Tag: reading

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Review: Lock Every Door

Rating: 3 Stars

Riley Sager is an author whose books are a must-buy for me. I enjoyed his first two books so much that even the weak links in the books didn’t really matter. To say that I was looking forward to reading Lock Every Door, is an understatement; which is why I was so very disappointed with it! Even though there are some stellar reviews and this is a highly rated book, it failed to impress.

The book starts off spectacularly with Jules Larsen finding an apartment sitting job that seems too good to be true. She is unemployed and has been unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend. The address is the prestigious Bartholomew, a New York landmark, exclusive and secretive. The apartment is everything that she has ever dreamed of, and more. Except that it gives her the creeps and she can feel something sinister within its walls. Shrugging off the feeling as a residue of her past experiences, and ignoring the warnings of her best friend, Jules decides to spend the next 3 months living in luxury and earning the easiest money ever.

The rules are very strict. Jules cannot disturb any other residents; she cannot spend any nights away from the apartment; and she can not have any visitors. For Jules, these rules are just the eccentricities of the rich and famous, and not something to worry about.

There are also other apartment sitters in the building. Jules soon finds herself befriending Ingrid who lives in the apartment right beneath Jules’s. Ingrid tells Jules that she feels scared, like something is not right in their building. Jules laughs off her fears and doesn’t think much of them. Until one night she hears a scream from Ingrid’s apartment, and finds out that Ingrid has disappeared without trace. As Jules is afraid that history might repeat itself, she decides to find Ingrid and lay her own demons to rest.

The suspense and tension till here is absolutely fantastic; you can feel the sinister presence of evil within the Bartholomew. However, as Lock Every Door rushes towards the climax, everything starts spinning out of control. Jules suddenly becomes a dumb girl making poor choices, yet being smart enough or lucky enough to get away with them. Then comes the last part of the book that is one of the most unbelievable sequences that I have ever read. I understand that it is not easy to find a balance between the sinister and the real world, and sometimes writers find it hard to come up with a resolution that is good enough to justify the whole spooky scenario while being realistic at the same time. Still, this was a bit much for me, and a big let down after such an excellent rest of the book!

This brings me to the fact that all three of Riley Sager’s books have very weak climax sequences. The perpetrator is a surprise for sure, but once you look back, the whole plot starts to look shaky. This time around, more than shaky, it seems downright ridiculous and full of plot holes. If I seem too harsh, then it’s only because I expected so much from Lock Every Door, and I don’t like being disappointed.

Still, that doesn’t stop me from looking forward to Sager’s next book. I have bought it already and can’t wait to read it.

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Review: The Hunting Party

Rating: 3 Stars

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley is definitely a page turner. It has all the elements that make it a great thriller. At least, till you finish. Then you realize that there are some unanswered questions that keep niggling at you.

A group of friends has been spending New Year’s Eve together for the last ten years. This tradition has continued ever since they were students at Oxford. This year they find themselves isolated and cut off from the rest of the world on an estate spread over thousands of acres in the Scottish Highlands. The cracks in their long lasting friendship begin to appear on the train journey to the remote location. They reach the estate on 30th December, and by New Year’s Day, one of them has disappeared.

Things seem to be normal as they all try to capture the old feelings of being carefree and having a good time. But over time, each one of them has become resentful. They all hold grudges from things said and done over the last decade. As events start to unravel, it seems like any one of them could be a murderer….or the victim.

Going back and forth in time, the story is told from 5 different perspectives. It is not clear who the victim is until very near the climax. The suspense is gripping and the setting is bleak and brutal. The characters are nothing new, just the typical type of people in almost every book about old friends. There’s the Queen Bee around whom the whole group revolves; the handsome but shallow Hunk married to the Queen Bee; the simple and quiet Best Friend; the Angry dude with a secret crush on the Queen Bee; the Gay couple; the Loved Up couple with a kid; and the Wannabe who wants to be best friends with the Queen Bee.

