Sometimes books can be really demanding.They seek your undivided attention,leaving you with very little time to do anything else.My weekends are usually reserved for reading and consequently I hardly get any work done at all.This time around however I was looking to read something without investing too much of myself in it.
The No 1 Ladies Detective agency is a series Im very fond of.These books are an acquired taste.When I was first introduced to them several years ago,I was skeptical.However,I believe in giving every book a chance and I still remember the day I sat with the first book in the series and just like that I was hooked.This is the 16th instalment in the series and my 16th book as well.I must admit that these past months saw me checking time and again if the latest one was out and happily enough there it was on 27th October.I have written about one more book in this series here on my blog.The rest were of course read before this blog was created.
This time around the story takes a rather unusual turn with Mma Ramotswe being packed off on a forced vacation by the tenacious Mma Makutsi.However Mma Ramotswe is ill at ease even though she reluctantly agrees to take time off.As a result she finds herself unable to relax and finds that peace is short-lived when she encounters a young trouble-maker named Samuel.But as she learns more about his story she feels the need to go out of her way and help this child in any way she can.
She is also concerned about Mma Makutsi not being able to handle the agency well in her absence.This is compounded by the fact that Mr Polopetsi secretly comes to her for help and tells her about a rather complicated case which he thinks is beyond Mma Makutsi's capacity.A well-respected Botswanan politician who is no longer alive is up for a major public honor and his reputation is being called into question by his rivals.His sister has contacted the agency to investigate these claims.However there is more to it than meets the eye.How this investigation changes a lot of things and viewpoints is what this story is all about.
My Views:
Alexander McCall Smith delivers every single time.At this point,I cannot say if I have grown more fond of the characters or the stories but these books will always have a very special place in my heart.I feel I read them just to know how the characters are doing.Its like meeting up with old friends after ages.And the titles are so charming----'The woman who walked in sunshine','Blue shoes and happiness'.Oh I could go on and on.They are simple stories and this is exactly why they are so endearing.They talk about simple things like the rain,the cattle,the blue skies,the land.Stuff which we have to be reminded of in our fast-paced world.Dont you just feel like escaping this world sometimes,go to a calm place where the mad frenzy cannot touch you.These books do just that,they manage to take me far from the madding crowd.They take me into a world I long to be in.Im an old soul,I often feel I dont belong here.
Smith finds a way to get all the characters together in each and every story.It might be a brief mention but it surely takes one back a long way.And of course,there are lessons to be learnt,sometimes they are obvious and sometimes very subtle.Sometimes we need to learn to trust and let go.We need to understand that everyone deserves to be treated with compassion.Mma Ramotswe is very selfless when it comes to helping the needy.In this story she rightly observes that "an act of selfishness,some small unkindess,could seem every bit as grave as a dreadful crime,the size of the secret said nothing about its weight on the soul".
A lot of things fall in place in the end.We learn that nobody is above human failings.
For fans of this series,there is also an interesting bit about Violet Sephotho,Mma Maktutsi's arch enemy.All this makes it a perfect read on a relaxed weekend.
I rate it a 4 out of 5.
I'm always up for a good thriller.I like it even more when its fast paced.This book caught my attention while I was browsing lists for my next read.I wasnt disappointed.
The story tells us about how two estranged sisters come together to find the truth about a harrowing tragedy,twenty years earlier,that devastates their lives.
Claire and Lydias sister Julia just vanished from their lives without a trace.Despite doing everything within their capacity,the disappearance remains a mystery.One thing leads to another and everything changes within the family and the sisters havent spoken to each other for all these years and lead two very different lives.
Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire while Lydia is a single mother struggling to make ends meet.However another disappearance of a teenage girl after all these years and the murder of a middle aged man opens a can of worms.The sisters ,bound together by shared loss ,unearth secrets that will shock,surprise and shatter lives.
My Views:
This book had me spellbound right from the word go.I have read thrillers but Karin Slaughter took this story to another level.It shocked me by the graphic violence and the utterly gripping plot.You better have a strong heart to stomach the gory detailing.The characters are well-developed and very believable.They have distinctly different personalities.
