BOOK REVIEW:- EMBERS OF LIGHT (PART 1)

Name: Embers of Light

Author: Abhishek Singh (Abhi)

Pages: 369

Genre: Fiction

Publication: Konark Publishers

Ratings:-

Story: 4.5/5

Cover: 4/5

Writing style: 4.5/5

Dialogues: 4.5/5

Theme: 4/5

Overall: 4.5/5

Beauty:-

• The five embers from five different corners of the world.
• Reaction when they met.
• The term 'Geevayom' and 'Flubelon' as describing the land of good and evil respectively.
• Lamava bottle liquid playing a unique role in taking these embers to past (1500 years back).
• At the Royal Meetal Test, Zeeyan keeping his best act for the last.
• 'Geloangel' term used as zodiac sign for these princes.
• The architecture of the wonder walls.
• Different sections of Paatal with a calm and serene atmosphere and various people like Meers,Satatma etc.
• 'Ourors', the souls of dead evil soldiers.
• Sudden twist as to who betrayed the king.

Beast:-

• No clue of Aarav,after he informed the return of Royal Devil.
• 'Zeeyan' name is quite unusual in comparison to Saurya.
• The fling of love in Elena for Jai as in usual stories.
• The question remained unanswered as to why that Y-metal melted when Jai touched it.
   

Katie's View:-

The author in this book deals with the journey of five youngsters,stranger to one another,to fight for light against darkness. Though this journey started with a lie,but even a lie is good if it is for the betterment of the people. These five embers chose to fight against the Royal Devil,the one who is the most powerful,disregarding the consequences,showing that this world still have those people who live for others.

REVIEWED BY HARSHITA PATWA AND CAN BE CONTACTED HERE.

Y? ME.... By Shribala

Sindhuja’s life was almost finished after the incident of 26/11 attacks of Mumbai. There was nothing left to cheer about; just nightmares were her companion. Her 4 year old engagement got shattered because of a bullet from a person whom she never met before. She then decides to move to Coimbatore to start her life again and leave those nightmares back in Mumbai only. In Coimbatore she meets Dr. Ranjit Rajaratnam. In his humoristic love, she slowly feels alive again. But Ranjit is having a dark past which seldom reflects in his present too.

This is the story of coping up with the past and living the present and falling in love with the future. Shribala’s ‘Y? Me’ is definitely a book to read.

REVIEW

Writing style of Shribala is pretty different and is having both positive and negative aspects of it. Her writing style is deep and sometimes because of the deepness, loses its grip over the storyline. Dialogues are beautifully written and when it comes from Ranjit’s behalf, they are really worth reading.

Characterization is the weak point of the book and another weak point is the cover. The main story is not about the 26/11 and yet the cover screams it.

Overall the book is pretty good and I would like to give it 3/5.  

BOOK REVIEW: LOSING MY RELIGION

Rishi Rai a young entrepreneur saw his dream shattering. Everything was stopped for him. His company was shut, his bank balance was zero and he had lost his ideals as well. Soon after, he meets Alex, an American hippie, who gave new meaning to Rishi’s life and makes him learn that life is worth enjoying. Then starts the never ending journey, from the mysterious Malana Valley, the Om beach to the huge Mahakumbh and also Kyra, a beautiful gamer. It’s the story of freedom, journey of life, love, dream, ambition, rivalry and everything that is expected from a bestseller novel.

The story revolves around the life of ‘bitter, impatient, intolerant’ Rishi who wakes up from a nightmare and faces a reflection of his own career in crisis. Frustrated Rishi wants to live a cellular-free life and wanted to be ‘just with himself’. A lot happens in Rishi's life that he had never planned for, that he had never expected it to happen in his life. He meets Alex in a dirt drunkard state and then becomes a close friend thoughtfully by getting impressed with Alex's carefree lifestyle - resembling to hippies' - boozing and roaming - all carelessly. They both start for a long journey - with no predetermined destinations in mind - leaving it to time - wherever it takes them from the Malana Valley to the Om beach and the Mahakumbh. Rishi with no money in hand and in bank - sells his car and starts his journey - to find out some moment of truth of his own self, of his own life.