Even with such cliched characters, The Hunting party is interesting and keeps you glued to find out who has been killed, and who has the stomach to commit murder. However, the ending leaves a lot of things up in the air. The climax is not spectacular, but it is satisfactory. The epilogue, though leaves a lot of relevant questions unanswered while giving details on things that were rather irrelevant to the main story.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

I have some questions that I need answered. I was ready to give the book a higher rating, until I realized that there were some very glaring loose ends.

  • What was the purpose of the converstion that Heather overhears in her office? How did the guy get the note in the first place? And did it turn up later on to destory him? Also, why was the woman talking to him like it mattered to her, if she was already resentful and disillusioned with him?
  • The court case was biased because the jury was impressed by the killer’s plea that it was unintentional, but what about the attempt to murder that was quite deliberate with a rifle stolen from the estate? Weren’t there more than enough eyewitnesses for that?
  • I have a problem with protagonists being stupid, taking matters into their own hands, and wandering, deliberately and knowingly, into danger without telling anyone else!
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Friendship Trope In Real Life

This is an ode to the friendship of all those people who have stuck by me through thick and thin, uplifted me and supported me, and sometimes even fed me to the wolves! Ladies and gentlemen, these people are commonly known as my friends. While I love all of them unconditionally, I have to admit that there are a few who embody the saying that who needs enemies when you have friends like these!

I have always been somewhat cold about friendships. I have left people behind and moved on. Even as it shames me when I think about it, I don’t think I have any lasting regrets except one. So, for a person like me, to realize that I still have friends from school who I count as my biggest supports, is quite a revelation. When I say school friends, I’m talking about 30 odd years of friendship here. That in itself is an achievement. To be able to stay together for this long even if we talk once or twice a year, is something that makes me feel warm inside. These are my Harry Potter friends. They have seen me through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and will probably be there to send me into insanity when I’m old and wrinkled!

People say that you form the strongest bonds with your school friends. While it is true, I have also found everlasting friendship in my university. These people, they refuse to leave me alone, and drag me into every crazy conversation that they’re having. Over the last 20 years, it is they who have made efforts to keep me in the loop, me being the one to do occasional disappearing acts. These are my Lord Of The Rings friends. Always ready to make grand plans and taking me on useless adventures. They make me roll my eyes and take the most pleasure in yanking their chains.

I worked in a corporate sector for just one year, and managed to make a couple of lifelong friends. My Travelling Cat Chronicles friends. I don’t see them for years, don’t talk to them for months. They live in completely different parts of the world now. Yet, I know that any time I need help, I can just call upon them and they will be there.  I know this because I have done it, and they have proven me right.

As I entered my thirties, I knew that I would never make new best friends again. It was too late, I was too set in my ways and a little bit anti-social, if I am honest.

Little did I know that just around the corner waited 5 women who would turn my life upside down. On the surface it made sense that we got together: our husbands worked in the same office, our kids went to the same school, and we lived in approximately the same vicinity. Yet, out of the many women who came under this category, the 6 of us found our way to each other. And it isn’t our husbands or kids that still keep us connected even when we are thousands of miles apart now. This is the kind of friendship that is very hard to find in the world. I present to you, my Big Little Lies friends. They are loud, irreverent, funny and will probably commit murder one of these days!

These are just a few of the friends that I am grateful for. Over the years, I have gone through regular phases of being too social or completely anti-social. I have made friends, lost touch with them, moved on, reconnected, lost touch again and so on, so forth. Some of them have stuck by me despite my shortcomings, making time for me whenever I have needed them to. I came to appreciate these amazing people when I was going through a personal tragedy a couple of years ago. They showed up, ready to support me even when I had been absent from their lives for the longest of times. 

I am thankful for all these thoughtful people today; my friends, my tribe, my family by choice.

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Review: Conviction

Rating: 3 Stars

Conviction by Denise Mina follows Anna McDonald as her life unravels one fine day. She gets up early like always, relishing her “me time” before her husband and daughters wake up. She has no idea how things are going to go down on this particular morning. Engrossed in her new true crime podcast, it takes her some time to catch on with what is going on with her husband. Before long, she is alone in the house, desperate, and on the verge of doing something stupid. The only thing she can think of is to listen to the podcast, and try to forget her own troubles for a while.

