Jayanth's Mission Impossible 2017

[Em Lost In Books, EmLo is my Name, PIFM is my Game]

Em wrote: "...or Chekov"

I have read The Bet, small but really good.

[Ahtims]

Wow. I will borrow the idea of asking for the first dibs on a lent book.
But have done that already.
Gifted Maximum City to my sister in law, and within 3 months "borrowed" it.She too was eager to "lend" as she is used only to magazines and Chetan Bhagats :/

[Sankara Jayanth]

Manju wrote: "Em wrote: "...or Chekov"

I have read The Bet, small but really good."

.... and into TBR. I'm really loving his writing. :D

[Sankara Jayanth]

Em wrote: "Wow. I will borrow the idea of asking for the first dibs on a lent book.
But have done that already.
Gifted Maximum City to my sister in law, and within 3 months "borrowed" it.She too was eager to..."

Hahaha :P

[Sankara Jayanth]

Review of The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket
Rating: 4

The tragedy becomes even more tragic. The mystery becomes even more mysterious. The villains becomes even more villainous. The absurd becomes even more absurd.

God dammit, Lemony Snicket! You seem to be knee deep into the shit that's happening but you are being purposefully vague. Damn you, I will read the next book immediately. Poor orphans! What the f*** is V.F.D, that is still not clear.

[dely]

Jayanth wrote: "I would like to read more of Nikolai Gogol's works. "

Yes, do it. His short stories are very good. There's also his novel Dead Souls that is very good.

Yes also to Chekhov!

[Sankara Jayanth]

dely wrote: "Jayanth wrote: "I would like to read more of Nikolai Gogol's works. "

Yes, do it. His short stories are very good. There's also his novel Dead Souls that is very good.

Yes also to Ch..."

Yeah, I will read them :) thanks for the recommendation. :)

[Sankara Jayanth]

Review of The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket
Rating: 5

This is the best book of all the 10 in this series I've read until now, hands down. There is a lot of shit going on in the background that the readers are not aware of until book #5 or so and when the author does hint at something big, he doesn't reveal much about it until book #8. Although not getting much information regarding the main plot is frustrating, I think the quality of the books and the stories has gone up since book #8, by miles.

There is no point in talking about the stories after book #5 because the change in the scope of the story is something readers should experience by reading the series of books. So I hope and request people to not put spoilers in their reviews of books later than #5. This is a very unique series and don't spoil it for others, especially anything and everything related to the abbreviation you-know-which.

I love this series and Lemony Snicket is an extremely clever and creative writer.

[Sankara Jayanth]

Review of The End by Lemony Snicket
Rating: 5

Oh, Jesus! I'm so sad this series has come to an end. It has been a truly awful and wonderful experience reading this unique series of books. So many characters that I had journey with for 13 books, from small kids to villains to mysterious strangers.

The ending of this book is so so so beautiful, and so so so very dark, as Lemony Snicket, the investigator of the Baudelaire case and the author of these 13 volumes states so very often.

How can this depressing tale be for children? I do not ask this question for an answer, but because I'm feeling helpless and depressed after reading this. The author actually makes a case for why such a horrendous series of unfortunate events do make up a children's story. The writing in the final act of this book has been so so so beautiful. My heart is raging with so many emotions, like tides caused from winds from every direction, clashing with each other and sending even more rogue waves that will but eventually make my heart a shipwreck.

There is no start to a series of unfortunate events and there is no end. This world is a wicked place and every new life that we bring into it will start to experience a series of unfortunate events no matter how much we try to protect the new ones. All we can do is give them the tools to survive this world and the people who are all in huge cycle of causing and being affected by a series of unfortunate events.

I sincerely take a bow to Lemony Snicket, that is Daniel Handler, for creating this unique masterpiece of a series. _/\_ Reading these books and the culmination of the entire story in The End is an experience I will not forget in this lifetime. There are so many questions left unanswered that the reader time and again hopes to find answers for in each book we pick up. But the author finishes this book and the whole story in a most remarkable, beautiful and heart rendering way.

Life is indeed a series of unfortunate events.

[Sankara Jayanth]

Review of Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
Rating: 4

Ufff! It's been a long time since I read a book this long. I think the 3rd one in the trilogy is even longer. But...... BRING IT ON!!!

Although my expectations were not met regarding how much the story progresses and in what way, I enjoyed this book nevertheless. As I've said earlier, I loved the writing and narrative style of Farseer Trilogy. It's a page tuner for me even though the story progresses at a snails pace and I'd say that's not a easy thing to pull of. The world building and character development is top notch, very immersive and interesting. The ending is not what I expected after what has been going on in the later part of the book. But the ending was brutal and insane, as well as satisfying. Although I can't help but think how the next book goes from here, FitzChivalry is in deep deep shit.

[Sankara Jayanth]

Review of Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb
Rating: 4

No spoilers.

Loved it. The ending was heartbreaking but the beauty of it all, the pain and the sacrifices, fits in so well with the characters that have been created so meticulously and wonderfully. There are so many characters who I've been rooting for the entire series and the ending could not be more bittersweet than it has been.

I will quickly go over what I did not like because they are very few compared to the things I did like. There were a lot of frustrating parts in this book, more than I have seen in earlier ones in this trilogy. And this book could have been a couple of hundred pages short while delivering the same story it had, it dragged on unnecessarily while delaying the essential things that I as a reader was craving for after all that has happened in the story since the beginning. But that's all I've to complain about this book. I've no other major complaints regarding the entire series except that it is slow paced and we do not know much about the magic system or the fantastical elements of this world until the second half of book #3, although magic is used quite frequently through the book. So that may turn some readers off, but I liked the series nevertheless as it delivered beyond expectations on so many other things.

