Full review on: Flipping Through the Pages
Actual reading: 3.5 stars

Full review on: Flipping Through the Pages

When I stumbled upon [b:The Flatshare|36478784|The Flatshare|Beth O'Leary|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1552934684s/36478784.jpg|58189559] and read the blurb, I knew that I would love it. I am so happy to say that yes, I was right and I absolutely loved this book.

WHY I LOVED IT:

**Interesting story set up
Tiffy is an assistant editor for a niche independent DIY and crafts publisher who often overworks and in return, her company pays her a pittance. She is searching for a cheaper flat to live after her wealthy and manipulative ex-boyfriend, Justin, evicts her from his flat because of involvement with another woman. Leon wanted some extra money to pay to his brother’s lawyer, who was framed for an armed robbery and was in jail. When Tiffy saw the advertisement for Leon’s one bedroom flat, she was more than happy to accept the offer. Leon had night shifts at the hospitals and he only lived in the apartment from 9 to 5. So he wanted someone who would live there after his working hours. Tiffy and Leon shared a bed but the interesting thing is they never met each other. They used to talk with post-it notes. Soon these small conversations through notes made them good friends and they started to understand each other without even meeting.

**Adorable characters
I loved Tiffy. She was like your girl next door, talkative, energetic, outgoing and had a good fashion sense. Leon, on the other hand, was reserved in nature and was a man of few words. But as they say, opposites attract each other and thus later, they form a quirky and interesting relationship. Richie, Leon’s younger brother, was a fun character. I loved how he talked to Tiffy and made her comfortable and known without even meeting her. Mo and Gerty were Tiffy’s best friend and were always there for her as her support system. Rachel was Tiffy’s co-worker and they had quite interesting friendship too. I hated Justin so much. He was Tiffy’s ex-boyfriend. He was manipulative and aggressive.

**Not just a love story
The Flatshare is not just a love story. It is way more than that. It is about celebrating friendship, life, grief and overcoming your fears. It is also about an important form of abuse in a relationship- mental abuse.

**Amazing writing
[a:Beth O'Leary|13038484|Beth O'Leary|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1546818419p2/13038484.jpg] has written a wonderful novel. Her writing is mesmerising and humorous. She has created a wonderful set of characters with whom you would relate. You would instantly fall for Leon and Tiffy. With the alternate POVs, the story keeps you hooked till the end. In the beginning, the story feels to be a light read. But as you move forward it becomes more emotional. Along with being emotional, there are so many humorous moments which really kept the story interesting.

**Overall
I would definitely recommend [b:The Flatshare|36478784|The Flatshare|Beth O'Leary|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1552934684s/36478784.jpg|58189559] to all the contemporary romance lovers. This is an appealing, fun and entertaining read while also handling some important issues like abuse. With an interesting plot and lively characters, [a:Beth O'Leary|13038484|Beth O'Leary|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1546818419p2/13038484.jpg] has delivered an amazing read which I would remember for a long time.

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Full review on: Flipping Through the Pages

"Humans are experts in sharing. It started with cave paintings and evolved into books, tweets, virtual reality – who knows what’s next. But the pieces of ourselves that we share are just that. Pieces.”

**What worked:

1. PROMISING AND INTERESTING PLOT
The blurb of this book is highly promising and I am glad that this book turned out to be good as well in terms of the plot. This story is about Opal Hopper, a senior at PASSAT, who becomes a viral sensation overnight, with her friends, after taking part in WAVE’s (a VR platform) contest, Make-A-Splash. Opal hopes to win the contest so that she can meet Howie, founder of WAVE and can finally know the truth about her father’s disappearance.

This plot definitely keeps the reader hooked to the end, especially the mystery behind Opal’s fathers’ disappearance. Also, it was interesting to see how Opal and her friends were viral sensations overnight and how they handled it. We get to see a glimpse of the life of celebrities, how it must have been for them to be in all this limelight.