As it turns out, the events of the morning are just the beginning of her troubles. As she listens to the podcast about a family murdered on board a cursed yacht, she realizes that not only does she know one of the victims, she has also come across another person mentioned in the podcast. Someone connected to the past that Anna has tried to delete from her life; a past that her husband, daughters and friends have no idea about.

Even though she is certain she knows what happened to the ill-fated family, Anna has no intention of telling anyone about it. Until Fin Cohen shows up at her door, and a nosy neighbour takes the choice out of Anna’s hands. Now Anna is on the run. She is determined to get to the bottom of the triple murders. An all-too-recognizable ex-rockstar accompanies her. He has no idea about the nest of hornets that he has stirred up.

Conviction is fast paced. The murder mystery keeps the reader hooked for a while at least. But then Anna’s past life starts intruding. While it is commendable that the writer maintains the pace, it also becomes irritating that things are left up in the air where Anna’s past is concerned. All actions and everyone’s motivations are guessed at by Anna, and that too with a superficiality that leaves you thinking, why would anyone do that?

Conviction concludes with the same speed with which it started, leaving behind a lot of unanswered questions. For me, this open ended conclusion is not a negative point. I like books that leave things unsaid and unexplained; in other words I like things to be left to the reader’s imagination. Not all readers are like that, though. So if you like books that tie up all ends and solve all of life’s little mysteries, this book might not be for you. For people like me, pick it up, give it a read.

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Sunday Blues: Will This Pandemic Ever End?

The last three months have been the strangest of my life, maybe of everyone’s lives. Due to this pandemic, life was put on hold and a new normal has been born. I spent the first month just trying to get used to having everyone at home all the time. The second month was smoother, and now it’s like we have always been like this!

Before the social distancing and quarantine woes started, I had completely given up on reading. I had a ganglion cyst in my right wrist. Over the last few months it became too painful to hold even the lightest of things. So, I gave up books, tablets, my kindle and to a great extent my phone as well.

When things became really bad, I decided to get the cyst removed and try to get back to normal life. As luck would have it, by that time the world was waking up to the pandemic that would wreak so much havoc around the world.

I had the surgery and found out, much to my annoyance that there won’t be a miracle and I would still need a couple of months to get back full use of my right hand. The bandage was removed after ten days. And then all hell broke lose!

The world went into a lockdown, and the help that I was counting on to get me through the next months was no longer there. As everyone who has faced this situation knows, there is a lot more work when everyone is at home. The kids and husband tried to chip in as much as they could, but they had school and office respectively. I’m thankful that my kids’ school hasn’t lost a single day of studies and are on track for the scheduled summer holidays.

Unfortunately for me, my wrist never got the rest that it needed. It has been almost 9 weeks and my hand still feels uncomfortable and painful sometimes.

Last week I finally decided that enough was enough and picked up my first book in months. What else? Agatha Christie of course! Since then I have decided that right now I’m more comfortable with my Kindle which is lighter and more easily manageable. As a result, I have finished two books in the last three days!

It is a big achievement considering it is Ramadan and things are a bit off kilter with fasting and quran classes every day. Yet, I’m determined to hold on to my Kindle and get back into the saddle.

It’s funny how I’m suddenly so attached to this little device that I have been so vocal about disliking! My love for physical books is still there, for nothing can come close to that smell and that feeling, but I have also decided to reserve a little corner of my heart for e-readers that help you when you need it the most.

I just hope that this pandemic ends sometime soon in the future. But I have a feeling that the world will never get back to where it was before this horror started.

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Review: Remnants of a Separation

Rating: 5 Stars

I got Aanchal Malhotra‘s Remnants Of A Separation from Karachi, back in July 2018. Since then, it had been sitting around on my shelf with all the other numerous books that I never read. One fine day, sick from my overdose of thrillers, I just picked it up to see what it was about.

