Books

Author : Brandon Sanderson After finishing the Mistborn trilogy, I was hungry for more of Sanderson’s work, but didn’t want to dive into another series right off the bat and a friend suggested I read this - The Emperor’s Soul and it did not disappoint. The story is about a young “forger” named Shai, who starts off being captured by the royal faction of a kingdom in the land of Sel whose ruler, Emperor Ashravan, has recently been the subject of a near-assassination. In a bid to restore the king’s faculties, a deal is struck with Shai - she must forge the Emperor’s soul in exchange for her freedom and her personal “soulstamps”. The story is about the hundred days that Shai is offered to go about her task, trapped within a sealed room under the watchful eyes of Strikers and one man, Gaotona, who might be the only redeeming factor in an otherwise politically-motivated, power-hungry retinue. Will Shai succeed? Well, what really is success to her? This is best left as a journey for a reader to embark upon himself/herself. Brandon Sanderson’s in-depth understanding of humans, emotions and motivations mixed with yet another new system of magic continues to leave me with a sense of wonder and I can’t wait to pick up another work of his. ...

I’ve come to understand that while I do not know all the forms of humor I love, I Undoubtedly love the Swedish sense of humor - that form of writing that elicits a laugh not at the end of a line or two or even ten, but at the end of three pages when you understand how the irony works, how the accidents work, how the coincidences work, That form of humor is beautiful. There is also another form of writing Jonas Jonasson Nails and that is dry humor - when he performs reveals about the three Chinese women or about how a group of the unlikeliest people are bundled together in a place you’d never expect, or when a Mossad agent finds himself outwitted by a cleaning woman but that isn’t written in a slapstick sort of way, but extremely gracefully - like a bird gliding to a slow and steady landing. I suppose that’s the only way to describe This humor style - graceful comedy. Then there’s the whole drama with the Twins - Holger and Holger II and the way the non-existence of the latter (you Have to be there) is portrayed both as extremely tragic to the afflicted and as hilarious to the reader - the whole set of experiences left me grinning ear to ear on walks as I heard the encounters one after another and many a passerby probably wondered why I was smiling so much. You simply must read about The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden, because Nombeko, the star of the book has had quite the interesting journey :)

Author : Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows To, The Reader of this Review Date : 5th June 2019 Dear reader, Please be warned that there are some spoilers ahead. That out of the way, I wish to share with you how I felt upon completing this book, an epistolary, and I hope you will not mind the manner in which this review is presented. Reader, please believe me when I say this book found me rather than my seeking it. A dear friend first sent me a link to the trailer for the Netflix movie version late last year and at the time, I remember being charmed by the trailer, although , it quickly slipped my mind. Early this year, someone at my book club meeting mentioned in passing that they’d watched the movie and that it was actually derived from a book and I remember feeling surprised but again, I paid it no further heed and got on with my life. It was only two weeks ago when I was listening to a podcast that one of the speakers spoke about how she’d stopped referring to her Book Club as such and now referred to it as a “Literary Society” after being influenced and enamoured by the book. By now I was very intrigued and on my very next visit to Blossoms, a lovely bookstore here in Bangalore where I reside, I picked up “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” and began reading it the very same day. ...

Author : Scott Lynch I find myself shaking my head in amazement, shuddering as I write this. This was one hell of a journey. I started this having finished a few Sanderson books and my head was full of magic systems and I somehow led myself to believe that this book was along those same lines. But as I started reading and finding no hints of any visible sorcery (atleast in the first half), I thought I would be disappointed, but the disappointment never came. I just felt more and more sucked in with each passing page. Right from the get-go in fact, when “Father” Chains is introduced to the would-be Thorn of Camorr, the grasp of a promised-roller coaster held on tight and never let go. Locke’s weaving in and out of disguises as Lucas Fehrwright, a Midnighter and everything in between, and his camaraderie with the Gentleman Bastards - Calo, Galdo, Bug and Jean was everything I could have wanted in a book if not more. All the minor and “boss” antagonists (Conte, the Capas )are given a believable amount of power and matched well against the protagonists which is more than I can say for many other books which leave you feeling a sense of disbelief at the protagonist’s sudden victory or his/her unfair ease. Scott Lynch’s writing style of alternating between the present-day-plot and the trainings-in-the-past make for an interesting experience as well. Over the chapters you come to recognise that what he talks about as an episode or a learning in the past will be relevant almost immediately in the chapters to come as an instrument in the present. The language is very rich as well. At many times I found myself marvelling over the exquisite (yet not overly grandiose) construction of sentences. The story is compelling on its own merit as well, even without the rich characters and detailed world building (Shades Hill, Perelando etc) . We start off with the fleshing of characters, followed by a well crafted masterplan of theft, all of which pale smoothly when you realise what the story is really about - Revenge. ...

