Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 257

10 Book Reviews Under 10 Minutes – May Edition

Looking for some interesting book recommendations? From fiction, non-fiction, to some intriguing graphic novels – listen to episode 33 of Abstract AF’s podcast for quick reviews of 10 books. Maybe you’ll find something that could be your next pick –

Femme Magnifique – Quick Book Review

Femme Magnifigue is a graphic novel/comic complication about 50 iconic women. But each story and artwork is done by a different writer and artist, so be prepared for a varied art-style throughout the book.

While the women featured in the book are from all walks of life that you can possibly imagine, there are singers, actors, journalists, astronauts, marine biologists, comediennes and even v-loggers. The diverse tales are thrilling but a lot of them were very rushed and didn’t do justice to the protagonists. Some of them are just as short as three pages and merited more space.

Nevertheless, ‘Femme Magnifique’ is a very interesting book and introduces the reader to many achievers who didn’t get the kind of spotlight they deserved. If you have a curious mind, you’ll constantly find yourself taking a pause after most stories and looking up their names on the internet to get to know more about them.

A similar and far more inspirational book is one titled “Brazen” by Penelope Bagieu, which tells the story of 40 intriguing women and both the storytelling and artwork is a joy to look at. “Brazen” was a 5/5 for me, “Femme Magnifique” is a 3.5/5.

Please check our podcast by the same name on YouTube – AbstractAF.

If you are a graphic-novel enthusiast, listen in to Episode 15

A Princess Remembers – The Memoir of an ‘Accidental’ Trailblazer

‘A Princess Remembers’ is the memoir of the famous Gayatri Devi, who was the Queen of Jaipur, a princely state in India until it became a unified democratic nation.

The copy I read belongs to my mother, a lot of women from her generation were quite enamored by the personality of the ‘Maharani of Jaipur’. It’s easy to see why – despite the exceedingly opulent & privileged life she led, she was way ahead of her time. While most of her royal peers were anonymous behind the ‘purdah system’, the beautiful Gayatri Devi didn’t hide behind a veil and drove around town in fancy cars.

Unfortunately, her memoir isn’t as exciting as one might expect it to be; on the contrary, it’s quite dull in all its pedantic details of a decadent royal lifestyle. Gayatri Devi was an accidental trailblazer, she was incredibly fortunate to have been born into a more liberal/modern royal family of Cooch Behar and was married into the more prominent Jaipur royal line. If anybody, it was her mother princess Indira Raje, who had been much more bolder for her time and had made the Jaipur King promise he wouldn’t chain her daughter Gayatri to the claustrophobic customs of his more traditional land. Even her political career was a bit of a fluke, caused due to a series of casual events, with the Queen herself having no intentions of ever fighting an actual election.

Much of the first part of the book is filled with details of Gayatri Devi’s life before her wedding and can really bore the reader to sleep. She describes their lavish lives, their retinue of ‘servants’, their pets, their hunting expeditions and what not. And at points she is almost defensive of that ridiculously rich and luxurious life. For example, if she talked of killing a tiger, the reader would be informed that it was a man-eating beast terrorizing villagers. It’s like she strives to be diplomatic, cautious in her story, making most of her life sound pretty picture-perfect. The only major setback in Gayatri Devi’s life was her imprisonment during the emergency imposed in the 1970s by the then PM Indira Gandhi. By then Gayatri Devi was on the heavier side of 50s and had lived a dream-like easy life.

It’s because of her political career that the second-half is a little more interesting; we finally get some interesting insights into her life as a parliamentarian and the political-scape of the time. Pick the book up only if royal memoirs interest you.

Please check out our podcast on YouTube by the same name – Abstract AF

Listen in to Episode 32 to understand the cryptic ending of a Murakami Novel…

‘Demon Slayer: Mugen Train’ Review – Picks Up Steam After Slow Start

(This review contains story spoilers.)

