Book Review: The Readers of the broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

About the book:
Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen...
Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist—even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory. All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a warm, witty book about friendship, stories, and love.

My Review:

Isn't it always a pleasure to read books about reading?
Isn't it always a pleasure to read about characters that unfold as the plot proceeds?
Isn't it always a sheer delight when a feel-good book becomes your companion for a while?

Well, this is precisely the kind of book I described above.
An ode to books and readers, the book plays its part well. Broken wheel is a strange town, granted, and Sara has set new definitions of friendship with her pen pal. Beautiful gestures come together, like Sara opening a bookstore in the memory of her friend. And although I could've read through it again and again, at times the prose was verbose enough for me to flip through or skim through pages.

But then again, I wouldn't mind that if the story is about reading and books.
Every reader, whether casual or ardent, should read it at least once.

Every now and then, we got to show some love for our favourite bookstores, don't we?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Anyone can nominate their favorite bookstore at http://books.sourcebooks.com/readers-recommend-your-bookstore-sweepstakes/. Sourcebooks will award the winning bookstore with a $3,000 prize; two additional bookstores will each receive a $637 prize (the population of Bivald’s fictional Broken Wheel, Iowa). In addition to bookstores receiving prizes, weekly giveaways for those who nominate will be held throughout the campaign. Voting began January 4, and runs until February 19, when the winning bookstores will be announced.


Source of the book: Netgalley

Book Review: Shimmering Chimes by Maaya Dev

About the book:

Title: Shimmering Chimes

Published by: AuthorsPress

Published on: 2015

Pages: 93 pages

Genre: Poetry

Rating: 4/5

Blurb:
Shimmering Chimes is an outcome of dreams that we all dream solemnly and each poem is pebbles collected from the shore of imaginations, experiences, feelings, spirituality, love and almost what all encompasses life. The book is seeking, soothing, symbolizing, synthesising, singing, shining, shivering, surviving, and synapse between shimmering and chimes.

About the author

Maaya Dev is an Indian based poetess and an economics graduate from Calicut University, Kerala. She is a word smith wearing multi feathered cap. Her poems have found place in several national and international anthologies and journals like Episteme, Criterion, Anthesis, Eternal, Wings, Forever, Change , The Significant Anthology, Aquillerlle 2015. She is a contributor at many sites like Muse India, Boloji, Learning & Creativity, Cafe Dinssensus, Rate My Literature, Saliz Magazine. She handles a monthly poetry column ‘Tossed Pebbles’ at Bkhush. Her debut anthology Shimmering Chimes got published by Authorspress Delhi in Sept 2015. She blogs at maayas-musing.blogspot.in. 

My Review:

For once, the title of a poetry book perfectly encapsulates the essence of the verses contained in its pages. Two pages into the book, you come across this piece entitled "Beacon of enlightenment" which ends as here under:
"And I was feeling the warmth
of a thousand splendid suns
as beacon of enlightenment"

This is an example of the contemporary influences and references throughout.
The richness of vocabulary in any piece is beyond words, and yet it does not come across as intimidating- rather, it becomes the purveyor of power to words.
The words are beautifully sewn together, like nectar.
It is indeed refreshing to read poetry of such finesse in times like ours.

You might need to refer the dictionary first time, but once the meaning falls into place, it is a pure heartfelt joy to read through, read aloud and read to oneself!

I especially liked the poem "Birth of a poem". It is always so heart-warming to read about the making of an artistic masterpiece and this poem was a perfect example, what with the accurate description of words and expressions.
"In that moment of oblivion
an artistry real sketched rainbows
onto an invisible surface
I remained invincible for a while."

Another favorite is "Fireflies of time"
"Filaments of passing time
wafting in evanescence
to get folded in the memory"

How the lines capture the momentary feelings so well, and makes us feel every moment in the process.
Suffice it to say, if Dev reads out her poetry at a session, I am definitely going!

Verdict:
If you're looking for some soulful contemporary poetry, this collection might be the answer!

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Quotes from the book:

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Source of the review copy: I thank the author for providing me with a review copy.

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Book Review: #IAM16ICanRape by Kirtida Gautam

About the book:

Title:  #IAm16ICanRape

Published by: 

Paperback, 1 edition, 593 pages
Published August 22nd 2015 by Read Out Loud Publishing LLP 

Rating:  3.5/5

Blurb:

To destroy great EVIL, GOOD has to shed tears of blood. 

Rudransh Kashyap is a self-made billionaire and man of high moral fiber. His life is shattered when he returns home one day to find that his prodigy, his 16-year-old grandson, Aarush, has been arrested and accused of a brutal gang rape. It is easy to say, “Kill the Rapist” but what if the accused is your child? 

This case takes an unprecedented turn when Aarush’s identity is made public on social media. Rudransh finds himself living a nightmare as he fights against tremendous odds to get justice for Aarush, to save him and to bring him back home… But what if the unthinkable is true? Can Rudransh save his grandson, or will he end up fighting a different battle altogether?

About the author

Kirtida is a clinical psychologist turned screenplay writer who completed her education from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, India. Her passion for psychology and writing inspired her into writing psychological thrillers. While the readers are reading this introduction, the next thriller is in the making...