Author : Scott Lynch Preceded by : Red Seas Under Red Skies Succeeded by : The Thorn of Emberlain (Not yet released) Disclaimer - SPOILER ALERT If “Red Seas under Red Skies” was a series of waves on a stormy day at sea, “The Republic of Thieves” was nothing short of earthquakes, one after another - some mild tremors, some that make you stand up with a start and a couple that jolt you out of your being and rip apart the very ground you’re standing on. The story starts off where its predecessor stops - with a very ill Locke and an extremely patient Jean (Locke doesn’t seem to want to end books in a healthy state). They try to get physiker after physiker to examine and possibly provide Locke an antidote for the poison the Archon left them with, but with consistent failure. When all hope seems lost, they’re approached by the one person they’d hoped they’d washed their hands off of - a Bondsmage. Patience, as she called herself, proposed a deal with the last remaining Gentlemen Bastards; an election fixture at Karthain in exchange for Locke’s revival to health. With no real options, they begrudgingly find themselves accepting the deal with no real idea of what they were getting themselves into. In all honesty, I Knew they couldn’t Kill off the most interesting protagonist throughout the series with a mere poison, so the introduction of the antidote in this manner was interesting. What Was a let-down though was the manner in which a reunion with their long-lost lady Gentleman Bastard, Sabetha was conducted. She was their rival-to-be in the contest that was the winning of the Election. But this was a minor convenience in the grand scheme of things, so I bemoan it very little. I was left wanting in the previous book, to know more about Sabetha and that was definitely slaked here. Her character despite having received only 33% attention as far as the entire universe (so far) is concerned, has been very fleshed out in this book. Anyway, the rest of the story is a chain of tricks, alternatingly pulled in turn by Locke (aided ably by Jean) and Sabetha, to try and benefit the respective parties they’re trying to help win - Deep Roots and Black Iris respectively. The tricks are crafted skilfully by Scott Lynch, in various degrees of complexity - some are elaborate and some are childishly simple, but they never ceased to amaze me, the reader. Another thing I loved about the book and something Scott has maintained throughout the trilogy is the seamless shifts between stories of the past and the present. The former is a journey of the Bastards into a theatrical production of a play titled “The Republic of Thieves”, which is, if you’re paying attention, the title of the book. The play itself, with Aurin, Ferrin and Amadin felt like the foreshadowing of the whole plot, a story within the story, if you will. The latter brings into focus the rivalry between Locke and Sabetha, even as they grapple with their feelings for one other. And much like how we humans sometimes feel like we’re puppets strung along by invisible forces in this vast drama that is life, Locke, Jean, Sabetha, the parties and the people of Karthain are very much controlled by the all-seeing Bondsmagi of Karthain , primarily ruled by 4 main Archmagi - Archedama Patience, Archedon Providence, Archedama Foresight and Archedon Temperance - and these figureheads have an arc and schemes of their own which we’re slowly led through, the reasons divulged towards the end. There are a lot of minor characters introduced in this book, but they serve their purpose as pawns in schemes and they serve it well - nothing more, nothing less. The presence of the Sanza twins, even as characters in flashbacks, was regaling. The Thorn of Camorr and his Bastard brothers have provided me with a lot of joy and I’ve savored every bit of the story thus far. I look forward to some questions in my mind being answered with the next and possibly final instalment in the series - “The Thorn of Emberlain”. ...

