Review #447: The Last Star (The 5th Wave, #3) by Rick Yancey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“We need to be fit and ready for anything that might come our way.”

----Aaron B. Powell

Rick Yancey, an American author, pens the final book in The 5th Wave series called, The Last Star that unfolds the final battle of a high school teenager along with her companions to take down the criminal and manipulator who led the seven billion people on this planet to believe that the planet has been taken over by some aliens, but now the truth is out, these teenagers must fight to stop it where it all began.

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Review #399: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, #1) by Ransom Riggs

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“Of all individuals, the hated, the shunned, and the peculiar are arguably most themselves. They wear no masks whatsoever in order to be accepted and liked; they do seem most guarded, but only by their own hands: as compared to the populace, they are naked.”

----Criss Jami

Ransom Riggs, the New York Times bestselling author, has penned a fascinating paranormal-themed story, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children that is the first book in this chilling and haunting new series, Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children. This story follows the adventure of a sixteen year old rich boy who found his late grandfathers' fantasy and peculiar stories to be true after his death and to rest his grandfather's soul in peace, he embarks on this bone-chilling adventure to an old, creepy island to find out a children's orphanage and the mysteries surrounding those peculiar children.

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Review #397: Red Queen (Red Queen, #1) by Victoria Aveyard

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.”

----Suzanne Collins

Victoria Aveyard, the New York Times bestselling author, has penned a stunning and a heart-wrenching debut YA dystopian, Red Queen which marks the onset of an exciting new young adult series, Red Queen, which is a mixture of so many bestselling dystopian series, namely, The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Selection. This series opens with a girl, belonging from a submissive bloodline, that is dominated by the powerful bloodline, who will soon be conscripted for the army to serve the powerful bloodline's frontier.This is her story of how her life changes all of a sudden and has to make terrible choices to save the ones she loves.

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Review #393: Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Amnesia is not the only time you’ll forget who you are. It’ll also happen the first time you see your own clone.”

----Jarod Kintz

S.J. Watson, the international bestselling and an award winning English writer, has penned a tantalizing and a thoroughly anticipating psychological thriller, Before I Go to Sleep that unfolds the story of a woman who wakes up every morning with no clue about her identity or the identity of the man who sleeps next to her or any idea about her life. Everyday is a struggle for her to go through the same introduction and same stories of her past from the only man whom she can trust, but is he being honest about the woman's past life?

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Review #387: Where She Went (If I Stay, #2) by Gayle Forman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall.” 

----Jodi Picoult

Gayle Forman, an award-winning best-selling author, has penned a heart-touching tale of young broken love, called, Where She Went which is the sequel to If I Stay. This book spins three years after Mia's accident and with Adam's POV who is a big rockstar in LA whereas Mia is finishing her graduation in Julliard. Not only that, we get to know who Adam really is and who he was when he met Mia for the first time.

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Review #383: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”

----Jodi Picoult

Paula Hawkins, the British international best-selling author, has penned a mind-blowing unputdownable debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, which has shook up the whole world with its intensity of thrill, mystery and unpredictable and shocking turn of events. The climax simply nails the whole story. The story revolves around a mid-aged, divorced, loner, alcoholic, jobless woman who is a regular commuter on the morning train and just like every other day she overlooks her window and enjoys the normal human life on the other side of the tracks. Until one day, she sees something that changes her life forever.

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Review #375: If I Stay (If I Stay, #1) by Gayle Forman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“And that's just it, isn't it? That's how we manage to survive the loss. Because love, it never dies, it never goes away, it never fades, so long as you hang on to it.”

----Gayle Forman

Gayle Forman, an award-winning best-selling author, has penned an incredible tale of young love as well as family love in her book, If I Stay, which is the first book in the If I Stay series. This series opens with Mia's heart-breaking story of loss and her passion for music with a ground-breaking decision on whether to fight for love when you have lost the most precious possession of your life- family. Now a major motion picture with the same name, directed by R. J. Cutler, starring, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jamie Blackley and many more.