This is a movie that generated a truckload of hype among anime watchers across the globe. Partly because it took way too long to reach international audiences, and because most fans of the anime decided to wait for almost a year instead of pirating a trashy copy. The movie is a direct sequel to 2019’s runaway hit Demon Slayer (Kimetsu No Yaiba). This means two things – you need to have watched the first season of the anime, and you need to watch the movie if you’re eyeing season two, which drops later this year. 

That brings us to the first and most important warning. This movie is NOT beginner friendly. It makes no attempt to summarize the previous season or at least give you a basic idea of what’s what. That’s something you will have to figure out for yourself. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, but chances are you might feel pretty much lost about the story if you’re going in blind. So I highly recommend getting at least a little familiar with the premise if you want to experience the movie as it is meant to be.

Let me give you some context very quickly. There are demons and there are demon slayers (no points for guessing). The demons feed on humans and are immortal beings with regenerative powers that would put Wolverine to shame. There are a few ways to knock them off, but the most common ones are exposing them to sunlight or lopping their head off with a nichirin blade. Stronger demons can also use their own unique kind of blood magic. The twelve most elite of them are called the Demon Moons, divided neatly into six Lower Moons and six Uppers based on their power level. And above all of them, stands the first and the greatest demon to ever exist – Muzan Kibutsuji. On the other hand, demon slayers are swordsmen with nichirin blades who use breathing techniques and a rather painful training regimen to counter the demons’ superhuman strength. The strongest among them are called the Hashira, slayers who can imbue their sword skills with the element their breathing is based on.

And so we come to the present story. By the end of the first season, the Lower Moons are all dead. All but one – the demon Enmu, who’s got some nice bangs but looks like he’s perpetually stoned. Tanjiro Kamado, the protagonist, and his little squad of slayers are ordered to get on a train and investigate reports of people going missing aboard it. The movie begins with Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu looking for Kyojuro the Flame Hashira, who’s supposed to be waiting for them in one of the coaches.

The first one-third of the movie is comparatively slow.  The story progresses, but not much, and most of it is centered around our main characters asleep under the demon’s spell and trapped in their own dreamscapes. The pacing is that of a multi-episode show, and this part is what I call the ‘noob-breaker’. In other words, this is where first-timers are very likely to close the video and decide to watch something else. For those willing to endure, the movie uses this chance to give us Kyojuro’s backstory and try to flesh him out as a character, while Tanjiro gets to be with his long-lost family. 

Kyojuro’s backstory was pretty clichéd and nothing out of the ordinary, although it was relatable to some extent. The idea here, it seems, was for the usual heroes to take a backseat while viewers could spend their time knowing and connecting to the Flame Hashira. Still, it did feel like the story dragged on for a bit. But when Tanjiro manages to break the spell and the action begins, boy, does it get good! The pacing changes, the music changes, and all of a sudden you’re not dozing before the screen anymore! 

Calling the animation brilliant would be an understatement. Ufotable, the studio behind this movie, is is one of Japan’s best, and for good reason. I mean, their regular shows look like high-budget, movie-grade productions, their assets are top notch, and their action sequences are worth dying for. 

For Mugen Train, they’ve combined their signature soft blur technique from shows like Fate Zero and God Eater and combined it with Demon Slayer’s own traditional ukiyo-e inspired art style, enhancing it even further. In fact, I found myself rewinding or pausing the video every now and then to admire a beautifully-composed scene for a little longer. Including the very first ten seconds of the movie. Pair that with Yuki Kajiura’s haunting, adrenaline-pumping soundtrack, and you have an audio-visual delight that’s best experienced on a large screen.

At the time of writing this review, I have re-watched the movie thrice already. The experience has been nothing short of excellent, although the ending felt a little too over-dramatic. They could’ve cut down on the emotion factor there because it ends up feeling a little too forced.

I’d probably say as a standalone work, the movie does hold its own, even if it isn’t exactly what I’d call a masterpiece. But it would be unfair to rate it as a standalone movie, because it clearly wasn’t meant to be one. Was the hype worth it? Absolutely. Is it better than Spirited Away, the Ghibli classic it dethroned? I don’t think so.

As a bridge between season one and two, Infinity Train does a spectacular job of adapting the manga’s Mugen Train arc to film, while thoroughly satisfying fans of the franchise and keeping them excited enough for the second season.

