Rivers I Have Known- Books, Reviews, And More

Paradise

Toni Morrison

I Rate it: A

Under the colors of our skins

We  are each one

The same intolerance… and love

It is, apparently, the thing these days to be faintly embarrassed by Toni Morrison. She takes her writing too seriously, has no trace of humor in her writing, and doesn’t really care if the reader gets her or not. Her writing is very, very dense, and by that I don’t mean it is retarded, but that it packs more thoughts per sentence than many other books do per page. Difficult to read, difficult to keep up with, and nearly impossible to catch up with after a gap. Add to that the fact that she WILL insist on writing about uncomfortable things like oppression, power games, and child murder, and you begin to see why people tend to dismiss her as an Oprah hype.

Apart from being an Oprah fad, all of those allegations are true. Toni Morrison is goddamn difficult to read. But like most difficult things, her stories are worth the effort you put into them. Cunningly woven, each thread merging beautifully with another, so tightly knit that you couldn’t get a safety pin through, Morrison unfurls a tapestry of haunting beauty. Continue reading →

My Sister’s Keeper

Jodi Picoult

I rate it: C+

An individual?

A bag of spare parts?

The choice is yo….BAM!!!

Fellow readers, I am confused. Is it normal for a book to move me so much in places that it makes me cry, and also to bore me halfway to death in other places? I had heard so much about My Sister’s Keeper, and the summary I read on Goodreads was fascinating! Anna, a teenage girl who was conceived solely for the purpose of being a spare parts bank for her terminally ill sister rebels and decides she doesn’t want to give her kidney up. She loves her sister, but even more than that she hates the idea of living as an instrument, and to fight this, she takes her family to court for medical emancipation. Continue reading →

Tantra

Adi

How we met: Blogadda sent me a copy

Six word summary: Buffy learns tantrics scarier than vampires

I rate it: B-

If you have read this article, you are probably familiar with my disgust with recent Indian writers and the bilge they sell to us. So when I opened the packaging and found that Blogadda had sent me a book by an Indian writer, about a goddamn Indian vampire slayer, yes, I was dismayed. All the more dismayed because I couldn’t really wiggle out of it either. Blogadda has a reputation of setting fire on people who commit to review and then don’t. My husband completely failed to salvage the situation when he looked at the cover, and asked me, baffled, if this was magic realism.

Which goes to show a reviewer should never judge a book by its extremely campy looking cover. Or by the age and nationality of its author. Or by the fact that the byline actuallyhas the word ‘by’ in it, right on the cover. Tantra surprised me, it was funny, well-paced, tight, and actually well written. Not unflawed, and certainly not an enduring piece of fantasy literature, Tantra will, all the same, keep you entertained and on the edge of your seat, without getting on your nerves even a little. My abysmally low expectations could have helped in the beginning, but as the story unfolded, the characters, events, and timings were interesting enough to hook me. So yes, I learnt a lesson about not brushing all recent Indian books with the same brush.

Continue reading →

The Secret History

Donna Tartt

Six Word Summary: Greek students kill two, feel bad

I rate it: C+

The short of it: A cozy, yet bleak story of human psychology, not too memorably told­­­

I finished The Secret History two days ago, and while I was completely hooked for the three days it took me to read it, I find that there is not much I really have to say about the book. While the story is interesting, and the characters are well drawn, the book did not make me feel anything. And this is really strange, because I’m the sort of person who gets so involved in the characters of any book I am currently reading or have recently read, that I have conversations with them in public vehicles, and often it come to blows. And I do not mean that the book was written with a light touch, like Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending , which caressed you like soft waves and then melted away, leaving a sense of calm wonder and sorrow. The Secret History was written by talented writer who knows how to tell a story, certainly, but somewhere down the line she forgot to breathe life into this story or the people in it, which is very unfortunate, because the novel is people centric rather than event centric. Continue reading →

“In a country that doesn’t discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.”

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Lionel Shriver

Six word summary: Demon teen, annoyed mom, mass murder

I rate it: B-

The Short of it:  Eva Khatchadourian is the type of lady who should have listened to her instincts and opted out of motherhood while she had the chance. Instead, to counter the impending sameness of married life, and to ‘”have something to talk about”, she and her husband decide to bring a little person into this world. Sadly. said little person is a sociopath from the moment he plops out of his mother’s vagina. Little Kevin grows up to be a perfectly sweet little boy in the eyes of his father and the world, but his mother alone knows him for the hateful, sneaky, manipulative child that he actually is. That changes one Thursday morning, two days before Kevin’s 16th birthday, when he tricks a number of students and a teacher into his school gym, and slaughters them like fruits in Fruit Ninja. Continue reading →

Thirteen Reasons Why

Jay Asher

Six word summary: Angsty teen kills self, spews guilt

I Rate it: D

The short of it: Tedious , whiny, and downright ridiculous

This book has been hyped a great deal in the USA I believe, with teachers and counselors recommending it to students to help them counter the evil of teenage suicide. I’ve heard people gushing about it, calling it a sensitive portrayal of what a young girl goes through, and how it pushes her to end her life. Thirteen reasons, no less. Continue reading →

Kindred

Octavia E Butler

Six word summary: Meet ancestor. Save ancestor. Kill ancestor.

I rate it: B+

The short of it: An intriguing story of the human capacity to survive and love, told against the backdrop of slavery, in a racy thriller

Kindred has been labeled by Octavia Butler, the author, as science fiction, but I wouldn’t call it that, since there is no science to speak of. Rather, it is part black historical fiction, part thriller, part drama, part time travel, and part love story. While it didn’t shake me up like Beloved or some other novels by Toni Morrison, or get me as invested in the characters like Alex Hailey’s Roots, it managed to frighten me by pushing slavery right into the sphere of plausible horrible things that could happen to me. Continue reading →