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Review #351: Room by Emma Donoghue

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


“Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.”

----Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue, an Irish best-selling novelist, has penned a terrific tale about a five year old boy whose whole universe is centered inside the Room. The Room is a compelling story, told from a five year old boy's perspective, about determination, motherly love, bravery and finally stepping into a new universe where everything moves too fast.

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Review #332: Four Blondes by Candace Bushnell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



"Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together. "

----Liz Taylor

Candace Bushnell, an international best-selling author, has penned a sassy tale of four blond women from Manhattan, in her book, Four Blondes that narrates the tale of four different women, independent and strong-willed, who pave their way in the jungle called life by standing strong along with the men, fashion, age, needs and fame and to claim fame, they would do anything for it.

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Review #329: The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave #1) by Rick Yancey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”

----T.S. Eliot

Rick Yancey, an American author, has penned a terrific and thoroughly heart-wrenching tale of apocalypse, in his book, The 5th Wave, which is the first book in The 5th Wave series, that unfolds the end of the world situation when the world is taken control by some alien beings by capturing the minds of the humans and in the wake of this humdrum, a high school teenager must make some decisions by trusting no body on this planet to save her little brother.

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Review #308: Looking for Alaska by John Green

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze.” 

----John Green

John Green, an award-winning bestselling author, has penned his debut YA novel, Looking for Alaska that accounts the story of a teenage boy and how his life drastically changes when he goes to a boarding school.

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Feature & Follow #18: My Favorite Movies

Hi Good day guys,
Hope Y'all are doing great. Time for Friday fun!!!

It's time to have a new feature and follow blog post, which is a weekly meme hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee's View.



What is Feature and Follow Friday?
 
In simple words- to gain more followers either via GFC or Bloglovin'. So the very idea of having this feature and follow meme is to collect more new bloggers on the block and to make new blogger friends as well as followers. It is a great idea which was started out by Alison and  Rachel. Three Cheers for those two masterminds!

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Review #269: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.” 

----Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert, one of the greatest Western novelists who ever lived in France, had penned a beautiful and thoroughly realistic story about common life in a provincial town of France, Madame Bovary and when the book published in the year of 1857, it caused an outrage among the common people of then times, later the book was widely accepted and people had agreed that Flaubert have vividly portrayed the triviality of a common housewife with nothing good to do to pass her days, apart from her religion and her motherhood.

I was tempted to buy this book from Amazon after watching the movie version with the same title featuring Mia Wasikowska and Ezra Miller, that released last month and is directed by Sophie Barthes. Although the movie didn't intrigue me that much, but Emma's life, portrayed through Mia Wasikowska, left me enthralled with the gravity of her pain and her exceptions about married life falling short.

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Review #261: The Secret in Their Eyes by Eduardo Sacheri

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"The brevity or prolonging the life of a human being depends primarily on the flow of pain that person is forced to endure." 

----Eduardo Sacheri

Eduardo Sacheri, an Argentinean author, has penned a gripping novel, The Secret in Their Eyes which has later been translated into English after this book's movie adaption won an Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2010. So they call it "the novel that became an Oscar-winning film", which traces the story of a retired investigator trying to write a novel based on a decade old rape-cum-murder of a young married woman and in the process of going through the past, old memories as well as romances cloud up his soul thus re-opening the window to his much cherished past but it comes with a price and with some mind-blowing revelations both personal as well as political.

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Review #258: The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“The more you love,the more love you have to give.It's the only feeling we have which is infinite...” 

----Christina Westover, an American novelist

Patricia Highsmith, an American classic novelist, has penned an incredible tale of love and despair between two same-sex human beings, originally known as The Price of Salt. Later it was re-published with the title, Carol. And in the wake of Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage across all the states of USA, I chose to write the review of this beautiful same-sex love story which I read quite a few years ago.