Then Kyra enters the life of Rishi - in a different style, as a different person, who actually is not what she appeared to him in the beginning. Gradually story intervenes, untangles and opens new pages of his life - filling new colors in each page.

This book is an amazing work of Vishwas Mudagal and contains every bit of the ideas that u expect from a bestselling book, starting from ambition and rivalry to love and life. This book is a must read for all those who are expecting something new and different from the Indian authors.

REVIEW WRITTEN BY SWATI DASH

BOOK REVIEW: THE OTHER SIDE BY FARAAZ KAZI

The book really delivers to its purpose;rendering Indian horror stories in an entirely different prospective.Each time you scheme out the most plausible plot,and yet each time there is a totally new twist-compelling you to read ahead in the hope of an impeccable prediction and yet ,the authors outsmart you...EACH 

time ;That's the beauty of this piece.

The authors have used the sleight of narration to present the rather common folklore and ghost stories.The language is plain and straight ,presumably with an large audience in focus.

Being a local reader ,finding the stories strikingly superlative is a total no-no,as I have at one point or the other either heard of or read about them.This is where the narration and delivery of a few unpredictable twists come to the rescue .When an attempt to predict the plausible outcome of the plot became futile , i found it a challenge and read ahead in the hopes of deducing a correct outcome.This is how the book engages you to read through.

Within the confines of my comprehension ,I did not find any justified gradation to the stories,they were placed randomly.If the present one is unpredictable ,the succeeding one may be totally transparent.It would have been better if the stories were arranged in a manner of compounding unpredictability.

None the less i had a great reading experience and hope of reading even better works from the authors in the coming future.

BARAMULLA BOMBER… By CLARK PRASAD

REVIEW NO. – 2

NAME: BARAMULLA BOMBER (SVASTIK TRILOGY – 1)AUTHOR: CLARK PRASADSOURCE: AUTHOR HIMSELFGENRE: SCIENCE FICTION ESPIONAGE THRILLER

RATINGS

STORY: 4/5
COVER: 4.5/5
WRITING STYLE: 3/5
DIALOGUES: 4/5
THEME: 4.5/5
OVERALL: 4/5

THEME

War is coming. Everyone knows and preparing for it. ‘If you wish for peace, prepare for war’ and this is the time of testing the preparation. ‘The Guardians’, who have failed earlier in their task of establishing peace in the world, are taking this opportunity as their last chance to fulfil the goal for which they were formed earlier by their ancestors.
Mansur Haider, who is a simple Kashmiri boy with a talented bowling arm and a dream to play Cricket has become the main concern of all the secret agencies of world.
Shaksgam Valley’s earthquake and with that missing of a mountaineering team, something is going terribly wrong there?
Adolf Silverskiold, Swedish intelligence officer, who was investigating Mansur and Shaksgam Valley incident, comes across the world’s most lethal weapon ever made using the power of Vedas & Bible.
There’s only one chance to stop the massacre, just one chance to stop the evil but the question which arises is, WHO IS THE EVIL?
BARAMULLA BOMBER is first of its kind novel written by an Indian Author. Its storyline covers the events from 16^th July 1945 to the present day. It covers politics, science, cricket and mythology with establishing a balance between every topic so that no single topic seems to take over the other parts of the novel. Every detail used is specific and full explanation of events is given so that nothing seems to be exaggerated.

BEAUTY

·         Chronological manner of linking the events.

·         Never went off the track.

·         Explanation of events.

·         Storyline.

·         The climax.

·         Pace of writing. He has explained everything in just 300 pages.

·         Knowledge of writer about the events happened so far related to his fiction.

·         Action Sequences.

·         Command on language of author.

BEAST

·         Characterisation.

·         Confusion. There are so many events, so many characters and in the midway you feels, ‘Hey please give me a break.’

