no real surprises. I was able to make the connection between Holly and Kate almost from the beginning. I knew what had happened to Holly quite early on too. And the secret being alluded to since the beginning of the book, the secret that Sophie knows, is not as explosive as the writer would have you believe.

In the middle of all this, is something that I really didn’t like. There was this general thread that men are incapable of being faithful, as evidenced by both Sophie’s and Kate’s fathers, as well as Sophie’s husband. The thing that had me feeling uncomfortable was the tone of acceptability in the book. There are many books about women who won’t leave their cheating husbands because of one reason or the other, but those books make you feel that what these women are doing is wrong.

This book felt like the author was implying that staying with a cheat is better than not having a man in your life. Sophie was like all women in such situations, not wanting to leave but not wanting to stay either. So, there isn’t anything blatant which I can pinpoint, but I got the general feeling that as Sophie justifies James’s actions, the reader is also supposed to do so.

And then there is the whole underlying lesson of not taking anyone to court for sexual assault or rape. Because that is what I learned from this book. If Kate had won the case that she was prosecuting at the beginning of the book, or if she had sounded optimistic about the outcome of any such cases, it could be said that she was up against a master and she lost. But she lost the previous case, and keeps dropping gems like, “Juries are keen to convict the predatory rapist….yet when it comes to relationship rape, they’d really rather not know, thank you very much.” She keeps telling us that she wins cases, unfortunately we don’t see much evidence of that. Even in the courtroom scenes, she never comes across as the brilliant QC she is supposed to be.

So after reading 350 plus pages, we come to know that nothing much has changed, except the lives of the women involved, while the man is free to go back to his life, both public and private. There is hardly any mention of what happened to poor Olivia after the trial; Sophie is a shallow woman all through the story, with the sole aim of landing and then keeping a husband in her life; and Kate is destined to be alone and unloved because she chose to have a demanding career.

For a fan of outstanding courtroom dramas like To Kill A Mockingbird, A Time to Kill and Pelican Brief, this book is very mediocre, with forgettable characters and a weak storyline.

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Review: Neverwhere

Rating: 4.5 Stars

There are some books that I would never even have thought of buying if it hadn’t been for Instagram. This applies to Fantasy more than any other genre. I don’t know why that is, because I have read some fantastic books belonging to the genre during the last year or so. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is one of them.

Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew, who moves to London from a small Scottish town. At first overwhelmed in such a big city, he soon settles into a routine and his awe with London recedes. Then he meets Jessica, who is way out of his league and turns him into a scatter brain, and Richard finds himself engaged to a woman much more ambitious and determined than him.

One evening, when everything seems to be going wrong for Richard, he stumbles upon a bleeding girl on the street, and stops to help her. If things were bad before, they become unbearably worse after his decision to defy Jessica and help a fellow human in need. For the injured girl is the Lady Door from Neverwhere.

Neverwhere is the shadowy reflection of London which exists underneath the London known to man. It is a world with monsters and assassins, angels and demons, and everything that has ever slipped through the cracks of the real world into this underground world.

Richard is drawn unwillingly into this world when it seems that he has stopped existing in London Above. Now he has to stick to Door and her shady companions if he ever wants to go back to his former life. But the Lady Door is on a suicide mission to avenge the death of her family at the hands of the most gruesome and terrifying murderers that history has ever seen, and it seems likely that Richard will just be one of the casualties of this crazy quest.

As grave and serious as the story sounds, it is anything but. It is irreverant and witty, and I fell in love with most of the characters. While Richard is funny as the clueless man being taken on an adventure against his will, and Door is admirable in her quest to find out the truth, it is the Marquis de Carabas who steals the show! And yes, the Marquis is named after the fictional Marquis from the very famous fairy tale, Puss in Boots.

