Sanjana’s Comments (group member since Apr 25, 2017)

Sanjana’s comments from the Messy shelf of an introvert. group.

18. Girl Out of Water by Laura Silverman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"I think some people choose to be forgotten...or maybe don't care whether or not they're remembered."

Anise is looking forward to spend the last summer with friends she has grown up with in Santa Cruz doing all the things they've always been doing, surfing, searching for sea marbles with a friend turning into a possible romance and making plans for Surf Break. But a car wreck leaves her aunt in Nebraska hospitalised and she and her dad are forced to fly out there to take care of her three younger cousins in the home which belongs to her runaway mother.

Nebraska, though dull at the beginning turns out to be not so boring. Especially with the appearance of Lincoln, a good-looking, one-armed boy who pushes Anise out of her comfort zone and convinces her to switch to skating instead of surfing for the summer. But as she loses touch with her friends from back home, one question always gnaws at her, is she turning out to be like her mother who can leave anything and anywhere without any remorse?



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17. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make you cry and break your heart, but in the end, when the chips were down, they were there, making you laugh even in your darkest hours."

Kate Murlakey has accepted her fate as being the nobody in school when the "coolest girl in the world" Tully moves in next door. An unexpected friendship develops when Tully confides in Kate about being raped at a high school party. They become inseparable and by the end of summer they become best friends forever : TullyandKate

Kate has a typical Catholic family and a mother who mortifies her at every turn. Tully's mother cares more about drugs and pot than her and ultimately abandons her.

The next decade sees them going off to college together, working and partying where ultimately Kate meets the love of her life and marries him. Meanwhile Tully goes on to become a national level reporter.

The two girls are as opposite as can be with Tully being career driven from the very beginning while Kate settles for her family over her writing.Kate settles with kids, a beach house and a loving husband while Tully becomes famous and a millionaire. They both have got whatever they wanted from life but both sense the longing for a little ore than just family or career. Throughout all of this, they remain best friends though it's not without hurdles and heart breaks.

This book spans more than three decades. It's a story about how having a best friend can be solve any problems and how powerful the relationship can be.



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16. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


"And sometimes you held somebody's hand just to prove that you were still alive, and that another human being was there to testify to that fact"

Fangirl is a simple story about Cather and Wren. twins who have just moved to college. They may look alike but are as different as day and night in some ways. Wren is looking forward to meeting new people, go to college parties while Cather is content sitting in her room and being active in a virtual world where she write fanfiction about Simon and Baz- a popular book at that time.

The book has all the elements of a young adult book: dorm rooms, first love, difficult classes. It's also a nerd's dream with cute boys in the library, fangirling over fictional characters.

"His eyes were that color you can't see in the rainbow. Indigo."

P.S. I might sound crazy but did anyone think that the story of Simon is a bit of a rip off from Harry Potter?



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15. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

An Introduction: Arthur Dent is rescued by his friend (and an alien) Ford moments before Earth is demolished. They hitch rides in the galaxy with the aid of quotes and advice from the book-cum-guide The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They are soon joined by other fellow travelers Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy and his girlfriend Trillian who incidentally also happens to be a girl Arthur had tried to pick up at a party in the past. Also accompanying them is a depressed robot Marvin.

I cannot even begin to write a review of this book as it is beyond my capability to do so. There are loads of impossible events happening in this book right from a theory about how mice control Earth to a planet inhabited by ball point pens. The one thing that I can guarantee you though is that you won't have a dull moment while reading this book. It is entertaining, will make you doubt the sanity of the author at times but will definitely have a good time reading it.



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14. Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Believing something existed and then finding out it didn’t was like reaching the top of the stairs and thinking there was one more step. Except when the thing was xxxxx, the stairs were five miles high, and your foot never found the floor again."

Schizophrenia is bad as it is without adding in ignorant high school students blowing it to a whole new level. But that is exactly what happened to Alex in both her schools, Hillpark and East Shoal. She was the weird girl who kept consulting her Magic 8 ball , did perimeter checks and clicked pictures incessantly as she fought a daily war trying to figure out the difference between real life and hallucinations. Till she met Miles or Mr. Blue Eyes...Hadn't she met him before at the lobster tank before he was dismissed as another of her made up characters?

