Year-end Report - 2021

Every year since last five years, I start the year with a resolve to read at least 12 books in a year, that is, 1 book per month. I usually start the year well and then end up getting busy with life and losing control of the resolution, so much so that I never end up completing my resolution; except this year.

As usual, I started the year fine but reached a dry spell sometime around the middle of the year. Then in the last 2-3 months, everything changed. Few months ago, I started seeing all these sponsored posts on Facebook of book excerpts by "Pay by Chapter" reading apps which publicise "Free Books" (well, to give them benefit of doubt, the books are free but the coins/rewards/points to open each chapter may be paid; and you may eventually end up paying more than a normal book). I read those excerpts. While most pertain to werewolf/shifter romance, which I usually steer clear of, there were a few that were not paranormal and caught my attention and I would end up searching for the books. That lead me to subscribe to "Kindle Unlimited" and I started reading free books that came with the subscription. I also installed two "Pay by Chapter" apps but those are only for specific books that I became curious about and which I read through daily free coins. But, honestly, I am not a fan of these apps.

The point is that that was when everything changed about my reading style. First, I don't stop myself from putting down books that I don't like. I am the kind who felt guilty about not completing the books I picked up but didn't like but now I may debate about whether to quit, but I have quit quite a few books in between, some even more than half-way through. Second, I now am usually reading 2-4 books at the same time, on various devices. It basically means that I am putting my daughter's Kindle and my phone to good use.

Although most of the books that I have read did not excite me, these are a few that I read and remember off the head:

1. Inappropriate by Vi Keeland - My most recent read, and one which I completed this morning only. This is by far one of the better ones that I have read. I loved the story and the characters, Ireland and Grant, especially Grant. The comebacks and dialogues between the two characters are absolutely loveable.

2. Happily letters after by Vi Keeland - It's a cute and a totally unrealistic story. But it was sweet enough to make me pick up another book by the author.

3. Ved Maya by Vineeta Malhotra Taneja - Vineeta is a friend and I had already read her 'The Nameless Encounters' long back. Ved Maya and her third book had been on my TBR list for a long time and I had even once started reading Ved Maya earlier but had put it on hold 'to resume soon'. Finally, picked it up and lapped it up in one weekend. Again, Ved was my favourite character. Loved his "I don't have a girlfriend, but I'm committed" nature.

4. Roohi Shekhar by Vineeta Malhotra Taneja - Although if I had to choose between Ved Maya and Roohi Shekhar, I would choose the former; but Roohi Shekhar did not disappoint either. It was just as sweet and engrossing. The thing I love about Vineeta's writings is the effortless depiction of everyday urban young generation in Indian cities. The dialogues (Hinglish) and the banter between friends is so relatable and her books make for light easy read any day. Vineeta inspires me to write myself and that's the best part of her books.

5 & 6. Love Hate Relationships and Love in Relationships (LHR2) by Goodness Shadrach - I picked up the second book first and because I got curious after reading the Prologue, I decided to search the first book first. Luckily, it was available free to read on the internet. So, I ended up reading both parts in the series. I now feel I could have skipped these. But, the first book started well, and in the second, it all just went downhill.

7. Chained to the Mafia by Maya Lara - The less said the better.

8. The Arranged Bride by Mattii - Just slightly better than the one on number 7.

There were a few others but I cannot even remember their names right now. Honestly, they were more or less all the same romance cliches. Also, I re-read Harry Potter 1 again and planned to read the others too but didn't get around to.

I am also currently reading two stories on "Pay by Chapter" apps. I manage to read only about 1 or 2 chapters in a day with the free coins but so far I am enjoying them. The books are not edited, the language is not perfect and there are grammatical mistakes. Normally they are a put off for me but these two books have managed to keep me hooked.

1. The Alpha King's Hated Slave by Kiss Leilani - It was initially three books, namely, "My Slave, My Property", "My Master, My King" and "My Woman, My Possession" but on this app it was published all combined under a new name. I might have ignored it altogether because the word "Alpha" tends to make it appear like a werewolf romance but it is not. And the story got me hooked despite it being erotic in nature. I am about 60% through.

2. The Hired Bride by Seemran Haider - Another book that got me hooked because of the fun banter between the two lead characters. So, far I am enjoying it a lot and I am about 40% through. Interestingly, I started reading this to collect coins for another book on the app. But, I left the original one after a few chapters and stuck to this instead.