Neverwhere is a roller coaster ride of adventure, as the motley crew consisting of Richard, Door, de Carabas and Hunter, the bodyguard, dashes across London Above and Neverwhere to find the answers needed to solve their problems. The characters they meet on the way are no less remarkable. Whether it is Anaesthesia, the rat girl, the Earl from Earl’s Court or the Angel Islington, every character is tongue-in-cheek and batshit crazy!

It would be remiss of me if I don’t mention the two terrifying murderers who are after Door from the beginning of the book. They are the main villians, and as villainous as a villian can ever hope to be. Maybe even more. They are Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. They are filthy and disgusting, with terrible table manners and no sense of humour. And they are hilarious! Even when they are dismembering and torturing living things, their banter doesn’t stop.

At the end of the edition I was reading, is a bonus story about my favourite, Marquis de Carabas. And it was a bonus, because I have not had my fill of this wonderful, mad world called Neverwhere, and would love to visit it again some time. A fun read to take your mind off real world problems.

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Review: Beartown

Rating: 4.5 Stars

After the last book mail I got, I had made a To Be Read pile and decided to read the books starting from the top. Beartown by Fredrik Backman was at the bottom of the pile because of its size. When I got disillusioned by a couple of books from the top, I was very tempted to cheat, take it out from the bottom and read it before the other books. After all, this book was written by the same author who wrote A Man Called Ove, and it was sure to be the pick-me-up I needed after reading some very mediocre books.

I’m glad I didn’t give in to my impulse. I’m glad I only read it after I had finished the other books in the pile. Infact, I should have waited a couple of more days before reading it. Because I still have a couple of reviews to write, and I sat down to write them too, but this book has completely, utterly left me unable to think of anything else! It has destroyed me. I have begun to question my sanity in not reading the reviews first and being blindsided by this heavyweight of a book.

Beartown is a very small town, becoming smaller by the day, with no prospects and no future, except for the junior ice hockey team. This team is what represents hope for the town, and this team is what the whole town revolves around. The book starts very slowly, as we get to know all the characters. And there are a lot of them, a whole town’s worth.

Normally, I give up trying to read a book long before I reach even a 100 pages, if nothing has happened. I don’t know what made me go on reading when all I wanted to do was put the book down and forget about it. I’m still not sure if I’m happy about sticking to it. I don’t like being so attached to fictional characters that I can feel their pain in my heart. It sucks.
Fair Warning: This book deals with rape and its aftermath.

The rape, when it happens, is shocking and violent, and sadly, echoes so many real-life incidents that you just stop reading for a while and need a moment to absorb it all. This, however, only leaves you feeling angry and wanting justice. What follows is what is really heart wrenching. For it reflects what every survivor has to go through. When a boy tells her to go to the police, the girl says it doesn’t matter because no one will believe her. Because the rapist is a hockey player. And Beartown is a hockey town.

Everything that happens in the book from that point on, is just how small towns, small hockey towns, small hockey towns that have nothing else to look forward to, react when their start player is accused of a crime by a girl. Nothing that happens is out of the ordinary. It is what would happen in any small town in the world where such a crime was committed. And this is what makes it so sad and heartbreaking.

What makes it all bearable is that when a family, already devastated by a tragedy, stands up against a whole town, there are still people who are brave enough to stand with them. Even if they are so few that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, there is someone who has enough guts to stand up and tell everyone how wrong they are, there is someone who believes the word of the girl over that of the hockey star, there is someone who eventually, at the expense of everything they hold dear, is willing to tell the truth. This, after all, is also the story of individuals with big hearts and guilty consciences, individuals cut from the same cloth as the rest of the town, but with a different thinking.

In the end, you’re left feeling cheated, because there is no neat end to the chain of events that started on that one night. We’re given some glimpses of the future, and we know that life has gone on for everyone involved, and to some extent, it seems that justice has been served. Just not in the way you wanted.

Reading this book was a gut wrenching experience for me, and then I found out that there is also a sequel! No. My heart cannot stand it. I don’t know if I can gather enough courage to read through another book like this, but this will definitely remain one of those books that made me break down in tears. I’m almost afraid to think what Fredrik Backman has in store for this little town next.