"Big blue eyes. Blueberry blue. No, that was too dark. Ocean blue. Too green. Blue like all the blue crayons I had, all melted into one."

For the first time ever, Alex is allowed to be a normal teenager....She has a job, new friends, part of a club, goes to parties, falls in love....Life is almost normal....ALMOST. It's almost as if everything is finally falling into place for her.

P.S. Before this book, even I thought lobsters were bright red..I feel ya Alex.



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13. First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Revisiting Enid Blyton after more than a decade, it's amazing how devotedly I read the entire book in a day without finding it too childish or boring. Even though this book is set on a date long ago, it is noteworthy how relevant it still is even after so many generations.

Darrel Rivers joins Malory Towers as a first former along with 2 other girls Gwendoline and Sally. This book shows how differently each girl copes with being a new comer. Tempers fly, harsh words and actions are done and every wrong doing is met with a consequence. A great boarding school story with a set of morals is what makes this book a must read for every girl during her childhood.



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12. Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Stillhouse Lake is nothing if not a one heck of a rollercoaster ride. It has everything ranging from horror, emotions and of course the thrill factor. Rachel Caine threw in twist after twist in every path of this book and I totally loved it. She ended it on a major cliffhanger and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series to find out more.

Gina Royal was a loving wife and mother and her life was postcard normal... until a SUV rammed into her garage and uncovered the torture den of her husband who turned out to be a serial killer. No one believed Gina to be ignorant of her husband's doings...even after she was acquitted. She receives hate mails and death threats on a regular basis from the victim's families...and some of them mean business.

Gina has no choice but to uproot her two kids and start afresh with new identities every time her enemies get a whiff of her trail. She is currently staying at Stillhouse Lake as Gwen and it finally seems like a permanent haven. But one fine day a bod floats up in the lake with startling resemblances to the girls her husband used to kill. All suspicions point towards her. Will she be able to survive this and come out intact?





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11. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is not a very notable work of Jane Austen but nevertheless it had all the characteristics of a Jane Austen book.

A spirited girl Catherine Morland is excited to be out in the society for the first time. She has a lot to learn about the nuances of the world which her new friend Isabella quickly steps in to guide her. Catherine is a sweet girl but sometimes gives in to her vivid imagination and as is expected from any girl of eighteen acts n her impulses. She learns to fall in love and also to get her hopes dashed at times. This novel shows her transformation from a free spirited girl to a womanly nature as she goes along with the pace of her life at her own speed, learning from her own mistakes, especially in the lovely countryside of Northanger Abbey.



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10.

After a series of long, serious books combined with hectic college days, a light, cozy and easy on the eyes romance is just what you need and Riverbend Road provided just that.

Officer Wyn Bailey is committed to her work, just as all the Baileys in her family have always been. She is in love with her boss, the heart throb of the town, Cade Emmett who just might share the same feeling too. But due to his messed up past, and the fact that Wyn is his best friend's sister and his mentor's daughter, he is not willing to pursue this particular path in this life.

Riverbend Road is also a book of family, friendship and kinship of shared feelings about the past. It's a perfect book for a sunny Sunday afternoon.

9. Lock and Key

Ruby's world changed the day the landlords discovered her living alone for 3 months ever since her mother took off. She was taken in by her estranged sister Cora and her husband Jamie who is a hot shot and very well off. New school, a cute neighbor who's your typical popular boy in school and the pressure to get into a decent college now constitutes her life now, wherein she finds more people like herself...people who are misfits too. She still wears the key to her old house around her neck...a key which signifies her locking away her past life.

8. The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is about Ireland in an era when "fallen women" were condemned by the church, being gay was a criminal offense and which could also be cured with injections. Cyril Avery was born to such a fallen woman but was adopted by 2 people who were unconventional in their parenting style. Being gay in such times was not an easy thing to be, and he tried to get over it by marrying the sister of the guy he was in love with, which failed miserably. He moves to New York eventually with a partner where things were better off for people like him. Over the years, he gets to reconnect with his own son and extended family, comes to terms with his "wife" and his own mother and grandchildren right till his death eventually.