Objects have a way of inspiring the mind to remember things it might have forgotten.

Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants Of A separation

To say that reading this book was difficult, is an understatement. Every story, every page reminded me of my grandparents. These stories are their stories; of hardship and resilience at the time of the partition of India. The horrors that both the sides witnessed, the loss, the displacement, the helplessness, it all becomes real as you read the accounts of some very real people. This is not fiction, yet sometimes that is all you want it to be.

Not everything is about darkness and despair though. While the actual time of the partition was traumatic, most of the narrators reminisce about their youth in a way that is endearing. It makes you want to return to your own childhood. Even with this lightness, the fact remains that circumstances forced most of these people to let go of their dreams. They had to grow up overnight.

Almost all these stories have one thing similar in them; the suppression of conscious memory of those dark times. They might never have talked about the past to their own families, but when they finally talk about it, all of them become fascinating story tellers, each with their own unique story. Yet all these stories are essentially the same.

Displacement, often sudden and mostly in the dark of the night, is a frightening concept. The thought of leaving all your worldly goods behind and starting anew in a place where you have no roots and nothing to fall back on, is a scary one. Add to that, the breakdown of common human decency and a return to barbarianism, and it’s no wonder everyone wants to suppress their memories of such times.

Reading Remnants Of A Separation gave birth to a lot of regrets too. I wish I had thought of documenting the lives of my grandparents while they were alive. The stories that I heard growing up became blurred and clouded by the passage of time. Maybe because while they were being told, no one was really interested in listening. My son did a unit on displacement last year, and I will be eternally grateful to his school because when he interviewed my paternal uncle for the unit, I learned the harrowing story of a 6-year-old boy who came to Pakistan without his parents. I never knew the details, and never bothered to ask either.

Aanchal Malhotra has done something that I wish I had been able to do. I wanted to keep reading and never stop. Remnants Of A Separation is the type of book that we should make our children read. Textbooks teach us only one side of history, often biased and mostly opinionated. We need to know our past and learn from it, not glorify and worship it.

As a Pakistani, I can only be thankful that Pakistan came into being that August in 1947, but the way it was done, and the politics of division that made men into animals, is something that no one, Pakistani, Indian or Bangladeshi, can ever condone. Anger, intolerance, greed, these words can never define the destruction that was caused by human hands. It was, and will always be, a dark blot on humanity. All of us need to revisit that time again and again so that we never forget the lessons that the Partition taught us.

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Review: Someone We Know

Rating: 4 Stars

Shari Lapena is an author I can always rely on to deliver the goods. Her book, The Couple Next Door, is one that I recommend to anyone who wants to read thrillers. While her other books are not as highly recommended, Someone We Know comes quite close. The twists and turns leave the reader breathless, and the ending makes them gasp. Just the way it always does with good thrillers.

The story starts with a teenager who has been breaking and entering into several homes in his suburban neighborhood in upstate New York. His intention is not of stealing or causing harm. All he wants is to hack a few computers and boast about it to one of his friends. However, things start to go downhill once his parents find out what he has been up to.

At the same time, a woman down his street is murdered quite gruesomely. The ensuing investigation is causing all sorts of problems in the neighborhood. When a couple of homeowners receive anonymous letters telling them that their houses have been broken into, the whole neighborhood becomes a hotbed of intrigue and secrets. Now the police is having trouble trying to separate facts from lies and omissions.

Lapena weaves a complicated web of truths, half-truths and outright lies, that make it difficult to guess who is guilty of what. It seems that in this neighborhood, no one is innocent.

I will also admit that having a teenager and a tween myself, I couldn’t help but empathize with Olivia Sharpe. There really is no manual on how to raise kids. Once they enter their teens, you can only hope that what you have given them is enough for them to come out unscathed on the other side.

I can also sympathize with Raleigh. It’s not easy to walk the boring path when everyone around you is having fun falling off it. Peer pressure has made kids do worse in real life. Also, you have to give the poor kid some leeway. After all, he has to live with that name all his life!