The only thing I regret is not being able to watch it in a movie hall.

RATING: 8/10

Please check out our podcast on YouTube by the same name – Abstract AF

Listen to episode 29 for some fun movie recommendations.

You can find Ashley Suvarna on Instagram & Twitter. He also does book reviews at The Flitting Bookma rk.

‘Wonder’ Book Review – A Lesson In Kindness

Shall we make a new rule for life… always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?

The Little White Bird by J M Barry

It’s funny how the most powerful quote in a fiction book can be from another book, like in the case of ‘Wonder’ by RJ Palacio. Some readers may find the above quoted line by J M Barry to be the most moving bit in the novel. Although, that is by no means implying that Palacio is not a talented author, far from it.

In ‘Wonder’, the author has given the world a new book to cherish, without using magic potions, flying brooms and teleportation wardrobes. This story about August Pullman, a boy born with a rare facial condition, is sweet, emotional and warm. Just the kind that makes for great bed-time reading. Spread over several short chapters, we are pulled into the home-tutored August’s new adventure – going to middle-school with other kids. School is never easy, but with a rare face like Auggie, will he find more bullies than buddies? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

Written in easy English and told from the perspectives of different characters, it’s a breezy story to read. Although, stylistically, most of the kids sound pretty much the same, even though the author does try to make the writing slightly different each time some a different voice takes over to carry the tale forward. But it doesn’t really affect the reading experience, it’s just something that might strike avid readers.

With a loving family at the center of it all, ‘Wonder’ is all about love, friendships and kindness. Some of you might have already seen the movie adaptation of the book starring Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson and Jacob Tremblay, which was just as sweet as the book. While the Pullman family story is primarily meant for younger readers, it’s an emotional ride that would win over an older demographic too.

It’s a 5/5 from me.

Check out our podcast by the same name on Youtube – Abstract AF!

Listen in to episode 7 for some book recommendations. And do subscribe.

The Robot Zombie From ‘Army of the Dead’

Stumbled upon a Zack Snyder interview to entertainment site Polygon where he talks about having an insane idea for the sequel to his 2021 film ‘Army of the Dead’ that is now available to stream on Netflix.

During the conversation about the movie, Snyder discusses some easter-eggs and then asks the interviewer if they spotted a ‘robot zombie’.

“How about the robot zombie? Did you catch those?” he says with a sinister chuckle. I did not, in fact, catch the robot zombies.

Excerpt from the Polygon interview

Well, the Polygon interviewer may not have spotted the robot zombies, but we did! Right when we saw the film for the first and only time. It was during a chaotic zombie-fighting sequence, where the hero Dave Bautista and his crew are trying to ward off the flesh-eaters.

“Was that a robot zombie?!” we had even exclaimed out to each other, because when one of the Zombies was hit with the bullet, it did not bleed, but let off sparks like it was The Terminator. We didn’t think much of it and went with the flow and then by some providence, I stumbled upon the Polygon interview!

Anyway, we made a video out of the zombie robot sequence, so that you won’t have to hunt for it –

Also Read: ‘Army of the Dead’ Review – Faster Zombies Can’t Beat Sluggish Script

Also Read: How Was The First Zombie Created in ‘Army of the Dead’?

Another Book Joke – 56 Page Blank Book On PM Modi’s ‘Secrets’ on Growth Published

A journalist friend of mine who fact-checks news items and posts that go viral online texted me asking if I could quickly check if a book titled ‘MASTERSTROKE: 420 secrets that helped PM in India’s employment growth!’ was a blank book. The author’s name was a pseudonym – Berozgar Bhakt (Unemployed Devotee).

Of-course it was blank. 56 pages completely blank. No back cover. In-fact, even the front cover doesn’t show up when you download the book on your kindle device. I have a kindle-unlimited subscription, so I was able to download the silly e-book for free. On the right side of the image below, you can see a screenshot of the book from my kindle app for phones. Blank pages. It’s a book joke all right.