The thing most endearing about this book is how the reader gets to visualise the scenes perfectly without any hitches. As the protagonist and the people around his age grow older, their sense of humor seems to grow along with them. AIDS is also a topic covered here were the author tries to dismiss the myth revolving around the disease as something which is only spread by gay people. Love, laughter, friendship, loss, all the emotions are described with utmost perfection and the title of the book is apt in terms of the main theme around the book, i.e. the rage against society not accepting LGBT deeming it as something unnatural.



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7. The Universe of Us by Lang Leav

My rating: 3 of 5 stars






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6. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Giant Rat of Sumatra by Richard L. Boyer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Of course attempting to carry on the stories of the legendary Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is no mean feat, I feel that this particular book came nowhere near to paying homage to him. The Giant Rat of Sumatra was written along the lines of the Hound Of Baskerville a bit, and maybe that's why it turned a bit dreary. Two irrelevant mysteries: The mysterious giant rat and the abduction of Alice Allistair were brought at crossroads, and the common link to them was very disappointing. The thrill factor was also missing. I've read some other Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes before and this was I feel not up to the mark.



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5. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars






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4. The Deep End by Julie Mulhern

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book is one of those which you read in one sitting (provided your exams aren't around the corner..in which case it took two). It resembles a movie script with its descriptions and mannerisms of the characters.

Ellison had the misfortune to discover the body of her husband's mistress while swimming. Trouble ensues when she is the prime suspect for the murder. With a manipulative mother, teenage daughter, gossiping society, a husband with a colorful sex life, Ellison has to wade through all this while solving the mystery.



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3.

This is my second book of Fredrik Backman after The Man Called Ove, and it is totally awesome.....It is powerful and moving at all the right moments.

Beartown is a sleepy town where the only thing that matters is Hockey. the town has all its hopes pinned on the Junior Team which is due to play in the finals shortly. Depending on their win, the sponsorships will decide whether the town can be expanded or not. So when the daughter of the Hockey club's GM gets raped by one of their star players, what will the town do? Ostracise the girl in order to pave his way to the top or pay attention to her pleas?

2. As expected from any John Green book, the quotes in this book are amazing. My favorite being

“We never really talked much or even looked at each other, but it didn't matter because we were looking at the same sky together, which is maybe even more intimate than eye contact anyway. I mean, anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.”



Aza suffers from a constant fear of getting infected by C. Diff which compels her to sanitize every time her thoughts spiral towards the fact that she lives in a microbe inhabited world. Her best friend Daisy, a fearless girl who involves Aza in going on an adventure to find the whereabouts of missing billionaire for a hundred-thousand dollar reward. They both go through the normal ups and downs of any friendship and high school and eventually become best friends for life.

Turtles All the Way Down

Hello everyone!
I've decided (and I'm sorry :P) that since this is partly my group I will spam everyone about what all I've read and how I felt about it. So here it goes!

1. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE by Phil Knight

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is the first time I read a Memoir. So either I'm very inexperienced at it, or I have picked up a really good one. What was the best part about this was how he focused on the failures maybe more than his successes. It was a light but brilliant read altogether. :)



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Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The story starts out in Monte Carlo where the protagonist is working as a maid to a lady. She meets the a widower Maxime who is the owner of a huge estate Manderley. She falls in love with him and luck favors her when he asks her to marry him. As the new bride and mistress of Manderley, she cannot believe her good luck. But upon her arrival to the estate, she begins to discover that even though his former wife is laid to rest in her grave, she has managed to cast a huge shadow over the place. She is expected to fill the shoes of the late wife, which seems a task quite impossible.

This book is beautifully written. It is a classic with its right share of mystery and thrill. The series of plot twists in this book gives the reader a chance to complete the book at one go.



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P.S. I Like You by Kasie West

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Lily is an average no-so-popular girl in high school with a love for music and thrift shopping. Like any other regular teenager, she's hopelessly crushing on the cute senior but too scared to talk to him. On a boring Chemistry class, she scribbles down the lyrics of a favorite song only to find it continued with on the next class. Thus begins a series of exchanges of lyrics and hidden letters under the desk where they pour their hearts out to the mystery other.



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