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My Review:

First off, one cannot just read this book and not commend the author for the stand that she has taken.
She has not just discussed and deliberated the issue on the surface, but through her carefully etched plot and characters, she has managed to bring an entire gamut of secondary and primary issues related to the crime into the big picture. I really cannot commend her enough.

It is a long book, but a simple one, and with the resonance of December 16 in its plot, it creeps the goosebumps out of you. Reading the book, you realise it is your moral responsibility to give a little more thought to all of this than you do now, to make this world a better place.
The story follows many themes and explores a lot of relationships, between a teenager and his domestic help, between him and his estranged parents, etc. And it makes you think that maybe we should care more about how dysfunctional and broken  families have larger consequences than we ever thought.
It shows that a lot of effort has gone into the alternate narration given to multiple characters. Keeping up a plot of this intensity, and twists is really an arduous task well done in this case.


And, it also emphasis a point that has me in complete agreement: that we can never fully understand a human mind, and questioning should become a habit. Individualism is the truth and we cannot really make conclusions about a family based on one person.

I do feel that the book could have benefited a lot from a little more editing that could've made it seamless and racy, but the effort that has gone into it shows.

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Source of the review copy: Author

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Book Review: Another Day by David Levithan

About the book:

Title: Every Day

Published by: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Published on: August 25th, 2015

Genre: YA

Rating: 4/5

Blurb:

In this enthralling companion to his New York Times bestseller Every Day, David Levithan (co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson with John Green) tells Rhiannon’s side of the story as she seeks to discover the truth about love and how it can change you.

Every day is the same for Rhiannon. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidelines by which to live: Don’t be too needy. Avoid upsetting him. Never get your hopes up.

Until the morning everything changes. Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day—a perfect day Justin doesn’t remember the next morning. Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Then, one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person . . . wasn’t Justin at all. 

About the author

David Levithan (born 1972) is an American children's book editor and award-winning author. He published his first YA book, Boy Meets Boy, in 2003. Levithan is also the founding editor of PUSH, a Young Adult imprint of Scholastic Press.




About Everyday, He writes on his website, "2012 brought the release of Every Day , the story of a teen named A, who since birth has woken up in the body and the life of a new person every morning. At the start of the story, A is sixteen, and wakes up in the body of Justin, who’s never really treated his girlfriend, Rhiannon, that well. When A falls for Rhiannon, it suddenly changes the stakes of A’s story – and A’s life. When I started writing Every Day, there were two questions I wanted to answer – first, what would it be like to be a person who grew up without gender, race, sexual orientation, parents, friends, and all of the other things we usually classify ourselves by, and, second, what would it be like to be in love with someone who changed every day – would it be possible? I wrote the book to figure out what my answers were."


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My Review:

I was super thrilled to read this particular book having read Every Day just recently. Although I knew there won't be the freshness in the plot, still there were so many questions left unanswered from Rhiannon's perspective. I finished this book in no time practically, partly because I felt I was going through some parts again, for little utility.So, I skimmed through the dialogues that I found repetitive. Yes- they sounded beautiful from A's perspective, but Rhiannon's words made everything look like it was deceitful, and she was unfortunately made to look like the bad guy here.
I'll give this to the author- he did write R's perspective with so much conviction that it made me empathise with her, overriding the sympathy I had towards A earlier.

But, what goes without saying is the part where A woke up in R's body- I had all my excitement directed towards it. It was worth it. If i am given an option between Every Day and Another Day, I'd choose the latter, though Every Day is the novel that endears me to the author. Another day after ED sounds like a justification! Nevertheless, it was amusing by and by. Sequel is still awaited.

Was it worth it? You might ask. And my answer would be incontrovertibly, undeniably yes. It was so totally worth it. 

As I said about Every Day, same goes for Another Day: The plot is as refreshing as it gets. It is the story that delves deep into our definitions of friendship, love, companionship and belonging. How far will we go to be with someone? How far are we ready to bend the rules? Is bending the rules worth the breach? Does the breach justify the end? Are we ready for the consequences?

It gets you thinking and keeps you so.

But here is a friendly warning: to fully understand the book, and to let it to what it intends to, you need to accept it as fiction, being a realist wouldn't help. The beauty of the book lies in how it ticks our thinking cells by bringing another dimension to our world. 

This is the story of A. A wakes up each day in a new body- and that implies he misses out on so much. On having an address, on having a family, permanent fiends, and so on. Things we take for granted. Things we'd lose and not realize what hey're worth. 

Apart from the lessons in living, the plot sure does hold a sense of mystery and intrigue. The author has done such a great job in weaving a plot out of nothing, and I am definitely going to read more from the author.

A beautifully written book, provokes you into thinking incessantly, and makes you question the right and wrong.

Links to the book:

Quotes from the book:

“I find myself looking into people's eyes more than I ever did before. And I realize, that's where we stop being a...
Posted by So many books, So little time. on Saturday, July 25, 2015

“It wouldn't be fair to ask you to be around me when I'm so sick of being around me.”
Posted by So many books, So little time. on Saturday, July 25, 2015

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Source of the review copy: Netgalley ARC

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