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Review #249: The Selection (The Selection #1) by Kiera Cass

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“I hope you find someone you can't live without.I really do. And I hope you never have to know what it's like to have to try and live without them.”

----Kiera Cass

Kiera Cass, an American author, whose The Selectionseries has taken the whole YA-lit world by storm, no that's very true, so I, feeling bit left out from all the hype about this book, went ahead and bought out all the books(literally!) from this exciting dystopian series from Amazon India. Let's face it, it's not that brilliant as it claims to be. Yet still, somehow, the book has imprinted it's charm and glory into my heart. Maybe those impeccably gorgeous gowns and dresses did the trick!

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9 Must-Read Books before they hit the Silver Screen

Hello Good morning everyone,
It's been long since I wrote any blog post apart from review or interview or Friday memes, so keeping in mind with my new-year resolution, I will manage time to write bookish or may-be sometimes non-bookish blog posts! So today I'm featuring 9 books that you need to read before watching it on a big screen. And here's my list:

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Review #152: Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“True love is finding your soulmate in your best friend”

----Faye Hall, an Australian author

Indeed, the quote is very true, if we all could have a soulmate who is actually the best friend of our life. Cecelia Ahern's, the international best-selling Irish author, novel, Love, Rosie is a sweet love story between two childhood besties- a girl and a boy. Well, I wish, I could have read this book, before The Year I Met You, which is far more better and I guess the best of her creation till date. Love, Rosie falls short in the category of the characterization. We'll talk about that in a while, but now let's get into the synopsis part.

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For Fifty Shades Haters & Lovers!

Disclaimer: This post is not to irk up the Fifty Shades Haters or to imply that you should go and buy a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey and worship it.

Have you ever been to a place where 4-5 factions rule the democracy? Have you ever been to a place where you need to play deadly games to save your districts? Have you ever been to a city where you're neighbor is a vampire or werewolf? And why am I asking all these stupid questions, when the answer to all the above questions is "Yes, I've been there- in my fantasy world!" Right, there's the "F for fantasy word" to validate your support for either Divergent or The Hunger Games or The Vampire Academy or any of the best-selling fantasy book. Now my question becomes, are these books fall in the fiction category? Yes. So have you been to someone's bedroom where there are ropes and handcuffs tied to the bed? No, never. And why would anyone reveal that dark side to you. Anyways, let's stick to the NO answer to this question, but some have been there in their fantasy world. Similarly, Fifty Shades of Grey is a work of bad fiction, which destroys any realism attached to the world of BDSM even if there was any! So there's nothing to hate about the book- it's pure fiction, no relevance with any real life characters.

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Review #136: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.”
                                                              ---- Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy, an English author, spun a spectacular and classic tale of love, Far from the Madding Crowd whose movie adaption is going to release in the month of May, starring Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Tom Sturridge and Michael Sheen.

Synopsis:
The first of Thomas Hardy’s great novels, Far From the Madding Crowd established the author as one of Britain’s foremost writers. It also introduced readers to Wessex, an imaginary county in southwestern England that served as the pastoral setting for many of the author’s later works.
It tells the story of beautiful Bathsheba Everdene, a fiercely independent woman who inherits a farm and decides to run it herself. She rejects a marriage proposal from Gabriel Oak, a loyal man who takes a job on her farm after losing his own in an unfortunate accident. He is forced to watch as Bathsheba mischievously flirts with her neighbor, Mr. Boldwood, unleashing a passionate obsession deep within the reserved man. But both suitors are soon eclipsed by the arrival of the dashing soldier, Frank Troy, who falls in love with Bathsheba even though he’s still smitten with another woman. His reckless presence at the farm drives Boldwood mad with jealousy, and sets off a dramatic chain of events that leads to both murder and marriage.
A delicately woven tale of unrequited love and regret, Far from the Madding Crowd is also an unforgettable portrait of a rural culture that, by Hardy’s lifetime, had become threatened with extinction at the hands of ruthless industrialization.

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