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Sunday Spotlight: The Fountainhead

A few days ago, I was talking to someone about The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and how it was bound to be appealing to men even though it has been written by a woman. The book is widely considered groundbreaking and presents a new philosophy called Objectivism, which while panned by academic philosophers, is still followed by a faithful group.

The Fountainhead itself is a book that is more likely to be read by a younger audience, during college years, and early career, when it seems like the ideal text to follow. As they grow older and become more worldly, this idealism seems to fade from the minds of these readers. It is not so easy to read this book once you have left behind your student life. The text is too long and too slow, and the theories too idealist for the real world.

The book traces the life of Howard Roark, architect extraordinaire, and an egoist to boot. He is reviled for his ideas and integrity, and the world in general seems to be baffled by his genius. From humble beginnings, he becomes an architect known for being forward looking, while at the same time he is persecuted by the society for being rigid and unyielding on his principles.

Roark is wired in such a way that he believes that in order to do the most good, a person needs to be the most selfish. This selfishness is the only way to achieve happiness and contentment in life. For him, selfishness is giving precedent to his happiness and not what others think of him. A person wants fame and money because of an unnatural need to be validated in front of the world. According to him, if he changes his work to make others happy, then he is not being true to himself, and if everyone tried to make themselves happy instead of listening to others, the world would be a better place for it.

The Fountainhead presents the ultimate hero, one who is not willing to compromise, even if it means paying hefty fines, going to jail, or losing the one true love of his life to his biggest enemy. We have seen many versions of this hero over the years, both in books and movies; the man who is not afraid to take on the world for the sake of his principles. The only difference is, that these other heroes are all eventually revealed to be altruistic and philanthropic, redeeming themselves in the eyes of society and mankind.

The Fountainhead puts forth the philosophy that an ideal heroic man is one whose purpose in life is to keep himself happy, and his nobility lies, not in doing good for others, but in being productive and useful to himself. It presupposes all humans as rational beings capable of sound reasoning.

On paper, this sounds like the perfect world, more so to the younger reader who immediately casts himself or herself in the role of Howard Roark, standing up for what is right and just in their eyes. What it doesn’t account for, and what these young men and women learn as they grow older, is that it is next to impossible to keep their emotions separate from their reason.

So, while Roark looks like the ultimate hero, who sacrifices his only love for the sake of his principles, it remains subjective which principles to uphold; because every individual has a different moral compass. What is sacred to one man may not be important for another.The drawback of going against collectivism is that it refutes all laws and regulations. By the same token, if everyone started standing up, and there was no compromise in the world, there would ultimately be chaos.

So, it could be that while Howard Roark has some principles that he will fight for till death, why should his principles be important for any other individual, who wants to succeed in his own field? In the real world, this philosophy seems too good to be true, for the simple reason that not all individuals are strong in character. In the book, however, Howard Roark remains the ideal man, a man willing to go to any lengths to uphold his beliefs and not surrendering his convictions in the face of adversity.

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Review: The Chalk Man

Rating: 5 Stars

Finally, a crime thriller that I could really sink my teeth into! The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor is different in that it has a male protagonist and narrator. I have really become disillusioned with crazy females doing crazy shit, trying to become Amy Dunne! Here we have a middle-aged man, battling with his own demons, trying to appear as normal as possible, and failing to do so.

Eddie Adams is a British twelve-year-old in 1986, hanging out in his small town with his four friends, when their lives are changed irrevocably. A new albino teacher, Mr. Halloran, with the help of Eddie, saves the life of a girl after a freak accident at the fair, and from there it all starts unraveling fast as summer fades into autumn and the beginning of the new school year.

Eddie’s mom is a doctor and her newly opened clinic earns the wrath of the local vicar, who happens to be the father of one of Eddie’s group of friends. The vicar is a nasty man, whose own daughter seems to be scared of him. Eddie’s dad gets into a fight with the vicar at a birthday party and things become tense in a previously sleepy town.

