30 August 2017

Review #638: The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad, Ingrid Christophersen (Translator)



My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“She couldn't survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern.”

----Margaret Mitchell


Åsne Seierstad, an Award winning journalist-turned-Norwegian-author, has penned a delectable and slightly captivating account of her stay with an Afghan family, who owned a bookshop in a terror-stricken and on-the-verge-of-a-civil-war type Kabul in the year 2002, in the book called, The Bookseller of Kabul. This is the personal story of almost every human being, mainly women of the household, from the bookseller family, with two wives and tons of children and an equally great number of siblings, the bookseller is a subtly liberal man of his times, that only demanded women of each and every household to stay indoors and keep giving birth until their last dying breath.

25 August 2017

Review #637: Charlatans by Robin Cook



My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“We can't possibly have a summer love. So many people have tried that the name's become proverbial. Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It's a sad season of life without growth...It has no day.”

----F. Scott Fitzgerald


Dr. Robin Cook, the international best-selling author, is back with a bang and this time with an intriguing and pot-boiling medical thriller called, Charlatans that no-doubt, revolves around the cutting edge technology and advancements in the field of medicine and medical practices, but mainly centers around the educational backgrounds of the doctors, where the two protagonists, one, a chief medical resident and the other, a star anesthesiologist of the Boston Memorial Hospital who get tangled up in the OR deaths of three patients, and the investigation behind the death puts doubt in the minds of the chief medical resident about the star anesthesiologist's training and the fancy educational background, even though they get emotionally and sexually involved with one another beyond the premises of the hospital.

22 August 2017

Review #636: The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter



My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.”

----Malcolm X



Karin Slaughter, the No. 1 bestselling author, has penned a hair-raisingly chilly and terrifying family thriller, The Good Daughter that centers around two crimes in a small American town, occurring in a time gap of 28 years, one the murder of a popular defense attorney's wife, that left the two daughters mentally and physically paralyzed for life, and the other, is a mass shooting at a local school, to which the younger daughter becomes a sole witness. And after the second crime, the daughters are pretty sure, that the memories of past crime that ripped their family apart won't stay buried under and that there is more mystery and buried lies behind both the crimes, and are they willing to explore all those mysteries, now that they have walked on the career footsteps of their father?

10 August 2017

Review #635: Final Girls by Riley Sager



My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“Even in times of trauma, we try to maintain a sense of normality until we no longer can. That, my friends, is called surviving. Not healing. We never become whole again ... we are survivors. If you are here today... you are a survivor. But those of us who have made it thru hell and are still standing? We bare a different name: warriors.”

----Lori Goodwin



Riley Sager, a pen name for an American author, pens her debut horror-cum-thriller book, Final Girls that revolves around three female mass murders survivors, whom the media coined them as the Final Girls, yet the last final girl, never wanted to live her life as a final girl, instead she pretended to live a normal life in Manhattan with her handsome boyfriend, while she blogged about cakes, but soon her pretentious perfect life crumbles to ground, when the first final girl is found dead at her home, followed by the surfacing up of the second MIA survivor at her doorstep, making her wonder, even after so many years later, are they still safe?

7 August 2017

Review #634: Bite of the Black Dogs by Sanjay Bahadur



My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.”

----Mark Twain


Sanjay Bahadur, an India author, pens a terrific, nail biting and gripping real-life special operations of Indian Special Forces book based on a true story, and it is called, Bite of the Black Dogs that is set across the idyllic yet challenging landscape of Kashmir, India, where an Indian special force group is assigned to eradicate and extract the terrorists and the alleged killers of Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus settled in Kashmir) belonging from the infamous militant group of Hizbul Mujahideen ("Party of Muslim Holy Warriors") who are funded and supported by various countries and various states of India. This real life account of the militants as well as the special task force men, who would do anything for their countrymen.

3 August 2017

Review #633: The Rome Affair by Karen Swan



My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning.”

----Giotto di Bondone



Karen Swan, an English author, has penned a compelling, stirring and riveting contemporary romance novel, The Rome Affair that revolves around a former British barrister who after escaping a not-so-sweet-past into the Rome and works as a tour guide besides writing a blog, but one day she chances upon a stolen handbag in a dust bin that belongs to an Italian socialite and aristocrat old lady living in a grand mansion, with her own past demons and when these two women's paths are crossed, history is bound to get unraveled amidst of lies and secrets, and taking the tour guide to places, where she could never imagine to be, until she comes across the mystery of the old lady's not so grand life.

1 August 2017

Review #632: The Crunch Factor by Andaleeb Wajid



My rating: 2 of 5 stars


“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”

----Jodi Picoult


Andaleeb Wajid, an Indian author, has penned a mildly heart warming, Bollywood-ish and spicy contemporary romance called, The Crunch Factor packed with a finger-licking delicious love triangle between a female food photographer, whose parents ask her to marry a filthy, rich restaurant owner, but unfortunately her heart is torn apart between the choices and the duties towards her middle class family and the choices of her heart's desire that wants to be wooed by that very restaurant's hunky and handsome head chef. Will it all be roses for the food photographer? Or will it cost her a lot of challenges to walk on the right path which she actually deserves?