#bookreview

#12BooksToRead2021

#recentread

#justfinished

#yearlyresolution

#missionaccomplished

Intertwined by Jerilee Kaye

I continue to be distracted by the sponsored posts on Facebook by free book reading apps. Very often I read the book summary and while I continue to be repulsed by all those books that have werewolves and pack stories, I once in a while find myself intrigued by some of the extracts. Intertwined was one such book whose extract I found a bit interesting. I eventually ended up reading it till the end. As I continued to read, I got hooked and I ended up finishing it in three days, much with the guilt of prioritising it over my work.

My last two reads, a set of two books actually, were similar ebooks, but, this book is way better than those, not just in terms of story and plot but also in the writing style, language and plot structure. I remember that in in case of my last two reads, I had felt that the author needs a good editor to edit the flow and check Grammar. In Intertwined, at least all that is taken care of. There are a few dialogues that are repeated again and again but, in my opinion, apart from that hardly any portions of the book need to be taken off and the grammatical errors are bare few.

The story starts in true Disney style movies, in High School with its dating scene and peer pressure on hooking up, and it soon progresses over the next 16 years of the characters lives. The protagonists are a bit cliched - the guy is a tall, handsome, brooding, super rich boy and the girl is a sweet, romantic, beautiful and innocent girl - and the ending is predictable too - they fall in love and spend the rest of their lives together. The book is all about how they reach their blissful ending of ever after. The story is simple, warm and sweet and makes you fall I love somehow with the characters. In fact, I have since re-read many of the parts of the book again because I found them super cute and they lingered on in my mind. Overall, it is a fun one-time read.

#intertwined

#jerileekay

#bookreview

#12BooksToRead2021

#recentread

#justfinished

Married to the Devil's Son and Return of the Devil's Son by Jasmine Josef

Since last few months, I keep getting these sponsored posts on Facebook about apps where you can read free books by budding authors. They always have catchy one or two sentences which are supposed to be like the summary (usually it's not a summary and just some sentences to get readers intrigued) followed by an extract, say the first few chapters etc. I often get myself reading these extracts just to pass time. More often than not they are pathetic translations of Chinese or South East Asian novels by some unknown budding authors which more often than not harbour on similar plots - A beautiful young girl unwillingly gets married to an extremely handsome, rich entrepreneur (or sometimes even a prince) with a bad reputation and how she manages to win over him and make the marriage work. There is always a vamp typical 70s-80s Bollywood movie or Ekta Kapoor's soaps style who is vile, vicious and totally 'un-sanskari' whereas the heroine is totally opposite. I hardly get any motivation to read the full extracts, leave alone try to get the app or go to the web and look for the whole book. There have been times when I have done that. "Escorting the Billionaire by Leigh James" was one such book for me, in fact, the first one where I actually made the effort. To say that it was borderline porn and quite disappointing is an understatement, because I am the kind of person who has never even had a Mills and Boons phase in my teenage. Thereafter, I had been vary of reading full books from these extracts. I did try twice. The second book that I tried turned into a full blown porn novel after few pages and I left it in between. Mind you, it's not in my nature to leave books in between no matter how boring, cringing or dragging they are. I would have long phases of no reading time but I would usually not pick up another book before I finish a book. So, it was quite a tussle inside me whether I should read through whole of it or just leave it there but eventually I told myself that I have much better things to do. Then after few weeks I went all the way with another book and started reading it online. It was some bad translation of a Chinese Novel and felt a bit interesting at the beginning. After reading about 170 Chapters (to be fair they were not very big Chapters), I realised that the story is practically going around in circles where the end is predictable but the author is deliberately delaying it by introducing new characters and replaying the same story line with the lead protagonists. Just trying to check how many more chapters there were to go, I found that the book had about 2000 chapters. Whoa! My inclination died then and there and I left it.

Now, "Married to the Devil's Son" was yet another a free novel type that I stumbled upon on Facebook. The story was not much my type as it had Demons and Witches and I never kind of liked these fantasy books unless it was the Harry Potter series which was to the point when it came to making it realistically possible writing. But, I guess I was in the phase where I was neck down in work, typically exhausted by day end, and was looking for a very light, no brainer kind of read. This book somehow fitted the bill. So, I went ahead and looked for a full version online. I found it quite easily and, in fact, this book even had some reviews on Goodread. 