·         Some chords of the story were still missing (or maybe I missed them) but as it is a trilogy, I think those will come up in the next coming parts of the novel.

·         Mansur Haider, he never seemed that important throughout the storyline but as I said earlier maybe in the next one he comes up as the strong point.

MY PERSONAL COMMENT
“Quantum Physics meets Bible & Vedas in Background of Kashmir & Cricket”, well I read this on the cover I thought that it is another kind of a Khichdi novel, trying to cover everything forcefully. But after reading the story, I want to say, ‘Man, watch this guy, he surely knows what he’s writing.’ Reading this novel was truly a great experience. Its writing style is inspired by Hollywood movies. Some heroic dialogues and execution of action sequences are damn good. My favourite part was the action sequence of Monkey Hill. That was awesomely written.
Author has impressed me with his style of linking the facts with his fiction. His knowledge is immensely deep on the topics he wrote but for making the fiction interesting and not a science project he never went in the depth.
I truly and genuinely suggest everyone to read this novel and for the author I want to say that I am dying while waiting for the next part of the novel.

ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE...

BOOK REVIEW # 1 (THE BANKSTER)

NAME : THE BANKSTER
AUTHOR : RAVI SUBRAMANIAN
PUBLISHER : RUPA
ESTIMATE READING TIME : 15-16 HOURS

RATINGS
PLOT : 3.5/5
STORY : 4/5
COVER : 3/5
WRITING STYLE : 5/5
DIALOGUES: 2.5/5
OVERALL : 3.5/5

GENERAL REVIEW...

Greater Boston Global Bank (GB2) is witnessing it’s best time in the banking business and along with that losing it’s employees in mysterious deaths. Something is going wrong but no one bothered to dig the mystery. One employee is turning to be the biggest bankster of all time and leaves no one who comes in his path. Global conspiracy is being operated in GB2. Everyone seems to be the culprit but the bankster is still hidden somewhere behind the mask.
A mind blowing thriller……

Story is set in mainly four distinct locations.

LOCATION 1 : Angola, South Africa. Joseph Braganza shows up in the prologue of the book as a CIA agent. He is there for some arms deal. I would give this part a 2 star but when in the epilogue Joseph got exposed, this particular location turned out to be a 4 star. so in average I will give it a 3.5 (3.5 stars)

LOCATION 2: GB2 Head office Mumbai. This is the major part because everything is centered around GB2. Sometimes this will bore you and sometimes it will give you goosebumps. But being a thriller novel, this location disappoints me till the sequence when Harshita planned to fuck up the life of Zanaida and left to Vienna. After that the finale proved to be the best part of the novel which was also plotted at the same location. (3.5 stars)

LOCATION 3: Devikulam, Kerela. This was the most disappointing one. No thrill, no suspense at all. Just the article of Times Of India at the last chapter was phenomenal revealing the best part of the conspiracy. (2 stars)

LOCATION 4: Vienna. This location comes up when Harshita comes here on holidays and joins the links of GB2 with world conspiracy. This is a location where there was thrill and action. (4 stars)

BEAUTY

• Introduction of every character has a unique story. There was no character who just show up instantly.
• Finale is awesome. You can’t even get a little hint of what’s coming at the end.
• Story is well linked and no part of it is left as a dead end.
• Bank’s gossip and bitching. I loved that.

BEAST

• Middle part is boring and seems to be getting stretched.
• Episodes of Devikulam are predictable.
• Being a thriller, sometimes thrill element looses up.

MY PERSONAL COMMENT

I love thrilling novels, so this novel is of my taste. I loved the way Ravi craved the story. Chapters ending were great because they will force you to start reading next one instantly. I doesn’t know much about banking so sometimes it was difficult for me to understand what’s going on but that was all my mistake because Ravi has described each technical thing in brief. The most lovable thing about Ravi’s writing is that he gives space to each and every characters in his novel. Even a fisherman who have nothing to do with the main story has given his share of space.
As we know that there are only few writers in India who dares to write thriller, Ravi has now become my ‘To be read writer’.

(REVIEW ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE...)