stories_of_the_soul27's reviews
233 reviews

Sadie by Courtney Summers

mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

A story that shows that monsters hide in plain sight. A story of two girls whom the adults failed to protect. 

Welcome to paradise by Twinkle Khanna

emotional funny relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book was Twinkle Khanna at her finest with a well crafted selection of short stories that touched on various themes on family, love, relationships, religion, fidelity and second chances. 

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I have LOTS to say about this book!

Dead Boy Detectives Vol. 1: Schoolboy Terrors by Mark Buckingham, Toby Litt

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan

funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Anuja Chauhan is good! The way she writes funny and eccentric characters and weaves serious themes as subplots is commendable! I thoroughly enjoyed this book! 

However I have to mention that having read her recent books like Club You to Death and The Fast and The Dead in recent years, I can see that she has grown as a writer in the sense that such for comic purposes she doesn’t use harmful annotations for people. For instance - 
1. Dylan using the word ‘maal’ for describing Debjani in an editorial piece. 
2. Calling a Kashmiri student terrorist. 
3. Using the word chinkie repeatedly to describe Manipuris. 
And many other stereotypes loosely used to give the story a comical edge. Her stories are satirical now so this kind of writing might be overlooked there but not in this one. It did itched me whenever I came across such instances. 

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I will always love this book!

First Love, Take Two by Sajni Patel

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.25

So the good thing about this book is that the chapters are short and in the audiobook most of the chapters were 4-6 mins long. 

I liked the performance of the narrators. The narration was good and both the narrators did a good job in keeping the interest of the listeners going. 

However, even if the chapters were short, I didn’t really think to be a fast story. This was very slow in that nothing actually was happening. We only have one murder that happened five years ago, and after that the story was just about this podcast trying to find out what happened to Savvy, but I didn’t really like the direction of the podcast.  The podcast felt more about trying to establish that Lucy is innocent and hey who cares who killed Savvy. Ben (the podcaster) was just going asking people to establish their alibis and through that we just come to know that a lot of people lied and were actually out and about on the day of the murder. But so what! There’s no proof and no motive. So what’s the point of this podcast? 

Next we come to our protagonist Lucy. I liked her in the beginning. She was funny and snarky and I liked how she used sarcasm to get over this tragedy that had befallen her. But after the second part of the story I stopped liking her. Because - 

1. She stopped being interesting. I couldn’t find any new development she was bringing to the story. She was just having sex with Ben. Or we keep learning about how she was sleeping with someone else 5 years ago. 
2. I couldn’t figure out who Lucy was. What kind of woman was she. It felt that her being a suspected murderer is the only thing she has going in her life. We get to know she had an abusive relationship with her 1st husband. That didn’t bring anything to the story or to her character. Her & this supposed best friendship she had with Savvy was also not explored. 
3. Lucy & Ben - them having sex and cute moments didn’t really add points to the story. Instead this could have been used to show how Ben was putting the work in trying to solve the murder. 

We also don’t get to know Savvy. How are we supposed to care for this murder if neither the victim nor the alleged perpetrator inspire any kind of feeling in us? 

“I will never be a perfect victim” or “The truth doesn’t matter” - these phrases were thrown around a lot by Lucy and I get the idea of what the author was trying to establish but it didn’t turn out to be cohesive. 

Lastly what totally threw me off was Lucy and Emmett’s relationship. It was initially shown that Lucy likes Emmett and always wondered what her life could be if she had hooked up with him. But she thought that only when she saw Emmett or was asked about Emmett. And then the moment when Emmett is out of her sight or out of the conversation, she forgets about the guy she was supposed to care for her. There are so many moments of her and Emmett shown which kept clashing that as a reader you are left wondering of whether to actually care for the guy and this friendship or not. And so when the big reveal happens, you just don’t care. So it’s Emmett huh! So what! And this is a pretty shit reaction to a climatic moment. Over here I also want to mention that Lucy’s indecision regarding to how to feel about Emmett is valid but her letting kiss Emmett when she didn’t feel it and not fighting or taking a stand is what felt weird. Her personality is not shaped properly. We know she is not the confrontational type but she doesn’t keep quiet when the topic of her allegedly murdering her best friend comes up. She has started hitting Matt back so she is bold but why does she let Emmett kiss her when in reality she hates that? These are little things but they bothered me. It is not her fault that Emmett is a bastard who killed Savvy. Even if she didn’t let Emmett kiss her, still the guy would have ended up somehow attacking her. The author shouldn’t have brought all these abusive male characters and used them without adding any depth to Lucy’s character when she is the one dealing with them in various capacity. Matt was briefly given a redemption arc. Like hell he deserves that. This pissed me off like anything!

I get the moral of the story - truth matters less when it is said by the women victims, much less when they are less than perfect. Men trust men’s words more than the women in their lives. A woman needs to be backed by a man in order to get more traction. I commend the author for showcasing this to us. It would have hit home had the women of this story had more depth to their characters. 

P.S : I loved Lucy’s grandmother. 

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Rereading this book has been fun! It brought a lot of memories back and I still remember the state I was in when this book came to my life. The SoC duology has got me through a difficult phase of my life so even though these are not my most favourite books, they are important books to me. 

Coming to this book, what I loved most is the amount of love and care that was put into building these characters. There backstories are fleshed out and each of their traumas were taken care of. There is no callousness or effort to make it seem light. A bunch of kids were dealt with worst hands by life, some are struggling and some are still finding their way. That’s why I love SoC. It is not like winning points by giving traumatic backstory. It’s the respect and the care for me. 

The plot is convoluted but doesn’t take away the attention from the readers. Because there are enough twists and turns to keep the readers on edge. Lot of things go wrong, the stakes are high and so it matters less that whether the heist plan makes sense or not. 

Lastly the killer dialogues and the couples. Each of the couple is different and adds freshness to the story. It’s fun, sad, emotional, hopeful and good. This is good stuff! 

Coffin Hill Vol. 1: Forest of the Night by Caitlin Kittredge, Inaki Miranda

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Wicked Witch of Coffin Hill 

Buried in the woods and waits there still….

Hide your face and close your eyes

If you see her, you will die

Only the crows to hear you cry. 

A Witchy take on Horror

I love witches. I feel they are a misunderstood bunch of people who had to go through a lot just because humans are afraid of comprehending the unexplained. And I love witches who take it a notch in the direction of blood, gore & madness. And I got exactly that in Coffin Hill. 

The story has generations of witches and the promise of a harvest that leads to death, suffering and destruction of families. The force is formidable and the stakes are high. And in the centre we have Eve Coffin who used to be wild and self destructive in her teenage years but tragedy made her sober in her adult life. Her contrasting characters and going back & forth between the past and the present made the story interesting. Also she has killer dialogues like-

“What the hell are you doing to her?” 

“Braiding our hair and talking about boys.”

                             

“Ma’am, you should get checked out! Your eye….”

“It’s how I steal people’s soul.”