I eventually read the full book and even picked up the sequel since the first book was left at a somewhat intriguing point. Apparently, there are one or two more books in the series but I don't plan reading them. The story is okay; it's light, frothy and romantic. There is not too much character building except for describing physical appearances of the characters (and guess what they are all very good looking and exquisite, both men and women). Also, the language is not very refined, there are many grammatical and spelling errors. I think the author, Jasmine Josef, can do with an editor here. But other than that, it was a total timepass and I have no issues documenting these books here as my 6th and 7th books of the year, as part of my 12 books target for the year.

#DevilsSonSeries
#JasmineJosef
#12BooksToRead2021
#recentread
#justfinished

The Gita: For Children by Roopa Pai

I had read the Bhagvad Gita earlier twice in my mid-twenties. It wasn't any famous or popular version, rather just a simple Sanskrit to Hindi literal translation. I could understand it then but, honestly, there was no retention at all. I am anyway not much into non-fiction books and I just presumed that it was probably the reason why I didn't enjoy it much.

I had a few years later attented the Book Launch of The Gita: For Children with my daughter, who was maybe 6 or 7 years old then. I was mighty impressed by Roopa Pai. Surrounded by kids, she held their attention rapt. She asked quite a few questions related to Mahabharata and my daughter, fresh off various Krishna and Arjuna related animated movies, gave quite a few answers correctly. "Oh dear, I am mighty impressed with this little girl," Roopa said on the mic and my daughter puffed up with happiness. She started pestering me to buy the book. After the session, I went up to Roopa and asked her what would be the right age for my little girl to read this book. She said she was too young but maybe 13 or 14 years would be better because she would be able to understand the thoughts better. Now, when she has reached that age, I decided to buy the book for her and even before she picked it up, I decided to give it a go myself.

I simply loved the book. Written in conversation style and as a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, it is very easy to understand. Not just that, it explains the 18 learnings from the 18 Adhyay with simple real life examples that young adults can relate to and also gives tips on how to imbibe the learnings from the Gita into their day to day life. Honestly, most of us adults can use these tips as well.

So, if you are looking for a translation of each and every shlok / prose, then, this is not the book for you. Neither will it give you spiritual analysis and deep prodding to question yourself or explore your inner self. But if you are looking for a light reading which explains the crux of the most famous ideology of life and gives you simple tips to imbibe these learnings into your everyday life, this is absolutely the book for you.

#thegitaforchildren

#roopapai

#bookreview

#12BooksToRead2021

#recentread

#justfinished

Escorting the Billionaire by Leigh James

The less said the better.

P.S. I am only posting this because I spent time reading this so this should go down in my 12 books of the year. But on a serious note, I should have kept away from this. 

#EscortingTheBillionaire

#LeighJames

#12BooksToRead2021 

#recentread 

#justfinished 

Tharoorosaurus by Shashi Tharoor

I wrapped up my third book this year and I am already so proud of myself. But to be fair, this was a shorter book as compared to the ones I usually read. Nevertheless, it was not the book to be read semi-consciously. Why? The name of the author should be clue enough to why. The book is Tharoorosaurus by none other than Shashi Tharoor, the author whose every sentence has to be read twice to grasp what he is saying.

Fortunately for me, it was not a book to read in one go since it basically picks up 53 heavy-weight words and explains their etymology, origins and various anecdotes related to those words. So, there need not be any continuity in reading, which meant that it was a perfect book to be read while dealing with the stress of your teenager's final exams and the hectic work routine.

To start with most words chosen by the author, in consistency with his public image, were long tongue twisters which were more often than not unheard of before. Yet, not all words were unknown to me. Out of 53, I knew about 22-23 words already (not their origins but their meanings) and have been using them regularly. As for the other, even though it was interesting to read about them, I doubt whether I would ever remember them and use them ever. Well, maybe a couple but definitely not most.

The anecdotes and stories backing the words were interesting; although I have to admit that the political references - laced with direct attacks on Modi / BJP and spiked with self-praises - were annoying. Nevertheless, all-in-all it was a fun read.

#tharoorosaurus

#shashitharoor

#bookreview

#12BooksToRead2021

#recentread

#justfinished

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

I saw the movie Hidden Figures sometime last year and I was so moved that I immediately bought the book to read. But, I picked it up only now when I have some leisurely time to spend. I read somewhere that Margot Lee Shetterly, when asked about the differences between the book and the movie had remarked that if the makers would have stuck to the book, it would have been a documentary and not a feature film. I tend to agree.