The book was published on May 23rd 2021, just two days after another Indian published a book called “Nice!!!” with nothing but the word “Nice” repeated over its pages.

Yes, Amazon will let you publish anything. They do not have the time to quality-check thousands of books that are self-published every day. Here’s a look inside the book on Modi and some hilarious 5 star reviews of the blank book –

Nice!!! – This Book With One Word Has More Reviews Than Most Indie Authors Do

A book titled ‘Nice!!!’ which was published as a Reddit joke by an Indian called Aniket Mishra has more reviews within 4 days on Amazon than some self-published independent authors can dream of in a lifetime. Published on 21st May 2021, the book is about 30 pages long and just has the word ‘nice’ printed repeatedly. It costs Rs 69 (about 99 cents), is not even available on Kindle Unlimited (a paid subscription that allows readers to borrow ebooks for free on kindle) and already has over 20 reviews/ratings.

There was no way I was going to spend any money on the book to see what was inside, so the ‘download sample’ option on the Kindle app came handy. And here is what the inside of the book looks like, along with what the ‘author’ had to say on reddit about it.

It’s only available as a e-book for now and if you have a dollar to spare and nothing better to do, you could even gift the e-book as a joke to a friend. Although, the thing is, this is not the first time somebody has tried to pull a joke like this. It’s a pretty old gag really, many have “been there done that”.

One of the most famous example is that of Author Shed Simove, who published a book called “What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex” way back in 2011. It contains nothing but 200 blank pages, as you would seen in a screenshot below taken from the author’s twitter feed. And he is not even kidding about the fact that the blank book has been ‘translated’ into eight languages. Basically, just the cover page title has been translated into other languages, so people from other countries can gift the book as a joke to their friends or family. Maybe now you have a ‘secret santa’ gift idea too.

Amazon actually even has a disclaimer on the title for unsuspecting readers who might end up buying it with bigger expectations.

So yeah, there is nothing ‘new’ about someone deciding to be all smart and funny and publishing a book with just one word in it, or better yet – no words at all. But with ‘Nice!!!’ raking up 20+ reviews, it’s clear that the joke is working and has takers.

And the bit about the average review ratio is not an exaggeration. Thousands of titles are self-published via Amazon’s ‘Kindle Direct Publishing’ platform and the online giant does very little to control the quality of what’s being produced. It’s a boon and a bane. Which is why a lot of independent authors are constantly wondering how they can get readers to buy their books and leave reviews. You have entire threads on various social-media portals where writers try to figure out what works and what doesn’t work for their book. Sample this tweet by independent author Cadence Beth Bereseford who asked fellow writers about their sales versus review ratio on Amazon. She has written 4 books, which managed to get 25 reviews in total, with the maximum reviews for one book being 8.

I am an independent author, and my debut book was a poetry collection called ‘Death & Darker Realms’ which came out in December 2019. It has 40 poems, is over 60 pages in length and still has less than 20 reviews on Amazon.

Struggling self-published authors might not find the book joke all that ‘nice’, but hey, it’s a weird-weird world out there and things are most definitely not very nice all the time. If you are a e-book reader, you have been informed and forewarned.

How Was The First Zombie Created in ‘Army of the Dead’?

Warning: Graphic violent content & spoilers ahead

Zack Snyder’s 2021 film ‘Army of the Dead’ has spawned a cottage industry of Quora questions. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But the fact is – fans have been left with a lot of questions unanswered. And one of the first things one wonders about the flick is – how was that first zombie created?

In the film, it takes only one Zombie to turn the entire city of Las Vegas into flesh eating un-dead humans. But the viewer is never explicitly informed how he came into being. However in the beginning, it’s made pretty clear that he is being handled by the U.S govt/military and was being moved to a different facility. He is referred to as ‘payload’ and the military guys don’t even know what’s in the container that they are moving.

While the on-ground officers are not aware of what the savage-looking thing is, their top bosses are well aware of just how lethal he can be. One can only assume that the first Zombie was a result of some deliberate experimentation and that he either killed the creator or the creator died due to some other accident or maybe even suicide. Because whoever was responsible for the creation is definitely dead in the film, otherwise top U.S government officials wouldn’t have been looking for a sample of one of the alpha zombies to recreate them as “war weapons”.