Author : Alex Michaelides This book got me out of my reading slump and into a frenzied reading pace, resulting in me finishing it in less than a week. And this should be review enough to serve as a recommendation for anyone else considering to pick this up as their next read, but there’s so much more I have to say about it. When you think about a book, there are a lot of factors to consider - the plot, the characters, the locations, interpersonal relationships, facts, consistencies etc. The strongest factor in this debut book by Alex Michaelides is definitely Time (or timelines, if you prefer). The narrative alternates between the voices of Alicia Berenson (the titular character) and Theo Faber (the psychotherapist, who is determined to make her talk), but the shift is always seamless, and that I believe is an excellent trait in storytelling. Their timelines are the past and the present respectively. The former goes about narrating her, Alicia’s life with Gabriel (her husband) and their relationship, their stories that circle around Max (Gabriel’s brother), Paul (Alicia’s brother) and a couple of other recurring characters. While she is battling a lot of antagonistic external elements in her life, there are some inner demons as well that she constantly is forced to face. The latter revolves around Theo’s own journey into his profession and his life post joining The Grove, a life he’s decided to begin with the sole purpose of “rescuing” Alicia, all the while coming to terms with his own challenges at home. What follows is a tale of following-the-breadcrumbs, as Theo undertakes a investigative trip down Alicia’s memory lane and goes about meeting all her former associations to understand her life and to attempt to help her break her silence. I will not tell you if he succeeds or fails. But I will tell you that this book is more than a set of psychotherapist-patient interviews, not that you ever thought it was. Jokes apart, it’s a thoroughly well written book that destigmatizes therapy a lot, and also makes you introspect, delve into your own psyche…question your voids and wonder if you are as whole as you thought you were or if you’re really at peace with yourself, make you feel lucky for having a wholesome childhood, because, as Alex believes, that’s where it all begins - ...

Author : Hiro Arikawa *No spoilers * So I started this book in the first week of August and I didn’t make much progress for most of the month. But day before yesterday, I hit the 40% mark and that’s where I was hooked. Nana is a stray cat who’s fiercely independent and doesn’t care for humans; He even only begrudgingly and helplessly accepts the care of the human who nurses him back to health when he’s hit by a car. Once he’s healed, he stays with him out of sheer “eyeroll-y” gratitude but then eventually warms up to him. The cat’s travelling chronicles begin when Satoru, after 5 years of living with Nana, has come to the decision of finding him a new home for reasons that are divulged way later in the book. And at every stop that they make, Nana finds a way to create problems just enough that Satoru has to accept failure in making that place Nana’s next residence and the journey goes on. Hiro Arikawa does not shy away from wilfully taking time to describe the sights along the journey, the flowers, the Pampas, Mount Fuji and other beautiful scenes that they pass through. He also fleshes out the few but memorable characters that Satoru interacts with , so much so that you cannot forget them and the relationships they share with Satoru as friends or as a family member or even a former pet. I’m blown away by the consistency with which he’s put himself in the paws of a cat throughout with zero slips and as a reader, so are you. And then there is the moment where there is the equivalent of a series of plates crashing where you don’t see it coming or rather, I didn’t see it coming and before I knew it, I was sobbing like a little baby. And even though I’ve said what I said and you’ve read what you’ve read, you will forget my words and you won’t know when to expect the tug at the heartstrings. It will happen when it does and I hope you can find your way back to this post to tell me it did. And you are right, Nana :’) Humans can never claim to be as smart as a cat :) ...

Author : Brandon Sanderson **“My life to yours, my Breath become yours.” **Breath and colors. That’s what this book uses as tools in an articulate game of War. The central characters are Siri, Vivenna, Susebron, Vasher, Nightblood, LightSong and Denth. None of these names mean anything to you if you haven’t read the book yet. Anyway, the book starts off with the attempt of a treaty fulfilment between Idris and Hallandren, the two cities at the center of this story, the former a minor kingdom desiring to appease the latter. To this end, a princess is to be sent from Idris to Hallandren so a royal heir can be obtained to take over and continue the current God King’s rule. But the king of Idris sends the youngest of his daughters Siri as opposed to the eldest, Vivenna who should have rightfully been sent. This in itself wouldn’t have been a problem, but the political unrest that is already present in Hallandren as a result of resident Idrian rebels is what kickstarts the rest of the drama that unfolds. And that’s what this really is at the end of the day - a political drama with a magic system that has two feet to stand on its own but when I compare it to Mistborn, the system that revolves around Breath and “Awakening” really didn’t appeal to me all that much. It was a good story, with its highs and lows and suspense-points, but I didn’t have the same kind of high at the end as I did when I finished The Hero of Ages. What I did enjoy however was the plentiful banter between sets of characters - Lightsong and Blushweaver, Denth and Tonk Fah, Nightsong and Vasher (such as it was). I loved the way he grew the relationship between Siri and Susebron from one of one-sided fear to the stable relationship it culminated in (not a spoiler). And I will say this for Sanderson - he does not leave many loose ends. I’d have liked to know if Fafen ever did anything of consequence , for example. But that is still an itch that is solely in my mind and has no bearing as far as the story is concerned which tied together well enough. All in all, a good read. ...