Overall, Someone We Know is a good thriller that made me glad I took out the time to read it.

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Review: Th1rt3en

Rating: 3.75 Stars

I love police procedurals and courtroom dramas if they’re crisp and don’t go into boring details. Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh is one such book. The pace is fast, and it shows both perspectives. This means no over-explaining and unnecessary detail. After I finished reading, I found out that this is the fourth book in a series, but it worked as a stand alone for me.

A high profile murder case is about to go on trial. The defense thinks the accused is innocent of the crime; the evidence against the accused is overwhelming. The real killer will go to any length to make sure the accused is found guilty.

The defense believes that the police is trying to frame their famous client, so they hire Eddie Flynn, a con-man turned lawyer, to go after the police department, thus taking the fall in case things didn’t work out.

The real killer has his own plans of infiltrating the jury and making sure that nothing stands in his way. He will make sure that the jury hands out a “guilty” verdict.

What everyone underestimates, is Eddie Flynn himself. When things start getting out of hand, Eddie decides that it’s up to him to prove that that his client had nothing to do with the crime, rather he was the actual victim of a very dangerous serial killer.

The action and suspense are quite adrenalin pumping, and once you really get into the book, Thirteen is hard to put it down. Steve Cavanagh spins a fast paced tale of murder, intrigue, subterfuge and deception. A true thriller in every sense. I think it might be a good idea to check out the rest of this series.

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Review: The Last House Guest

Rating: 4 Stars

After complaining of not finding good thrillers, finally I managed to read something that interested me enough to finish reading in a few hours. The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda is gripping and unpredictable, and you know you cannot trust any of the characters.

Avery Greer works for the Lomans, who own rental property in her small town, Littleport, Maine, which is a tourist attraction during summers. After going through some tough times, Avery was given the opportunity to work with the Lomans because their daughter Sadie took a shine to Avery, and became her best friend. This friendship was only for the summer months when the Lomans relocated to Littleport. It was an unlikely friendship that sparked strange rumours, but had held strong for ten years.

Then one summer, as the season is drawing to a close, Sadie is found dead; her death ruled a suicide. A year later, Avery is still not over the incident and Sadie’s brother and a police detective are suspicious of her. As Avery stumbles into one problem after another, she realizes that the police were too quick to close the case, and there is a strong possibility that Sadie was murdered. Unfortunately, the closer she tries to get to the truth, the more it seems to implicate her for the murder.

The book is fast paced, with something new being revealed in every chapter, the narrative jumping back and forth between the two summers. The chain of events is such that you cannot trust anyone, not even the narrator herself, who seems to reveal something new in her story every time you think you know what happened.

Though the real character of a town supposed to be dark and evil, never really comes through, I was relieved not to have to read through unlimited lines of prose dedicated to a town.

Overall, a good, interesting book after a long time.

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Review: The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Rating: 4.5 Stars

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa is not the type of book that I read generally. I don’t know why I bought it, but I’m so glad I did, and that I made myself read it. The story of Nana and Satoru captures the beauty of Japan, and reaffirms your belief in selfless love, be it family, friends or man and animal.

Nana is a stray cat found and adopted by Satoru, and after five years living together, they’re now on a journey across Japan. Nana has no idea why they’re on this trip, or what is going on in Satoru’s mind, but he is content to be with his beloved human and travel the world with him.

As Nana and Satoru visit three of Satoru’s oldest friends, we gradually see the picture of Satoru’s life, and how it has been shaped by the people he has met along the way. In the midst of all this, we are also shown a picture of how beautiful and diverse Japan is. From big cities like Tokyo, to amazing places like Mount Fuji and Hokkaido, we see a Japan that is impossible to forget. As is the story of Nana and Satoru.

Even though you think you’re ready to read about what will eventually happen, it is still nearly impossible to stop your tears from flowing. I had thought this was a book for cat lovers, not people like me who have never owned a pet. Turns out, it is a story for everyone who has ever loved anyone. It is a story of love, friendship, companionship, family, and above all thankfulness.

A beautiful, beautiful book for everyone.

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