This story shows how a crime affects an entire family and how each member copes in different ways.Parts of this book got me very emotional,especially the fathers heartfelt letters to Julia.I normally dont use expletives but this saw me unleashing the worst expletives possible(in my mind) for the psychopath.The details of the horrific acts are very graphic and make you want to throw up.These get a bit repetitive towards the end but it just ends up building a fury in the reader making him want to know what is going to happen next.I had no idea that things like this actually happen in real life.The world just got sicker and perverse after reading this book.
The end was high intensity and satisfying.It couldnt have ended any other way.I see this one being made into a movie.This is easily the best psychological crime thriller I have read this year.
I rate it a 4 out of 5.
I've been slacking.The end of the year has that effect on me.It makes me morose to think about all that I could have done and didnt.I also havent met my goal to read the set number of books this year and with just a month to go,it seems far from attainable now.However on the positive side,i've read a few very interesting books this year and although I have a huge TBR pile,I intend to slowly work my way through it.
The book Ive just finished reading is 'DROWN' by a Dominican American author Junot Diaz who won the 2008 Pulitzer prize for fiction.Diaz was born in Santo Domingo,the capital of the Dominican Republic and lived there till he immigrated with his family to New Jersey when he was six years old.DROWN is his debut short story collection.
The book has ten very different and interesting short stories which are largely autobiographical and portray his life in the Dominican Republic and later as an immigrant in New Jersey.These stories are connected to each other and have to be read in the order in which they are narrated rather than randomly picking any one.
My Views:
We read sometimes to enter another world and get a view into lives we otherwise would have never known to exist.This book offered me a glimpse into a completely different way of life and living.
The way people react to circumstances,the way their childhood is shaped,the way they turn out to be who they are is influenced largely by where they are coming from.Different lives,different stories.
There is a stark contrast between his homeland in Santo Domingo and life in NYC and New Jersey.The feelings of rootlesness,leaving a country and culture behind in hopes of attaining the great American dream and the emotional upheaval that comes with it, is a price every immigrant has to pay.These stories are written in a very raw and direct way,like how it actually happened,sometimes lewd and the effect of this kind of powerful writing is that it manages to pull you into his story and view it like your own.It succeeds in evoking emotions on either end of the spectrum.
I have mentioned my views about each story in brief.
1.Ysrael:
Tells the story of Yunior and his brother Rafa in the Dominican Republic,searching for a neighbourhood boy,Ysrael,whose face was bitten off and disfigured by a pig,causing him to wear a mask at all times.
This story to me was of a chidhood destroyed,when young boys grow lawlessly and quickly beyond their age,with noone to guide them or set a particular code of conduct.Rafa is wise beyond his years and has lost his childhood.They know they have to scrimp on food and a bus ride.Money is scarce.On the other hand it also talks about Ysraels hope of being called to America and get treated by doctors there.
And I also learnt a lot of Spanish swear and cuss words.
2.Fiesta,1980:
Tells us about a family party in the Bronx,hosted by Yuniors aunt.How the kids know that the father is two timing his mother with a Puerto Rican woman yet choose to be silent about it and Yuniors fondness for his mother who was always very compassionate and tolerant.We are also shown a very ugly side to his father who is strict to the point of madness.It was heartbreaking to read Yuniors attempts at overcoming his carsickness in the fear that it would annoy his belligerent father,who was more concerned about his brand new VW than about his son.The punishments meted out to the child are deplorable.He writes that they were 'imaginative'.Makes you wonder.
3.Aurora:
A very strange narrative.Talks about his life as a drug dealer and his romantic relationship with Aurora,a heroin addict.Complete futility was what this chapter meant to me.The inability to love or have a normal relationship.To not know what is 'normal' anymore.Drugs,their easy accessibilty and their capability to ruin lives.Yet the desire to hope somewhere which they know is just a dream.This was too hard to read.
4.Aguantando:
His need for a father he never knew.He writes that his father left for New York when he was four but 'since I couldnt remember a single moment with him,I excused him from all nine years of my life'.The mother's struggles with raising them up single handedly.Being sent off to live with different relatives when finances were bleak.His fathers empty promises of coming to fetch them.Missing a father who was never there and dreaming about his fathers visit which would eventually turn out very differently.
5.Drown:
Describes the narrators relationship with a close friend Beto and eventually falling out with him because of his sexual advances.Being betrayed in the most basic of relations.Living a life which makes your feel that nothing will ever shock you anymore.Sadness and Anger.
