Hey All…
From next week onwards, I will be not using this blog anymore! Yup, I decided to change my blog name and make the blog diverse and explore on wider range besides book reviews. So for all my followers, I suggest you check out my new website, chocolatebookluver.wordpress.com. This new blog will contain not only book reviews but also about travel, music and also food!
I enjoyed receiving response from all my followers and don’t forget to follow my new blog!
Adios!
Hello All!
Welcome to the first blog of the month of August! Today I have just finished reading Jodi Piccoult’s book, The Pact and couldn’t wait to give my honest opinion and review about the book! So here it goes!
The Pact–Jodi Picoult
Until the phone calls came at three o’clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is dead—shot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father’s cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pact—leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
From New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult—one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction—comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence.
Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Avon (August 29, 2006)
Language: English
Genre–Contemporary/Domestic Life/Family Life/Romance
I have done a blog on Jodi Picoult’s books before–one is Storyteller and the other Nineteen Minutes. This will be my Jodi Picoult’s third book that I will be doing a review on.
To make a small note, most of Picoult’s books are based on daily life issues and addresses on one main point. For example, if you have followed my blog on one of her books, The Storyteller, Picoult dealt with Nazi and Holocaust survivor and the basis of forgiveness.
In this book, the Pact, Picoult uses the teen suicide as a main theme of the book which is actually a sensitive topic even today.
So here’s the summary of the story–Chris and Emily have known each other since they were born. Their parents were next door neighbors and friends too. Everyone thought that Chris and Emily would end up being together someday, like a perfect couple. But deep inside, Emily is suffering–suffering so much that she wants to end her life. And Chris, despite the fact that he did not want Emily to die helps her to kill herself only to end up becoming a suspect that he murdered her.
So let’s point out the things that I actually liked.
Now let’s get to the parts where I didn’t like.
Overall, I will rate this book as…
Stay tuned for my next blog!
Hey All!
So I thought of doing a little blog post about the books that I want to read. Currently, I am reading Jodi Piccoult’s The Pact followed by Eat, Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Spider Bones by Kathy Reich. The list that I am going to put on the blog, I don’t have these books–I am planning to buy these books in near future and hopefully I will read the books!
So I will list out five books that I want to read or hoping to get my hands on that book.
The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.
OK, the reason why I want to read the book is simply because the title is intriguing and delicious–yup delicious. Lemon cake sounds so good at it. Even though the rating for this book is average, I am curious to read the book where the little girl feels her mother’s emotions through a piece of cake.
2. The Wife between us–Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
A novel of suspense that explores the complexities of marriage and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife and her obsession with her replacement.
You will assume you are reading about a woman about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves.
You will assume the first wife was a disaster and that the husband was well rid of her.
You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships.
Assume nothing.
Discover the next blockbuster novel of suspense, and get ready for the read of your life.
As many of fellow bloggers know, I love reading thriller books, having read Gone Girl and the Girl on the Train books, especially the ones where that will make the reader sit on the edge of the seat. I am dying to read this book.
3. The Silent Wife–Kerry Fisher
Lara’s life looks perfect on the surface. Gorgeous doting husband Massimo, sweet little son Sandro and the perfect home. Lara knows something about Massimo. Something she can’t tell anyone else or everything Massimo has worked so hard for will be destroyed: his job, their reputation, their son. This secret is keeping Lara a prisoner in her marriage.
Maggie is married to Massimo’s brother Nico and lives with him and her troubled stepdaughter. She knows all of Nico’s darkest secrets – or so she thinks. The one day she discovers a letter in the attic which reveals a shocking secret about Nico’s first wife Caitlin. Will Maggie set the record straight or keep silent to protect those she loves?
For a family held together by lies, the truth will come at a devastating price.
A heart-wrenching, emotionally gripping read for fans of Amanda Prowse, Liane Moriarty and Diane Chamberlain
Another intense thriller which I am hoping to read.
4. We were the Lucky Ones–Georgia Hunter
Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive—and to reunite—We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds
“Love in the face of global adversity? It couldn’t be more timely.” —Glamour
It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety.
As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere.
An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.
Besides thrillers and mysteries, as many of you know, I am also into historical fiction–particularly on Holocaust and WWII. This book has sparked my interest and have been wanting to read this book.
Last but not least…
5. Before we were yours–Lisa Wingate
Two families, generations apart, are forever changed by a heartbreaking injustice in this poignant novel, inspired by a true story, for readers of Orphan Train and The Nightingale.
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize that the truth is much darker. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together—in a world of danger and uncertainty.
Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions—and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or redemption.
Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong
Again, being a historical buff and inspired by true event, I so want to read this book.
So what do you think of my list? Do you also want to read them? Leave a comment below!
Hey y’all!
So I have finished reading Paper Towns, a young adult fiction written by John Green who also the wrote the famous book The Fault in Our Stars (which is one of his best books). So anyway this book is made into a movie but I haven’t watched the movie yet but read the book.
So here goes my review…
Paper Towns
From the #1 bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down and The Fault in Our Stars
Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery
#1 New York Times Bestseller
USA Today Bestseller
Publishers Weekly Bestseller
Now a major motion picture
When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night—dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q.
Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers.
Paperback: 305 pages
Publisher: Speak; Reprint edition (September 22, 2009)
Language: English
Genre–Young Adult fiction, mystery
John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan), and The Fault in Our Stars. His many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers (youtube.com/vlogbrothers) and co-created the online educational series CrashCourse (youtube.com/crashcourse). You can join the millions who follow him on Twitter @johngreen and Instagram @johngreenwritesbooks or visit him online at johngreenbooks.com.
John lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana.
All right, so here are the things I liked
Things I didn’t like
Overall I rate this book as…
Three stars
Anyway I hope you enjoyed my review! Stay tuned for my next blog!
Hello fellow readers and friends!
I know I have been away from the blog for a while but I have been busy with my piano classes ( yes, I started my own piano classes…for beginners) and so I didn’t have much time to read books. However, I will try as much as I can to start reading books again!
So here is a tentative list of books that I will be blogging in the month of August
Paper Towns–John Green–Anyone watched the movie? I haven’t but I am reading the book currently. A young adult book written by the same author who wrote the Fault in Our Stars.
Next, I will be reading the Pact by Jodi Piccoult. Yes, I know I have read her books before but this book is supposed to be good.So I will be doing a blog on these two books starts in the first two weeks of August so stay tuned!
Hello everyone! I am back again!
I know I am bad at blogging but to be honest, I was out of the country–I was on a vacation to Japan (my birth country) and am writing a novel currently (hush hush, more details on it later). Anyway, I finished reading Lilac Girls by Matha Hall Kelly and so thought I would share some insight into it.
This blog is going to be a little different from the normal blogs–in fact this will be more about how I felt after reading the book.
So here goes.
Lilac Girls
New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.
An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspecting neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences.
For the ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. Once hired, though, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.
The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (February 28, 2017)
Language: English
Genre–Historical Fiction
Martha is a native New Englander who lives in Connecticut and Martha’s Vineyard. She worked as an advertising copywriter for many years, raised three wonderful children who are now mostly out of the nest and Lilac Girls is her first novel. She is hard at work on the prequel to Lilac Girls. You’ll find more info about the true story behind Lilac Girls at her website: http://www.marthahallkelly.com and on Pinterest.
I am simply going to be telling my thoughts about this book.
Caroline Ferriday is an American socialite, who is bent on helping orphans in French orphanages and later on to women who are known as “Rabbits” who were victims of medical experiments conducted at Ravensbruck Concentration camp, the only women’s camp during the Nazi rule in Germany.
Herta Oberheuser is a German doctor who replies to an ad for a post of doctor at Ravensbruck Concentration camp and gets involved in a series of sulfanamide experiments conducted on the political prisoners of the camp. Both Herta and Caroline are real people.
Kasia Kuzmerick, the only fictional character in the book is a Polish teenager who was involved in the underground movement until she and along with her sister and mother were sent to Ravensbruck Concentration camp. She becomes a victim of those medical experiments. The aftermath of the experiments, the way she coped with her mother’s sudden disappearance (or death) shocks the reader and takes a pity and sympathy towards the character.
But probably, my favorite character and inspiration of this book will be Caroline Ferriday, for her endless work to help the needy people including raising money to bring the “Rabbits” like Kasia to the USA for medical treatments.
The reader will experience a striking contrast between Caroline’s glamorous life in New York to the grim situation in the concentration camps. Sometimes, when I have to read the life of Kasia inside the concentration camp, I have to pause myself simply because I felt like I was in the camp with Kasia (which explains good writing skills of Hall)
Overall, we should never forget Holocaust, a perfect book for anyone interested in history.
Stay tuned for my next blog!
Hello! I finished with reading the Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn…the much hyped and talked about psychological thriller!
The Woman in the Window
For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.
It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . .
Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.
Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.
What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.
Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.
Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: William Morrow; 1st Edition edition (January 2, 2018)
Language: English
Genre–Crime/Murder/Suspense/Thriller
OK, So I have been wanting to read this book for ages as it is one of the most hyped and talked about thrillers and number one New York Times Bestsellers. And when I saw this book at the bookstore, I was thrilled and bought the book so I could read it! Anyway…the story revolved around a woman named Dr. Anna Fox, who seems to be suffering from depression and is agoraphobic. In the beginning, we wonder why she and her husband are separated and that her daughter is living with her husband and that she might be dealing with the separation (only through the middle of the novel we realize that her husband and her daughter died in a car crash). She spies on her neighbors and then comes the family of Russells–a typical normal family. And then she befriends Mrs. Russel and then one day, she witnesses Mrs. Russel being killed. The only thing is, no one believes her–not even cops and she sees a different Mrs. Russel who seems to be alive and sound. Did she imagine the crime scene in her head or did she really see it?
OK, I will tell the things I like
However there are certain things that I didn’t like
Anyway I will give this book a four star rating!
Stay tuned for my next blog!
Hello Guys!
So I have been super busy lately and I have started my piano classes for young kids ( yup) and also I am doing embroidery as well and by night comes, I feel so tired that I feel lazy to blog ( I know it’s bad) so anyway, I am back again and I thought I will share with you the tentative list of books I will be blogging from May 26th to June 26th!
Books I am currently reading
The much talked psychological thriller and I am almost done with this book!
2. The Lilac Girls by Martha Kelley
I am still reading this book. Probably by first or second week of June, I will be finished reading with this book and stay tuned for that!
3. Cinnamon Gardens–Shyam Selvadurai
A book written by a Sri Lankan Canadian author, I will start reading this book once I finish with the Lilac Girls!
Stay tuned for my blog review of The Woman in the Window coming up soon!
Hey all! The first blog of the month of May! So I finished reading Going La La by Alexandra Potter a couple of days ago but these days I have been obsessed watching this Korean drama named Dong Yi (do you like watching Korean dramas) that I completely forgot to feed my blog!
So here’s my review!
Going La la– Alexandra Potter
What do you when your boyfriend tells you he wants space?You give him six thousand miles of it…Frankie’s life is falling apart. In less than a week she’s gone from having everything – a great job, lovely flat and gorgeous Hugh – to having nothing at all.Devastated, dumped and on the dole, she packs her bags and flies to Los Angeles to stay with an old friend. Her goal? To sort out her life and get over Hugh. She does not, repeat not, go to LA to fall head over heels for an American photographer called Reilly and to run away to Las Vegas.But what happens when Hugh wants her back? Who will she choose? And is it really true that whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?Alexandra Potter’s deliciously funny romantic comedy is for every girl who has ever dreamt of running away to Hollywood… or just wished she could reach for the stars.
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (February 1, 2012)
Language: English
Genre:- Romance/Women’s Fiction
Alexandra Potter is the best-selling author of ELEVEN novels that can be described as romantic comedies with a magical twist. Born in England, she has lived in London, Sydney, Australia and New York and LA, and can currently be found clocking up too many air miles travelling the globe researching ideas for her new book…
So I have read one of Alexandra Potter’s novel before this year–Love Detective and I have written my review based on Love Detective. I have become fascinated with Alexandra Potter’s novels after reading Love Detective that I started reading her other novel, Going La La and this is her second novel that I am reading.
Like the Love Detective, the outline story is similar–the main protagonist in this case Frankie loses her boyfriend, Hugh who broke up with her because he needed space (even in the love detective, the main protagonist Ruby Miller was dumped by her fiance). But unlike Ruby Miller in Love Detective, Frankie not only loses her boyfriend but she also loses her job all happened on her birthday (yikes how do you feel when your boyfriend dumps you on your birthday?). And like Ruby Miller, Frankie jets off to Los Angeles to live with her best friend Rita until she sorts her life out ( In Love Detective, Ruby flies off to India to join her sister Amy). Her best friend Rita is an aspiring wannabe actress living in Hollywood and helps her friend to settle down in L.A. And while in L.A. she meets a photographer Reilley and falls in love with him (like Ruby who meets an American while in India and falls for him). So the story outline is a little similar compared to the Love Detective and Going La La but in Going La La, Hugh, Frankie’s ex boyfriend plays a minor role in the novel while in the Love Detective, Ruby’s ex fiance is extinct after the breakup.
Potter brings us into the glamorous world of L.A., living among Hollywood’s top celebrities and uses vivid and imaginative descriptions makes you feel like you are actually in L.A. As such, her writing is excellent and makes the reader feel glued to the story and be a part of the story. As usual, like in the Love Detective, her stories are all comical although for me still, Going La La is not as comical as the Love Detective.
Overall, I rate this book as…
Then stay tuned for my next blog coming up soon!
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