All signs lead back to you by Aniesha Brahma

The novel 'All signs lead back to you' by Aneisha Brahma is a tale of two persons, Diya Rai and Ashwin Chowdhury.
Both are highschool sweethearts. When you hear that, all you think about is puppy love, googly eyes, and plenty of candy and sweet blushes. Nothing is different in them too. Except that it ends rather inappropriately.
Diya Rai ends their sweet love suddenly on the last day of their school. She doesn't want to be the one who will be hurt. So she decides that if she ends it first, he will not have the chance to hurt her. She will be safe.
It would have been an act of a very cold hearted person, but, our protagonist, Diya Rai, is far from it.
So, why did she do that?
How heartbreaking it would have been for that boy to have been dumped by a person who was his world?
We all get to read about it in the next few pages.
Years have passed, and we get to know about Diya and her current boyfriend, Rishabh. Also, we see Ashwin and his girlfriend, Trina.
And, as the two characters are destined to, they meet at a cultural fest in college. And, the rest is the story.
It was a very good subject to have a novel written upon. All the new age romances or some of it could be related to it. Atleast one of the two in a relationship needs a strong commitment to be in a relationship. And the other will be afraid of committing oneself to a person when he or she is not sure. All those love at first sight, and the one person forever gets nowhere nowadays. A person or two of those type do exist, but sadly not many accept their notion of romance.
What is love? To watch a movie together? Going out together? Giving gifts? These all will happen, when you are in love. But, they do not act as a proof of it. Love is when you cannot think of anything else. Love is when, even if it remains unrequited, will pray and be happy for the other person forever. Love happens once. No matter what, it will remain the same. Even if it is thrashed into pieces, it will be the same and will glow forever, even if it has to be alone forever.
We read many romantic novels, where we get to read about the so beautiful female and so classy male. They fall for each other, and happily ever after.
I used to read those in my teenage, when those were the books i could have my hands upon. That formed a notion of romance, and one will tend to be a damsel, waiting for Prince Charming to arrive.
When you become an adult, you cannot stop laughing at those. Fiction and fiction alone.
You must be your own saviour. No Prince will come. If you have to find and save your Prince, do it. And if not, live happily ever after being your own ruler. Life is beautiful.
This was supposed to be a review. But i got my flow directed away. All thanks to the book, where i read about something real. You can read it as a book, but even after reading you will remember the characters.
You won't be swooning over the characters. Because they have their flaws, and were portrayed as humans. I liked that aspect of the book.
One more thing to mention about the book was the wonderful quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Those were really heart crunching.
If i have to say one thing about the book i didn't like was the ending. Not the ending as such, but how it was developed. The book was a breeze upto the ending. And then it was not so a breeze. It felt rushed up. But, overall a wonderful one. It was a change to read some real life characters.

Overall rating: 8/10

Book Review - Pound of flesh by Mukul Deva

Pound of flesh by Mukul Deva

Retired Inspector General of Police, Ravinder Gill knows that he has only few hours to track down and recover the missing girl, his daughter Jasmine's college mate and friend. As he digs deeper he realizes that Pamela is only one of scores of young girls who have gone missing. Not one of them has been recovered alive. And those found have had their organs harvested. 

The search for Pamela turns even more vicious and murkier as the finger of suspicion swings towards Harpal Singh, a powerful political broker with a shady past, and also the father of Dr.Mandeep, a surgeon, and recently betrothed to Jasmine.

Spearheading Harpal's operation is the mercurial Santosh Kumar aka SK aka The Hammer, a ruthless enforcer who hates Ravinder for killing his father. The battlr becomes intensely personal for The Hammer when he realizes that Pamela is the friend of Ravinder's daughter.

Torn between rescuing Pamela, finding the truth and protecting Jasmine's happiness, Ravinder battles alone.

Could Harpal be the man behind this deadly gang of human traffickers and organ traders? Could Mandeep, his future son-in-law, be the surgeon who is cutting up these missing girls and harvesting their organs? And why is Chetan, the police officer investigating the case, covering up the facts?

Book Details:
Book title: Pound of flesh
Author: Mukul Deva
Publisher: Westland books
Pages: 484
Cost: 350 INR.

My review:

A book belonging to suspense and thriller genre is always exciting to read. The same goes to this book. It was a racy read, which makes you want to know what will be happening to the characters in the next chapter.

The storyline involves human trafficking and organ harvesting. The core of the novel is a heavy topic, and it actually gives you a scare. But, the book has many sub-plots. Like, the romance of Jasmine and Mandeep. The story of Harpal Singh and his relationship with his family. The police officer Chetan.
Also, there is a small flashback, about the  main antagonist of the story, Santosh Kumar. It also shows the rise of his hatred for Ravinder Gill. But, being such an important one, it rather felt like a flashback in a movie which was inserted in the plot forcefully. Even the antagonist himself would not have been able to justify his actions based on such a weak flashback.