The children, aware of the new tensions, spend most of their time trying to get the most out of the remaining summer. This includes coming up with a secret code to send each other messages with. The code involves making different symbols and stick figures with coloured chalk. each of them has a different coloured chalk so they can figure out who sent what message. Soon, however, they tire of this game and move on to other pursuits.

As things become worse in the town, the final blow comes when the dismembered body of a girl is discovered, with her head missing. The main suspect is Mr. Halloran. Eddie is sure of his innocence even as his normally easy-going parents think otherwise. As the police close the case, everyone thinks that things will finally go back to normal.

Thirty years later, Eddie Adams is a middle-aged, single, English teacher with a drinking problem, still living in his hometown. He gets a letter with a piece of chalk. The letter has a stick figure drawn on it. Memories of that long ago summer have left their scars on everyone, and it all starts coming back to Eddie now. When an old friend’s drowned body is found, Eddie realizes that things did not end thirty years ago, and he has to find the truth before another body turns up. The problem is that he cannot trust anyone, not even his closest friends, because everyone in this town has a secret to keep.

The character of Eddie Adams is interesting. The way he narrates the book, you know you shouldn’t trust him along with anyone else in this book. That he is a kleptomaniac, is established early on in the book. On top of that, he is a sleepwalker who has trouble differentiating between his dreams and reality. And his dreams are really creepy. He is flaky and vague, and is in no way a reliable narrator.

The book is fast paced and gripping. It makes you hold your breath and wait for what comes next. There are so many twists and turns that take you by surprise. Even if you’re able to predict some things, there is still a lot that makes you feel dizzy. For a fan of thrillers, this book is the perfect read. It made me remember why I love this genre so much!

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Review: The Perfect Stranger

Rating: 3 Stars

I have found that if you have not read a writer before, don’t read their best rated book first, because it will set the bar higher for subsequent books. I had not read Megan Miranda before, and all reviews pointed at All The Missing Girls being the greatest book ever written. Of course, that made me wary of getting it. As I was ordering some books from Amazon, I saw The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda, and added it to my basket without reading any reviews or ratings. I wasn’t disappointed.

Leah Stevens moves to a small town in Pennsylvania with her friend Emmy Grey. She needs to start over and leave behind the scandal that ended her journalism career and almost destroyed her. She takes up a teaching position in the local high school while Emmy, with her background in NGO work, struggles with part-time jobs. It is not a peaceful existence as she struggles with forgetting her past and getting used to living in the isolated house near the lake that Emmy was intent on living in.

When there is a vicious crime near Leah’s house, and Leah reports Emmy missing, all hell breaks loose. Leah realizes that her new house is not so safe after all, and someone seems to be stalking her. As things unravel, it dawns on Leah that there is no evidence that Emmy Grey even existed, and now she herself is the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Now Leah not only has to prove herself innocent by finding Emmy Grey, she also has to see her past with new eyes.

The character of Leah is a good one. She has a journalist’s instincts and reactions, and she is ready to go to any length to get to the truth. The setting of the book is also true to a thriller. The glass walls that make the front of the house visible to anyone from outside, struck as quite creepy, and I kept imagining how it would feel to sleep in a house like that. Even though the characters and setting were good, I wish the writer had given some more reality to the narrative.

The irritant in this book was the way Leah Stevens describes everything, from her relationship to her family, to the scandal that made her run away, in terms that seemed to be coming out of the mouth of a psychologist rather than a journalist. Saying something like, “Have you ever wondered if what we’re doing is the only path? If we weren’t meant for something else?” when all her sister asked was what was going on; who talks like that in the real world?

