2 states by Chetan Bhagat

A story really close to my heart.... A punju guy and a south indian girl... Sparks fly and parents have to be convinced... Difficult but very well expressed.

rating : 3.5 star

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Really nice book. A little pale in comparison to Angels and Demons or Da Vinci Code but nevertheless, suerb research done and awesome speed. Don't feel like keeping the book dpwn once it s in your hands.

A complex plot of codes, murders, physchotics, research... Keeps you on the edge of the chair. rad it to believe it

Overall ratingL 4.5 stars

Separation of Power

Reading 450 odd pages to get a story of 90 pages is all that would say. A political game, too may characters and a confused plot... All in all, not worth the time spent. A different story about tow nations colliding over a common point.

Rating 1.5 star

The Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer

Danny Cartfield, friend of Bernie Wilson, stabbed the latter was the claim made by Spencer Craig, Gerald Payne, Toby Mortimer and Lawrence Davenport. It is a fight of Danny and Beth, fiance of Danny and sister of Bernie against the wrongs done to them and their families. Big Al and Nick Moncrieff were the support systems that Danny found in prison. The real fun starts after Nick is dead and Nick is dead because someone mistook him for Danny. Now it becomes a fight for Danny to not only fight for himself and Beth but also to avenge the death of Nick.

Really good book, Nice pace though could have been faster but the climax was a little incomplete.

Overall rating: 4.5 star

Stone Cold by David Baldacci

The least sais the better of this book. The book with three parallel lies running never cross ito each other making you wonder if it is the same book that is being read or a collection of 3 books. Not worth the time specnt on the book. There is never a moment where the reader would be at the edge of his seat inspite of it being a thriller.
Overall rating: 1 star

Babyland by Holly Chamberlin

The central character of a novel is a 37 and half year old single woman who runs a business of event management. She gets engaged to a mlti-millionaire Ross who is a perfectionist in most ways, always prim and proper and full of social graces. Both of them were getting along just fine till she realises that she is pregnant. Always of the idea, that she would never have a baby, the novel talks about how she adjusts herself to her new lifestyle. Ross and family are overjoyed with the news and suddenly the pending marriage is not of much importance as compared to the baby shower. In the process, our lady realises that her importance is limited to the fact that she has been the vehicle of the gorgeous Ross' baby. Once she loses her baby, she is dumped like a hot potato with numerous accusations. It is then she realised that she was gonna be marrying Ross because he was good and settled in life but she did not love him and vice versa. She also gets to know about the person she loved, who was her dear friend Jack, who had a past of his own, who was not as gorgeous and glorious as Ross was, who had a baby with another woman Leslie.... Yet she loved him inspite of that...

Makes for a very interesting reading on a rainy afternoon. Brings into focus the dilemmas a girl faces as she chooses the one she is gonna spend her life with...

Rating: 3.5 star

The Secret by Rhonda Byrnes

The Secret was old knowledge ina new packing. Though the packing was just awesome would say. Not enough to simply comment on the book. One must read and re-read the book to experience the amgic. There is something like magic that the human mind can conjure and the same has been very well illustrated in the book. A perfect book when one's feeling low or unwell.

Overall rating: 4.5 stars

One Night @ A Call Centre by Chetan Bhagat

It is about a night at a call centre with weird ongoings including a call from God. Vroom, Esha, Shyam, Priyanka, Radhika and Military Uncle are the characters that define the novel. In one night, all of them come to know they may lose their jobs to rightsizing of the firm. Vroom proposes Esha and gets rejected. He also comes to know Esha's nefarious activities. Esha gets to know that the one inch of her height would not get her a modelling role even if she slept with hundred thousands designers. Shyam realises that his relationship wih Priyanka was over. Priyanka was about to start jer life with Ganesh, an NRI software geek who has a bungalow with a swimming pool and is about to buy a Lexus. Radhika, who was anyways troubled by her mother-in-law and was on anti-depressants, came to know that her husband was having an affair with someone else. Military Uncle realised that neither his son nor his daugter-in-law appreciated him contacting his grandson. All the frustrated souls were on their way back from a lounge when the vehicle crashed and landed on the framework of a construciton site. There was no network to summon help. Suddenly Shyam's phone starts ringing and he realises it is GOD calling. God gives them a piece of advice on how ro live their life and whenever they are confused to take some time off and focus on that inner voice which is God speaking. Life can be lived with intellignce, imagination, self-confidence and a little bit of failure.