6.Boyfriend:
Yunior is dealing with his own heartbreak and simultaneously overhearing the ups and downs of a relationship between his neighbours through the walls.This was also about trying to see if he could establish some bond with the woman.I guess this story was about trying to move on after a break up.
7.Edison,New Jersey:
Yuniors time as a pool table delivery man with his partner Wayne.He is now world-weary with a lot of bottled up rage.We see the kind of person he turns out to be.But we know where he is coming from.It also marks the end of a romantic relationship.
8.How to date a Browngirl,Blackgirl,Whitegirl or Halfie:
Lots of advice on how to behave or act depending upon the ethnicity and social class of your date.Weird,Unemotional,Artificial,Screwed -up.
9.No Face:
Ysraels story from his own perspective and his long wait for the facial reconstruction surgery by Canadian Doctors.This was extremely sad to read.
10.Negocios:
After all that he told us about his father,this chapter at the end tries to redeem his father,by showing us what exactly Rafael went through after coming to the United States.His struggles with language,boarding,financial issues.Marrying an American to obtain citizenship.The gnawing guilt at leaving his family behind.The other womans point of view and realization.Too little...too late.
My only grouse was that a lot of spanish words are scattered liberally and it was difficult to discern the meanings of a few phrases.Apart from that ,the book is a very honest portrayal of a very fractured life.
I rate it a 3 and a half out of 5.
Feels good to be back here!I have a very good explanation for why I wasn't around.I thought I could outdo myself and set my heart on reading three different books at the same time.Turns out to be not the best of ideas.But anyhow,the one I managed to read first gets written about first.
This is my third Cormoran Strike novel.I had read 'The Cuckoo's Calling' and 'The Silkworm' and developed a fondness for Strike,for his brooding and taciturn nature and also the ability to take the bull by the horns every single time.This time around the story starts a bit differently.
It begins with a severed leg being sent to his secretary Robin accompanied by the lyrics of a rock group called the Blue Oyster Cult.The lyrics are as weird as the crime is grisly.This immediately leads to wide spread media coverage and causes Strike to lose any business which would come his way.They soon come to know that the killer is targeting Strike through Robin because Blue Oyster Cult is related to Strikes past.Having made more than a few enemies in his murky past,Strike immediately zeroes down to four possible suspects.Jeff Whittaker,his sadistic stepfather,who was acquitted of murdering Strike's mother.Noel Brockbank,a pedophile,who sexually assaulted his stepdaughter and managed to still run free despite Strikes efforts,Donald Laing,a sociopath who violently assaulted his wife and was sentenced to prison based on Strikes evidence and a gangster Malley,known for cutting off an enemy's penis.
Being unhappy with the way the case is being handled by the police,Strike and Robin take matters into their own hands.However the killer is brutal and relentless and time is running out.
My Views:
This story started with a bang,just the way I like it.Each chapter begins with a weird and sinister quote from the 'thinking mans' heavy metal band(whatever that means) 'Blue Oyster Cult'.The serial killer,a necrophiliac,is an absolute psychopath with a fetish for sliced up body parts.He actually keeps them as trophies.The Strike-Robin magnetic appeal is as strong as ever.In fact the subtle undercurrents made up for a good read.
However as I proceeded further ,the story went all over the place.There were too many things going on sometimes,prostitution,drug abuse,pedophilia and the psycho killer was side-tracked.Too many mundane details thrown here and there which distracted me a bit from the main plot.
However its easy to hang in there and see where it is going.The killer made it interesting.Horrible but interesting.Lots of gruesome scenes when it comes to him though,involving maiming and mutilation.You have been warned.And there are chapters from his point of view as well,which are just too creepy and terrible.Takes us inside the mind of a fetishistic necrophiliac seeking revenge.
This story was Robin's to a major extent and we get to know the tough woman that she is.We are also given a glimpse into her traumatic past,which was briefly mentioned in the previous two books.The Strike-Robin chemistry was awesome as always and I wanted Mathew out of the way.He was pathetic as usual.There were some new interesting characters thrown in as well.
I pulled an all-nighter for this one,got a bit distracted in between but persisted till the end.And no I couldnt figure out who the killer was this time around.(the previous two books I had managed fairly well)This book is definitely more macabre than the previous two.How they get about identifying 'him' is very interesting.
Read it for Cormoran and Robin,they certainly seem like old friends to me now.The ending was pretty awesome.Cant wait to see how the next one begins!
I rate it a 4 out of 5.