This series is mostly character driven and sometimes the story almost becomes secondary to it. There a ton of characters that I have been rooting for and I shared their emotions as they themselves did in the story and that shows how great the characters and story were. The magic system, which has only been subtly and moderately revealed and used until this book blows out into huge proportions during the second half and it was a treat. I especially loved the idea of The Wit. This Wit concept gave a different and a pleasing depth to the relationships and motivations between all the characters, both human and other living beings. FitzChivalry is an enigmatic character. His is not perfect. He is far from it. He is not happy, far from it. That's what makes reading this narration of his life a bittersweet experience. There are a lot of existentialism related thoughts well embedded into the story and characters that have humanized these fantastic characters and I personally appreciate and yearn for such depth in every book I read.

I loved Robin Hobb's writing on the whole, her world and character building were excellent in my opinion. I'm going to read the rest of her works and the good thing is that there are 3 trilogies and 1 quintet within the same universe as the Farseer Trilogy. So I'm looking forwarding to returning to the world that has been so immersively setup by Robin.

[Ahtims]

Congrats on finishing the trilogy. :)

[Sankara Jayanth]

Em wrote: "Congrats on finishing the trilogy. :)"

Thank you :)

[Sankara Jayanth]

Review of The Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Rating: 5

It is a 4-star book if it weren't for the awesome and soul-stirring ending.

One thing I was aware of the entire book was how easy it was to read. I found myself unable to put the book down and I seemed to be able to read faster than I usually did. So I think that's down to the writing, it was brilliant.

This book was awesome for the most part. The premise is not quite unique, it's one of those hero centered plots where 1 guy is the difference between total destruction and peace/winning. The premise was 'almost' executed perfectly except for the one glaring flaw I could not ignore throughout the book. It became all the more irritating and frustrating for me when I realized that the 3rd act of the book was so much better than the ones before. The flaw, in my opinion, is that (view spoiler)[when these high IQ, highly skilled kids are being picked for so important a job, the one who is going to be asked to save the world from alien invasion, why don't they talk to the kids about why and what they are warring against? This part is only brought up in the third act when things start to go down. Also, I could not just imagine that such discussions about the morality of war, invasion, annihilation were actually held with the kids behind the screens in earlier parts of the book during the training either, because the way this discussion is introduced in the 3rd act, it is plain to see that the person, a 11 year old kid, who is to save entire human race is talking about the morality of war or what has actually prompted the war for the very first time right before he is off to take his place as commander of the army that's going into the battle. I thinks that's stupid to epic proportions (hide spoiler)]. This bugged(no pun intended) me during the entire book until the final 20 pages, which were mind-blowing and I decided that this flaw can be ignored if I was to truly enjoy the book, hence the 5-stars.

What's great about the climax is that it delivered what I usually hope to seek in books, especially when books deal with war and killing: commentary on existentialism, morality and how acts of violence affect one's own mind. I mention this almost in every book review because I personally feel the urge to thank the authors who use these themes as it helps the readers grow in real life. The last pages, for this reason, were so very beautiful and heart wrenching, almost made me cry.

I will most likely read the sequel because I want to know whether humanity will right its wrongs that it believes to be inherently right, for the reason that we, humans, live to survive, so we will destroy whatever stands in the way of it, that survival is too important to let any decisions regarding it to fall into the gloomy chasm of morality. I at least hope we do. Ender Wiggin gives me that hope in this book.

[Sankara Jayanth]

Review of Caraval by Stephanie Garber
Rating: 3

It is a good mysterious fantasy story. I won't say it was great because I did not feel that the plot was as convincing as it should have been. Also, I read it without knowing the book also falls under romance and YA genres. So I cringed at many moments during the story, wishing I had not started reading this book. But these moments become less cringy as the story progresses and the characters develop some sense.

I would have rated this 4 stars if it weren't for this line(any a few other moments) that almost made me throw up: "Thick lashes lined his light brown eyes, just made for convincing girls to lift their skirts and open their arms". I agree that humans do have such 'impulses' and 'desires' in real life too, but I'm not a fan of such crude writing and it's one of the reasons I don't read YA or modern literature with a love story as a main theme. There are too much crude and questionable forms of expression of love and lust in modern literature(and real life) that's treated as a thing of beauty(I understand those who do). But I'd rather not read them and cringe every time. I prefer poetic, classy and decent writing when expressing things related to one's heart, be it love or lust. It's one thing to describe a villain's lust in a crude way and another to do it with a protagonist. I may sound prejudiced or narrow minded or whatever, but that sentence was completely out of place and unnecessary, I did not expect it in a novel like this(it was my mistake to not notice YA and Romance genres tagged to the book before I picked it up). But I'd have thought such objetifying sentences belonged to 3rd grade romances and 1st grade erotica or whatever, you get what I'm trying to say.

But the rest of the writing in the book was good in general, to be frank. The story got better during the final third and the overarching main plot(well, it's not much, only one simple thread that's brought back in the end to make the next book happen) makes me look forward to the next installment in the series. Don't be fooled that this book is tagged under fantasy, its the accept-that-there-is-magic-without-asking-how kind of fantasy.

[Ahtims]

totally agree with what you've written.
I have entered a giveaway for Caravel. I will read the book mostly if by any chance I win it. Otherwise it will be forever in my TBR till something happens otherwise to convince me to attempt it. :)

[Rebecca]

I agree with you on that crudity thing you mentioned . I stay a pole away from such stuff.

[Gorab, TheGunman]

Jayanth wrote: "Review of The Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Rating: 5

It is a 4-star book if it weren't for the awesome and soul-stirring ending.

One thing I was aware of the entire book was how easy it was ..."

It was a 5-star read for me too. Very nicely reviewed.