Good read for a lazy Sunday or a train journey perhaps. Style of writing is strictly mediocre. Does not help the vocabulary in an sort of a way. Pretty wannabe at times. Unbelievable but God is really that small voice that tells us this is wrong and that is correct.

Overall rating: 2.5 star

Thanks for the memories by Cecelia Ahern

Joyce, a 33 year old, has a miscarriage with a revelation of a loveless marriage, resulting into a complete breakdown of her 10 year old marriage. Due to severe loss of blood, Joyce is given blood from a general blood bank that leaves her completely changed as a person. Her tastes, likes, dislikes had ceased to be her own and suddenly she was speaking about art, architecture and foreign languages as if she were a connoiseur. She keeps bumping into Justin, the blood donor. Both are not aware that he is the donor of the blood which is why she was having identical tastes, interests and even memories. A series of stalking incidents bring Joyce the knowledge about the donor being Justin. The plot ultimately ends with Justin wooing Joyce after a series of issues including even assuming Joyce is mad.

Cecelia Ahern, author of 'P.S. I Love You', fails to make an impact like her first bestseller. Predictable plot, repetitive characters but charged with an emotional writing that albeit does not leave you in tears like P.S. I Love You. The plot is so surreal that it makes you even want to reconsider before donating or getting blood. Cecelia had created magic in her previous book but the same touch was slightly missing in this one. A good read for a rainy day although doesn't really make you feel fuzzy or feel like cozying up to someone special.

Overall rating: 3 star

Lajja by Taslima Nasrin

Lajja is a description cum documentary on the spiral effects of the demolition of Babri Masjid in Bangladesh. The wounds inflicted upon the Hindus, the torture, the fires, snatching the porperties of the Hindus made for a very gruesme reading. The facts on such behaviour were put all through the book. It was the story of Dr Sudhamoy Dutta who did not want to leave Bangladesh because of the torture, was forced to ultimately leave his homeland after his daughter Nilanjana was abducted and there was no trace of her. His son Suranjan had lost his first love Parveen who was a Muslim to a Muslim businessman. His wife Neelima had given up singing hymns as it was considered as characterless. They had lost their ancestral property and the once upon a rich family was forced to live from hand to mouth. In the wake of the unrest, even Muslim friends were not acknowledging the relationship they shared because none had the courage to do so.

Overall, a very serious book. Not meant for the typical rainy day reading. Sounds like a newspaper article at places. Very poor language, practically sounds like someone is translating Hindi into English.

Rating: 2.5 star

Fleeced by Carol Higgins Clark

Regan Reilly, the central charater is a private investigator in California and is home to attend the crime convention conducted by her mom. One of her friends, Thomas, the manager of Settler's Club calls to inform her about a death that loked like a normal death but may have been a murder. The death of Nat, the jeweller seemed to be like a murder since the diamonds worth 4 million dollars had been missing and he was found in a bathtub that he never used. The pace is fine but doesn't still set the heart racing. There was no conlcusion as to whether Nat was killed and if he was killed who was the murderer was left open-ended. The diamonds were found since I guess they had to be to end the story.

Fleeced by Carol Higgins Clark was one of her disapoointing works. She has been one of my favourite writers but this time around clearly "Fleeced" fails to make its mark. The pace of the book or the writing fails to leave you at the dge of your chair. The lesser I write, the better! Did not even deserve a mention. All in all, a disapoointment or her fans.

Rating: 2 star.

Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho

Veronika decides to die is about a young girl Veronika, who decides to die since she is tired of the monotony in her life. She had studied law but had taken up a librarian's job due to the job security it offered. Her life was a routine of going to the library, then with her latest boyfriend and then back to her hostel, the typical reason being the timelines at the convent. She is so tired of the routine that she decides to end her life with an overdose of sleeping pills as any other mode would be too painful and would also embarrass her parents. While waiting for her death after consuming an entire bottle of sleeping pills, she was reading a newspaper where a journalist did not know Slovenia, the place where she stayed. She was so upset that she left a suicide note in the name of the newspaper and the journalist. Unfortunately she did not die from such an overdose as she was young enough to take the blow. However, she landed up in Vilette, the mental hospital because of the suicide note she left behind.. Who would kill herself for a journalist who did not know Slovenia, except a mad woman? She met Zedka who suffered from depression and wanted to have a happy life with her husband and children, one of her first friends at Vilette. Mari, a guide, who was suffering from panic attacks, wanted to spend the rest of her days doing social service. Eduard, the great love of her life, who was a schizophrenic, wanted to become a painter to paint the Visions of Paradise and for whom she played the piano with all that she had. Dr. Igor who was the doctor in charge of the hospital and was writing a thesis on effects of Vitriol, had told her that her heart was weak and would only last for at best a week. Veronika is terrified of the wait for death and decides to live the remainder of her life each moment at a time. It is because of this dying girl that all the inmates of the mental hospital understood how to live their life to the fullest, taking risks they always wanted to, doing things they always wanted to. She had taught them how to live again. Veronika and Eduard fell in love with her playing the beautiful sonnets and sonatas and decided to escape Vilette and go to the castle. They hugged each other when there was a clutching pain in her heart again and she wished for death in his arms. Lo and behold! The next morning she is still alive and they have one more day to go. Little did they know that the pains in her heart were artificial and caused by medication administered by Dr Igor who wanted to try this experiment to know what is it that made the essence of life. The fear of death only made people live their life fuly. Even if Veronika went to any other doctor she would know that the story about her heart was untrue but the way she lived her life thinking it would be no more was something that would never be repeated.