The climax was also a bit of a disappointment. After so many twists and turns, the end was like a fizzled bomb. It was rushed. and there were some loose ends that were not dealt with. The most glaring one being the fate of Theo Burton and how the evidence that seemed so flimsy a couple of pages back, was suddenly enough to detain him. Then there was the last confrontation that was over almost as soon as it began, and leaves you feeling like you were cheated out of a good climax after spending so much time reading the book.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and would give it 3.5 stars. I just wish the ending had been a better.

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Review: Caraval

Rating: 3.5 Stars

When I bought Caraval, I didn’t have much idea about what it was. I had seen it on Instagram and really liked the cover, so I bought it without really looking at it. When I read the blurb, I was dismayed to see that it seemed to be quite similar to The Night Circus which is one of my favourite books of all time. So, it was with mixed feelings that I picked this one up to read.

To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. Of course, it can never compete with the magic of The Night Circus, but this is as close to it as a YA novel can hope to be.

It is somewhat amateurish but once you let your imagination soar, you can picture everything so clearly in your mind. I feel that is what fantasy novels are all about; if you can see it in your mind’s eye then they have achieved their objective.

The story is not too complicated. It is about two sisters trying to escape their abusive father. Both of them have different ideas about what escape means, but both want the other sister to have a better life even if it means endangering their own. The one thing that stops this book from being amazing is the weak character development. I just felt that halfway through the book, the writer decided to write a sequel and make Donatella its heroine. So, suddenly you find that everything that was being said about her wasn’t true and she is actually a very intelligent and secretive young lady. Scarlett Dragna comes off as a bit dull and one dimensional. The world around her is more interesting than she herself. Same goes for Julian, who somehow manages not to be the mysterious man he was supposed to be. Dante and Lagend, by comparison seem more interesting than Julian, which I’m sure the author was not aiming for.

Despite this, it was fun to go into this world where everyone is lying and nothing is as it seems. Stephanie Garber has created a compelling imaginary world; I wish her characters had also been as compelling.

I liked the book overall which kept me interested enough to want to continue reading. This one is for all YA Fantasy fans.

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My Favourite Contemporary Author: Gillian Flynn

I was going through a major reading slump when I read Gone Girl, long before it became a blockbuster movie. I would leave books halfway through, nothing managing to catch my interest. Until Gone Girl, that is. I read it in one night, and spent the rest of the week lying awake, suspicious of everyone around me. That is how powerful Gillian Flynn‘s writing is.

Since I seemed to like her writing style, I thought I’d buy the rest of her books and read them too. Dark Places, a bit tamer than Gone Girl, was also quite crazy and left me with a bit of a hangover. But nothing could have prepared me for Sharp Objects.

Flynn’s debut novel, Sharp Objects, is so disturbing that even thinking about it makes me shudder. It is certainly the most creepy book that I have read in a long time. It is a book that has a must read for all fans of Gone Girl. There is just something about it that will make your heart beat faster, and your eyes dart around for anything suspicious, even when you’re at home, in your bed!

What makes Gillian Flynn an excellent writer of thrillers, is her portrayal of deeply disturbed, dark female protagonists. Some accuse her of misogyny; for me, she is someone who is not afraid of venturing into themes that make others uncomfortable. It is not easy to accept that a female protagonist can be a screwed up failure, with hardly any redeemable qualities.

The one thing that I find common in the three (four, if you count The Grownup, a short story) females from her books, is their inherent selfishness and strong survival instinct. They care about themselves before they think about anyone else, and that is what makes them so appealing. As a rule, women in fiction are thought of as selfless beings, out to do good in the world, and even heroines who are badass and have done some really bad stuff are somehow redeemed at the end of these tales. Gillian Flynn shows no such mercy to her characters. They remain screwed up, maybe to a lesser degree, till the end.

It is not just the female protagonist that is the main draw for Flynn’s books. It is the overall atmosphere. Her settings suck you in, and you get lost somewhere in the streets of these dark and menacing places, which spit you out violently at the end. It is such a shock to come out of her world, that you feel disoriented after finishing the book.

All the best to my favourite contemporary writer of thrillers. I cannot wait to read more of her books.

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