I started the book with great excitement and as I progressed, I hoped it would pick up pace soon. Then, I was 60 pages through (out of 265) - almost a fifth of the book - and only one of the characters from the movie has been introduced (not just out of lead characters, not even the supporting cast). Moreover, there is no mention at all of one, only the drop of the name of the second and hardly any details about the third till now. The book is supposed to be real life inspirational stories of three Black women, and not just the movie but all reviews about the book as well as the Wikipedia entries on the book and the author said so. I had started to feel cheated as I was not finding it as promising as I had thought it would be. In fact, the book read more like a "Black History" textbook.

I soon realized that the book was not going to be anywhere near the movie. It continued to leave the story of these three women in the middle and switched to each other, not moving simultaneously and going back and forth in time which lead to so much confusion. Moreover, it talked about so many more women; numerous political incidents; and rattled names which probably African Americans or the people who have read American History are aware of. But for a layperson like me, it was chaotic and bewildering and at the end of it, I don't remember any of them, least of all the years when they achieved the big feats mentioned in the book.

I had high hopes that at least the part where John Glenn had entered space (where the movie was focused) would match the movie. It was basically the most exciting part of Katherine Johnsons journey and had inspired me to take up the book. I kept waiting for at least some characters from the movie, like Al Harrison (played by Kevin Costner), Virginia Mitchel (played by Kristen Dunst), Paul Stafford (played by Jim Parsons). It had soon dawned on me that these characters did not exist in reality and were a work of fiction. The book narration of the John Glenn space mission was as bland as hypoallergenic food. On that note, the one thing I can say is definitely misplaced in this book is the book cover showing all these fictional people. All in all, the book ruined the movie too for me.

Maybe the problem was not really with the book; the problem was with me having watched the movie before the book and having super high expectations from it. But, I doubt I would have picked up the book ever without first watching the movie. I am not a non-fiction person per se and many times while reading the book I wondered why am I even torturing myself by reading it when I am clearly not enjoying it as much as I had hoped I would. But the elusive John Glenn space mission kept me hopeful and going forth. Once through the said part, and disappointed big time, I left the book for days and didn't go back to it. But I hate leaving books unfinished so I finally and laboriously wrapped it up.

I am not saying that the book was not important. It is insightful and would be enlightening for anyone who enjoys reading about history. I am also not saying that understanding the setting of the environment and the facts and events of the time and age in which the real story of the three women is based is irrelevant. Probably the book helps in more appreciation of the circumstances under which these ladies achieved what they did. It's just, for me personally, the book was a tad too insipid. 

#hiddenfigures

#margotleeshetterly
#bookreview
#12BooksToRead2021
#recentread
#justfinished

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Last year, just like a few years before that, I didn't complete my resolution of reading at least one book a month. I started well and was very gung ho once lockdown happened assuming that since I was home, I will now get more time to read. But I soon realised that being at home and working from home are two different things. And then I picked up something that I didn't like and things just went downhill from there. I kept telling myself that I need to finish it soon and pick up another one, but neither of that happened.

This year, since I am on leave for a few days at the start of the year, I did pick up a book. Since it was a very captivating read, I finished it too. Besides it wasn't a very big or difficult read either. To say that it was interesting would be grossly undermining this book which is well known to be one of the best suspense novels since ages. I read it as a kid in school and decades later, I had forgotten most of it - I mean the characters etc., not the suspense and how it is revealed. Despite that, it made for a very gripping read. 

I am no authority on the nuances of literary works i.e. the finesse of writing, or the vocabulary used, or even development of characters. I am no analyst, only a connoisseur; and one who very profoundly enjoys Agatha Christie's very British style of writing. The characters, I find are very intriguing and each one of them adds to the story and development of the plot. The epilogue is not just the highlight of the book but also paramount because one could never guess the murderer without reading it even despite having gone through every detail in the chronology of the events in the novel. No one could ever guess who the culprit is without Agatha Christie telling us. Moreover, what could be a better mark of skillful story weaving if not the fact that as bizarre as the events in the book are, they are still absolutely believable, and not once does one feel like putting the book down on account of duplicitousness. 

To conclude, this is a book to enthral adults and young adults alike. In all likelihood, once you are beyond page 15, you will not put it down until you read it through till the end. 

#andthentherewerenone

#agathachristie 

#bookreview

#12BooksToRead2021

#recentread 

#justfinished