One of Paulo Coelho's very well written books. A wonderful lesson on how to live. At some point, heart in heart, all of us know that we have forgotten how to live, this is a book that makes you want to live all over again. And people who really know how to live are often called mad! All that you would want to do is t be done and today is something that we miss out since we assume life will be today, tomorrow and a year hence also. We forget that if life were to go the next momenht, we would have those desires left unfulfilled, that part of life woul dhave never been consumed.

Rating: 4 star

Almost SIngle by Advaita Kala

Almost Single is a refreshing new perspective on being single by a Delhi girl. The story is about three girls, two of whom are single and one happily divorced. A story about how the three girls take risks in their lives, Misha takes on upon herself to get hitched, Anushka who dumps her husband when she founds him cheating on her and Aisha who does not look around to get hitched but finds a particular Karan Verma due to the conspiracy of fate and God. Misha sells insurance part time, Anushka a happily married homemaker and Aisha, a Guest Relations Manager who worked with Grand Orchid. Misha keeps hooking people and does not find Mr Right and ultimately finds herself in the company of her father's elder brother's friend's son and starts loving his company and decides to get married to him. Anushka had always been a devoted homemaker and did not know anything other than her childhood sweetheart Sameer. She ultimately dumps him on the grounds of infidelity and moves oon to do her own business in Italy with another partner. Aisha keeps meeting one of her guests Karan Verma in the funniest of circumstances like when she was wrapping a car with toilet paper or when she walks into him naked in the porch of his terrace room. A series of hilarious incidents before Karan asks her out and introduces her to his Gucci Mama. Aisha being Aisha was scared of commitment and turns him down and suddenly on her way to her native place Nashik, Eureka! and she realises it would be better to stay with a person who loves her than have a loveless marriage like her Lata didi. She scampers off to Mumbai where Karan had gone for some business and poses to be his wife and goes to his room and is in the bubble bath with a bottle of wine when Karan's boss walks in. All hell breaks loose and she has a hard time explaining to Karan how and whta she was doing in that room. Karan finally understands since the two rooms were booked in his name, the confusion.

Very interesting and keeps you hooked on! All in all, keeps you in splits all through out! If you have a bad day, opt for the book since it just makes you feel that there is a world where mistakes keep happening and mistakes are but natural and these mistakes could sometimes be so crucial that they bring Karan and Aisha closer and closer to each other until they decide yes, they are meant for each other. Leaves you with a feeling if only it happened in your life. Plot was perfect but at places does leave you with "I've read this before" taste.

Rating: 4 star

Brida by Paulo Coelho

Brida is an ordinary girl next door in search of magic, that links the visible world with the invisible world. She tries learning through the Tradition of the Sun and the Tradition of the Moon and ultimately finds her true calling in the latter mode. On learning about magic through the Tradition of the Moon by Wicca, Brida learns that Lorens is her soulmate. However, on exploring the Tradition of the Sun, she learns that Magus who teaches her the Tradiiton of the Sun, is also her soulmate which causes the confusion. She realises that there could be multiple soulmates since there is a part of her in each of the persons. However, she ultimately opts for Lorens because in him, she sees a world that she has never known.

This book of Paulo Coelho is one of the most highly over-rated books in recent times. It talks about magic in the form of black magic, wizardry and witchcraft, which is highly unthinkable. The book also digresses from magic to past life relationships and the connection between the two is not very distinct. The scientific explanation for the past life relationships do make interesting reading but when it comes to magic, it loses its charm. All in all, easily missable book.

Rating: 3 star