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Review: If I Stay

Author - Gayle Forman Genre - Young Adult No. of Pages  - 210 Year of Publication - 2009 Rating - ❤️❤️ ❤️ I expected this book to be quite moving and emotional, a book that would make me cry and laugh at the same time and the words of which would seep into my mind. I am not cold-blooded, but this book couldn't make me cry.  You have to believe that I cry a lot over fictional characters. I did cry while reading The Notebook and Me Before You and The Fault In Our Stars and several other books. And I expected the same to happen while reading this book because it has this death thing hanging all over it.  Mia is just the girl next door with an intense love for classical music and cello. She is 17, has loving parents and grandparents and a cute little brother, Teddy. Everything is just about normal till one morning. The morning when her family decides to go on a drive and an unfortunate accident plunges Mia through an impossible and exhausting turn of events. Mia is the

Review: Before I Go To Sleep

(Contains Spoilers) Author - SJ Watson Genre - Thriller No. of Pages - 368 Year of Publication - 2011 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️(3.5) I admit, this book had me guessing till the end. And the ending wasn't something that I saw coming.  I found this book far more thrilling than 'The Girl On The Train' which was somehow predictable for me. In the beginning, I didn't have even a speck of hint or clue about the climax. That's the thing that kept me glued to this book and I read it by spending my one whole day. I won't say it was a "proper page turner". I had some difficulty in reading the starting one-third part of it because it wasn't much appealing and things were repetitive. But it took a pace after around half of it was read. And the climax was excellent. The book revolves around a woman named Christine Lucas who is suffering from amnesia. She is living from moment to moment without having any idea about her past or future. Her case of amnesia is

Review: My Name Is Memory

Author - Ann Brashares Genre - Young-Adult/Fantasy/Romance No. of Pages - 324 Year of Publication - 2010 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Oh my goodness, this book is pure magic. I had been longing to read this book for a really long time and finally I read it. And the wait was totally worth it. If you have even a speck of interest (if not belief) in the concept of reincarnation, please read this book. I can guarantee, you won't be disappointed. I don't remember how I came across this book, maybe through Pinterest. But when I read the plot summary, I knew I have to read this book for sure.  Somehow, I also knew that this book won't disappoint me. The starting of this book is somewhat slow, for a few pages you might not be persuaded to read further but once you get to the core, there's no coming back. I found myself fervently turning the pages always thinking 'then what happened?' I was so lost in this book, I just couldn't put it down. The protagonist of

Review: Love, Rosie aka Where Rainbows End

Author - Cecelia Ahern Genre - Romance No. of Pages - 592  Year of Publication - 2004 Rating - ❤️❤️(2.5) The readers who loved Ahern's debut novel, (P.S. I Love You) must have searched for other books by her and must have come across this book, which is her second novel.  Same happened with me. I loved the former so much that I wanted to read more of Cecelia Ahern. And after reading other reviews of this book I came to know that this book is written in epistolary structure in the form of letters, text messages, e-mails, newspaper articles etc.  This aspect of the book made it stand out for me. This was the main thing that caught my interest and made me read this book. But apart from this factor, there wasn't much that caught my attention.  Nothing too out of the way or too surprising happened.  Rosie Dunne and Alex Stewart have been childhood friends but an unfortunate event occurs on their prom night and nothing is ever the same. And unintentionally, Alex is the

Review: Let It Snow

Authors - Maureen Johnson, John Green, Lauren Myracle Genre - Young-Adult No. of Pages - 354  Year of Publication - 2008 Rating - ❤️❤️ This book is a triple-trouble. It is divided into three parts, actually three stories. The first part is written by Maureen Johnson, second part by John Green and third by Lauren Myracle. Picking up this book was a consequence of being a John Green fan, and the sad part is, I least liked his part (the second part of the book). Here is the short review: First Part - OK Second part - Kind of OK Third Part - OK The first story is about a girl named Jubilee, yes that's right. And I couldn't understand why was there so much of fuss about her name throughout the book.  Jubilee has to embark an unplanned journey to Florida when her parents are jailed for some riot at some stupid Flobie showroom, and she is bound to go because she has no other option. The train she boards stops at Gracetown and she can't go any forward because

Review: The Giver (Part 1 of The Giver quartet)

Author - Lois Lowry Genre - Young-Adult/Science Fiction No. of Pages - 223 Year of Publication - 1993 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I'll be very clear, I really LOVED this book. It grasped my interest from the very beginning and I wasn't bored by a single paragraph. Every chapter was a cliffhanger! It has just 223 pages, so it was a quick read. I am really bad at reading a series, I can never complete one. But this book has made me so curious that I am going to order the next part of the quartet right away, after writing this review.  So, the readers who enjoy fantasy and some other-world-settings in books will surely love this one. This book is set in a community, far away from our world, in the sense of distance and culture too. Precisely, I should say, in every sense. The protagonist is a 12 years old boy named, Jonas.  When you read the first few chapters, the community where Jonas lives will appear to be a Utopian society. No problems, everything so arranged and matter

Review: Angels and Demons (Guest Post)