The search for Pamela, done by Jasmine, her father, Ravinder Gill and her other friend Rekha is interesting to read at first. As the pages are turned it keeps getting mundane. Ravinder is not satisfied with the help provided by the police officer, Chetan. But, he keeps on asking him to help.
Also the small fights between Rekha and Jasmine comes and goes throughout the novel. It comes so often that you are expecting it to happen, whenever their names come in the same page.
Also, there is Mandeep, a surgeon and the son of Harpal Singh. Ravinder doubts him to be involved in the organ harvesting scam, until the final pages. But, we readers know from the first few pages who was involved in the scam along with Santhosh Kumar. It would have been even more anxious for the reader, if we too saw Mandeep from the eyes of Ravinder Gill.

The whole plot would have been so great, if the reader could see only what the protagonist could see. And, as he discovers the hidden plots, we would have been as surprised as the protagonist too. But, the reader is fed with a good amount of plot from the beginning, and finally, the whole plot is visible.
For such a good storyline, the actual story lacked a few good elements of surprise. It will always be nice to find out something new in the last few pages.

A good suspense or mystery book should be like a treasure hunt. You should not know the final treasure until the last clue.

This book was a treasure hunt. But, like a treasure hunt, which was actually seen by the participant even before it started.

Overall, it was a good one. Could have been made better.

My rating : 6.5/10

I would like to thank the Westland Publishers for sending the book for review. The opinion expressed in this review is my own.

Book Review - Merjella by Yuvaraja Dhayanithi

Jella, the octopus, is the rightful ruler of Zypher, a kingdom at sea. But her father was killed and the kingdom was taken over by the evil Chiro. She has no one but two little friends, Qwerty and Bingo. She has to win back Zypher and free her people.

Marina is an eminent scientist and she has no clue about her contributions to the world. Her inventions are at wrong hands and posing a great threat to the world. She is the only one who can save the world.

Jella finds Marina stabbed and left to die I'm her sea. In a magical intervention, together they discover each other's life experiences, but did they reclaim their destiny?

Book Title: Merjella
Author: Yuvaraja Dhayanithi
Publishers: Partridge
Pages: 180

My Review:

This book makes you think twice before you start to read. I will pay the attribute to the cover page. The front cover shows a blonde girl catching a miniature human by a fish rod, from a fish tank with a flying fish nearby. It is a painting and it conveys the message that it is for children. But 'Don't judge the book by its cover' holds good here.

The story starts with Jella, an octopus and her friends, Bingo and Qwerty with Jella's caretaker and their mentor, Mimico. The group takes a trip to Zypher, which is ruled by the evil Chiro. Mimico wants to get back the land of Zypher from Chironers.

But his young companions couldn't understand the logic behind it and the mighty mimico narrates the long lost story of Zypher. He tells them that the land was once ruled by Tarjo, a Jellopus who was Jella's father too. He also tells them that Jellopuses are powerful creatures and also continues to tell them the evilness behind the capture of the land by Chiro. He concludes by saying that Jella is a Jellopus.

The story then goes in fast paces with the mimico in Zypher and Jella finding her powers as a Jellopus. Soon, Jella finds herself in a position to save her native land.

At sea, when she tries to save a lady,Marina from dying, a mysterious event happens and she becomes Merjella. What is the meaning behind it? Who is behind the group of animals which behave in a uniformly odd way? That forms the remaining of the story.

Overall the book formed an interesting read. It was interesting to read about the fishes act the way the humans do. In the beginning, the story looked like a child's read. And as the story proceeds, the book contains interesting and boring pages. It seemed a mix of moods and emotions.

After a few pages, I did not feel compelled yo proceed with the book. The initial involvement that I had with the book started to fade little by little and by the end, the story poured little oil into the fading light to make it work. But one thing I really enjoyed in this book was the storyline. It was so interesting to read and only if the author had developed it a little more, it would have been even more wonderful to read.

The author should be appreciated for the effort put in and if some minor flaws are looked into, it is no doubt that his future books will outshine the current one.

My rating : 6.5/10

I would like to thank the author for sending the book for review. The opinion expressed in this review is entirely mine.

Book Review - 7 Secrets of Goddess by Devdutt Patnaik

7 SECRETS OF GODDESS by Devdutt Patnaik - A book review

     Lakshmi massages Vishnu’s feet. Is this male domination? Kali stands on Shiva’s chest. Is this female domination? Shiva is half a woman. Is this gender quality? Why then is Shakti never half a man? Taken literally, stories, symbols and rituals of Hindu mythology have much to say about gender relationships. Taken symbolically, they reveal many more things about humanity and nature. Which is the correct reading?