There is also another possibility – that the Zombie is an alien. When two of the guarding officers are playing a guessing game of what the ‘payload’ in the container could be, one of them says “it’s an alien”. Also, those theories do make sense, because unlike all the regular zombies, when the first Zombie is shot in the head, there’s some blue blood that splatters from his brain. So the alien theory by some fans can be quite right.

The biggest explanation as to why Snyder did not reveal the origins in ‘Army of the Dead’ is pretty simple – viewers can look forward to the origin story of the Zombie Zeus in the sequel. Zack Snyder has already told the world that he plans on making a bigger/crazier sequel to the film. The climax definitely left a lot of scope for a follow-up story – Vanderohe is shown with a bite at the end and he is heading to Mexico city in a private jet. We can expect some Mexico mayhem in the next one!

This article was inspired by a Question on Quora.

Do check out podcast out by the same name on YouTube.

Embedded below is a Zombie themed episode. Do subscribe!

‘Minari’ Review – Bitter-Sweet & Slow

The Wikipedia page for the 2020 film ‘Minari’ directed by Lee Isaac Chung rightfully has child-actor Alan Kim on the promotional poster – that little boy’s character might have a weak heart, but he is THE HEART of the film.

‘Minari’ is about a Korean immigrant family that has just moved to a large plot of farmland in Arkansas, away from the bustling. Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun) dreams of growing Korean vegetables on his farm, while his wife Monica (Han Ye-Ri) isn’t too convinced about living this new life and wants nothing but to go back to the city because their young son David has a heart condition. Their already troubled relationship faces more challenged when Monica’s mother Soon-ja comes to live with them. David and his older sister are not to thrilled with the arrival of their grandmother or of all the traditional Korean food she wants them to eat.

The film has a very slow start, with the couple having a mind-numbingly boring job that involves ‘sexing chicks’ – they spend their time segregating male & female chicks at work. David’s interactions with his grandmother are the primary source of entertainment and endearment in this drama. Alan Kim is an absolute winner as the sweet, funny little boy, who thinks Soon-ja neither looks, nor acts like a typical grandmother at all. Youn Yuj-Jung was equally brilliant and entertaining as the Korean granny who loves playing cards and watching TV.

The film is visually quite interesting, with most scenes unfolding the Yi family’s farm and their large trailer home. While Jacob gets busy trying to grow vegetables in his farm with an eccentric-religious war veteran helping him; Soon-ja slowly starts to bond with her grandson David and shows him how to plant ‘Minari’ a Korean water-celery which she claims can ‘grow anywhere’. It’s this plant ‘Minari’ that is perhaps metaphorical for the human spirit, specifically those of immigrants – with just a little support from the surrounding, they can grow into constructive citizens in any part of the world.

Director Lee Isaac Chung has used a lot of elements from his own personal life, making the movie real and perhaps even slightly banal in parts due to its authenticity. Viewers with little patience may not be able to keep their interest in this drama for too long. But to those looking for a heart-warming story close to real life, with all the ups and downs that come with being part of a middle-class family, it’s a pretty good pick. Beyond the all-Asian cast, it’s a relatable tale of the aspirational class, with parents trying to manage their finances to put good food on the table while the kids focus on the fizzy-drinks in the fridge.

Actors Steven Yeun and Han Ye-Ri’s chemistry is not sizzling, but they do have a domesticated connection of a couple that has been married for many years. In the movie, their marriage is on the verge of falling apart, but an unexpected twist in the climax leaves the viewer wondering if the Yi family will be happy after all? Sometimes, life is all about starting over – that seems to be the message of Minari.

With gripping performances and a realistic script that gets slow in parts, ‘Minari’ makes for a bitter-sweet family movie that one can watch on the weekend. It’s 7.5/10 from me. The film is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Please check out our podcast on YouTube by the same name – Abstract AF

Listen to episode 29 for some fun films to watch with the family. And do subscribe.