Author - Dan Brown Genre - Mystery-Thriller No. of Pages - 616 Year of Publication - 2000 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️❤️ The novel unfolds in a dream of the protagonist, Robert Langdon, a professor of religious iconology and art history at Harvard University. A call and subsequently a fax sent by Maximillian Kohler, a discrete particle physicist shakes him up from the sweet embrace of sleep. Murder of a great scientist, Mr. Leonardo Vetra at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland unravels the mysterious resurfacing of the ILLUMINATIS, an ancient brotherhood.  Langdon, being an expert of religious iconology, is asked for help to solve the murder mystery. The murder victim, Mr. Leonardo Vetra was not only the world's leading physicists but a catholic priest too. His adopted daughter, Vittoria is also working at CERN. Vetra and his daughter used the world's largest particle accelerator to create antimatter, to simulate the Big Bang. Once the antimatter canister is removed from the electrica

Review: Paper Towns

Author - John Green Genre - Young-Adult No. of Pages - 305 Year of Publication - 2008 Rating - ❤️❤️ Paper Towns are basically, copyright traps which are shown on maps but don't exist actually. I really wanted to like this book after reading The Fault In Our Star s but I couldn't. I kept on reading it till the end with a flickering hope that I would find some twist or just something interesting, which I couldn't figure out. No twists, no turns. Just a straight story. In his pre-adolescence years, the protagonist Quentin "Q" Jacobsen with his friend and neighbor Margo Roth Speigelman, discovers a corpse of some local man who had committed suicide. Fast forward nine years, both of them are nearing their high school graduation but have lost all contacts and then suddenly, one night Margo appears at Quentin's window. Margo has a plan. She wants to take revenge from the people who have used her or been untruthful or bitchy about her. She has the whole pl

Review: The Girl on the Train

(Contains Spoilers) Author - Paula Hawkins Genre - Thriller No. of Pages - 395(US)/ 320(UK) Year of Publication - 2015 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️ This book has won 2015 Goodreads Choice award in best mystery and thriller category and it was at No. 1 among The New York Times Fiction bestsellers of 2015. My hopes were high, but it did not match my expectations. When you read a thriller, you expect something out of everything. Like each word seems like a clue and you try to solve the mystery on your own by cracking those clues. I didn't get any major clues while reading this book. And it was quite exhausting.  The readers who have already read this book would relate more to my review. Rachel is a 32 years old alcoholic, divorced from her husband Tom, who is now married to Anna, the 'mistress'. Another couple lives a few houses away from Tom and Anna's house(where Tom and Rachel lived once), their names are Scott and Megan. First, the protagonist Rachel Watson is an al

Review: Safe Haven

Author - Nicholas Sparks Genre - Romance No. of Pages - 432 Year of Publication - 2011 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️ After reading The Notebook , I had high expectations from any other Sparks' book. I wouldn't say that I didn't like this book. All in all it was an okay read. I liked Erin's character a lot. She is portrayed as an independent and brave woman and yes, intelligent too. Alex is a decent character who showcases the idealistic image of a single father who loves and cares for his children more than anything else in the world. And lastly, Kevin, who would like him when he is the self proclaimed villain? I guess no one. Erin moves to Southport, North Carolina after fleeing from her husband, Kevin's house. Erin fell in love with Kevin and they got married but just after a few years of marriage, Erin discovered how obsessed he is with himself and how he wants total control over her moves and her life.  She felt suffocated in his house. She wasn't even al

Review: The Fault in our Stars

Author - John Green Genre - Young-Adult/Romance No. of Pages - 313 Year of Publication - 2012 Rating -❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ So, this book is one of those heartbreaking novels which will keep on breaking your heart every few pages and you still keep reading it collecting the pieces of your broken heart time and time again. I actually started my 'full-fledged' reading marathon from this book. It was the first novel that I read properly without giving up in the middle of it.  I just couldn't.  The characters that John Green has created are so so adorable, you can't not fall in love with them. As most people know this book revolves around two cancer patients who fall in love and the way they make life beautiful, something to be cherished, for each other. But the most important fact is that it's not just about cancer, it's much more. It includes travelling, laughing, crying, loving others and also yourself, and above all embracing life as it happens to be served on y

Review: Palomino

Author - Danielle Steel Genre - Romance No. of Pages - 323 Year of Publication - 1981 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️❤️ This book is certainly an underrated piece of literature. I picked up this book from the book fair just by reading the blurb at the back of it. I hadn't even heard much of the author before but it felt like the book was asking me to read it and I couldn't deny. It was my first Danielle Steel book and I became her fan after reading it. Despite being a romance fiction it was packed with twists and turns which I didn't see coming. Samantha Taylor is devastated when her husband cheats on her for another woman who can give him something that Sam could never give, a child. Samantha is engulfed by the pain and the sense of being imperfect and less than another woman for whom her husband has left her.  Her face is ashen, she does all her work but without her heart put in anything. Her friends and co-workers understand her pain and agony but they can't do anyt

Review: Thirteen Reasons Why

Author - Jay Asher Genre - Young-Adult No. of Pages - 288 Year of Publication - 2007 Rating - ❤️❤️❤️❤️ "Everything affects everything." This one is my favorite quote from this book. Despite being simple it conveys a deep meaning, the agonizing truth of life. This book brings into light the darker side of high school which includes bullying, comparisons, breaking of trust and friendships. I had read somewhere that the high school students these days suffer from the same amount of anxiety as the patients in mental asylums did in the 1950s, I always wondered if it's actually true and after reading this book I am sure it is. Clay finds a strange package on his doorstep with his name written on it. What he finds on opening the package are several cassettes recorded by Hannah Baker, one of his schoolmates and his first love. Hannah had committed suicide two weeks before Clay finds the package and it is rather strange. The cassettes describe thirteen reasons because

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