About the Author:

Devdutt Pattanaik is a doctor who worked in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry for many years. Throughout his life, he has also been deeply interested in Hindu mythology, the epics, Puranas and the many legends and divine tales. after almost fifteen years in the healthcare industry, he switched his career and started writing about Hindu mythology and using the Hindu scriptures to teach lessons in business management.
His books include Myth=Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology, The Pregnant King, The 7 Secret Series, Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata, An Identity Card for Krishna,Business Sutra: A Very Indian Approach to Management, Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana and Shikhandi: And Other Tales They Don’t Tell You.

About the book:

Introduction to the book

As nature, she is mother
As culture, she is daughter
Creator of humanity
Creation of humanity
She is wealth, power, language
Lakshmi, Durga, Saraswati
She is Devi
Answer to that masculine anxiety
Which keeps resisting enquiry

Locked in her stories, symbols and rituals are the secrets of our ancestors. This book attempts to unlock seven.

Title: 7 Secrets of Goddess
Author: Devdutt Patnaik
Publisher: Westland
Pages: 259
Genre: Mythology
Price: Rs.395/-

This is the fourth book in the 7 secrets series. The previous ones were 7 secrets of Vishnu, 7 Secrets of Shiva, 7 secrets from Hindu Calendar Art.
This book is dedicated to the divine Goddess.

I have read two of his previous books namely, Sita - An Illustrated retelling of Ramayana and Jaya - An illustrated retelling of Mahabharata. Those two books were more voluminous than this one. And they formed an interesting read and were store house of information.

This book starts with the authors note on reality and representation.
The book deals with secrets of seven Goddesses namely
1. Gaia's secret
2. Kali's secret
3. Gauri's secret
4. Durga's secret
5. Lakshmi's secret
6. Saraswati's secret
7. Vitthai's secret

Wikipedia links to the Seven Goddesses is in the following. Click on it to know something about them before reading the book. Not that it is necessary, but just for inquisitive minds.
1. Gaia
2. Kali
3. Gauri
4. Durga
5. Lakshmi
6. Saraswathi

The entire book has pictures on one side and text on the right side. These pictures are not like as in Jaya and Sita, but these are real photographic ones. Some are photograph of statues and some are of paintings and art. This makes the book even more readable. The pictures alone will tell a different story each.

This book is meant for adult readers only.

Content:

As I have mentioned earlier, this book is about Goddesses. But one look at the cover you will misinterpret it as a religious one. don't get me wrong, but it is not. For eg,.  Each chapter deals with a secret of Goddess. The author has written about the development of the Goddess, the development of a patriarchal society.
       
       The author also speaks about how the female society which was once revered has changed with time. What made these changes. Why should everything be Male? And where and when did the female lose their importance and what could be the reason behind it.
The author has compared multitude of cultures and has given in a way that is simply awesome. You can see the similarities within the cultures. Both the high reverence of the females in society and also domination of the females are so similar in many cultures.
     
       This book also feeds the mind of a feminist. A feminist will absolutely like this book, because it deals with females as the first reason and also it gives you thoughts on it. In his previous books, he used to mention at the end of every chapter about how that part of the story differ in each culture and yet retain the core of the story. That fact box at the end of the chapter is not in the 7 secret series.

       But apart from it, the writing style of the author has not changed. He has given us facts and mythological stories from every culture that is present and even if some of you may know something about Ramayana and Mahabharata stories, it still makes a wonderful read because it includes stories from Greek Culture and also from Biblical Mythology and thus this book is not a religious one and it leans more towards anthropology.

        If you are a person who likes to read about cultures and the development of the society and in addition to this book if you are a feminist, this is for you. And for others too it will make you thirstier than you had been before and you may want to quench it by reading more.

Likes:
        A picture is worth a million pages and half of this book is in pictures and this makes it it a very good reading material.
       The pages go very smoothly. You are not going to be stuck in middle. Never!
       The content is so addictive
       The different cultures mentioned are going to be so awesome read.
       Similarities will make you awestruck.
       The content will make you to appreciate the authors effort and inclination

Dislikes:
     Not much
     Can be a heavy read. Of course it is not a fiction novel. So if you are looking for a single story throughout, this is not for you.
     But a real reader will know the joy of reading many little stories in one book and I felt it. Hope you all do too.

One word for this book: Inquisitive

Rating: 9.5/10

I want to thank Blogadda for this opportunity to review this wonderful book.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program  by Blogadda.com for Indian Bloggers.
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