2. STRONG MAIN CHARACTER AND INTERESTING FRIENDSHIPS
I loved Opal Hopper so much. She was full of flaws, as a real-life person. She was bold but fearful, manipulative but caring, moody and yet fun. She was like most of the teenagers. When she went viral, she was actually happy to see all the starlight that she was into. The trio of Opal, Moyo and Shane was amazing. I loved reading about their friendship and to see the ups and downs.

3. SCARY REALITY OF INTERNET AND DIGITAL WORLD
It was really scary to read about a future that Arvin created. But the thing is, I can actually see that happening in the near future? The world will be a slave to technology. I can see how privacy will no longer remain valuable. People would be able to do all the real-life things through VR and digital technologies. Emotions will have no more place. Ahh, thinking all this is really scary. Arvin has left the discussion open that if all this technology is boon or curse.

**What didn’t work:

1. RUSHED ENDING
I felt that the ending was little rushed? The way the truth about Opal’s father was revealed was quite sudden. I wish it was handled more perfectly.

2. LOOSE POLITICAL ASPECT
There was also a political aspect of the story. There was a group of Luds who were opposed to all these technologies and how they were taking over the world. They wanted to go back to the basics, return the jobs to humans that machines took over. It would have been good to see more elaboration on that aspect too.

**FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Basically, this book is about friendship, relationships, empathy, technology, fame, moving forward and finding the truth. I loved the plot of the story as well as the characters. The pace of the story was perfect. Though I wasn’t impressed by the ending, this book was really interesting and I would definitely recommend this to all the sci-fi lovers.

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Full review on: Flipping Through the Pages

Actual rating: 4.5 Sparkly stars

I love reading middle-grade fiction once in a while and the books like [b:The Good Thieves|45865467|The Good Thieves|Katherine Rundell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558102047i/45865467._SY75_.jpg|68194005] make that experience even richer. This was my first book by [a:Katherine Rundell|4511275|Katherine Rundell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1505127171p2/4511275.jpg] and surely it won’t be the last. I loved her writing and storytelling. I was instantly interested in the story from the first page to the last. It was, as if, I was watching a movie. It had nice story build-up, good action scenes, a group of determined and dreamy kids, a villain and a circus. Basically, it had all the elements which can make a middle-grade story quite interesting for the readers of that age group.

Full review on: FLIPPING THROUGH THE PAGES

I grabbed the opportunity when this book was free for two days on Amazon, as I had heard good things about this book. And I would say, I wasn’t disappointed 🙂 I totally enjoyed this book. It was a quick read which I finished it hardly in 3 sittings.

Laure is the main character who is living on streets and basically surviving by stealing from others. Her plan is to leave Eclatant but she needed money. She made a solid plan but unfortunately, it failed and she met Luc. The news in the city was that the prince had fallen in love with a girl who came to his ball a day before and left a glass shoe. Laure and Luc together go on an embarking journey for getting a duplicate glass shoe, so that Laure can claim that she is the one who left that shoe. Will they get success in their plan? What difficulties will they face in their journey? Who is the girl who left that glass slipper in the first place? To know the answer to these questions, you need to read the book 🙂

What I Liked
-----------------------------------
1) Happily is a fresh take on the classic Cinderella story. I guess everyone knows that story, still reading this book felt as if the whole story was from a new perspective. It is safe to say that it has Cinderella but the story is not all so-Cinderella 🙂
2) The world building was fantastic. There is a rich town with King and Prince. Then there is a poor town destroyed by the war. There are bandits, adventures, and interesting characters. And oh, in this, the Prince is really nice.
3) I loved how the main characters were so contrasting, though both were almost in a similar situation. Laure was a badass, bitter and a little cynical, while Luc was sophisticated, honest and helpful. Reading the arguments between the two was really interesting.
4) Though the story was predictable in many places, I really liked the little twists that were thrown in between. Those little twists were sometimes humorous and I really was grinning at those scenes.
5) It had a lot of adventures like I said before. That made the story action-packed. The fight scenes were done really good.
6) It was a quick and breezy read. The language was easy to grasp making it a fast read.
7) It had the perfect ending that a story could have. In a Cinderella kind of way.

What I didn’t like
-----------------------------------
1) I felt that the end was little rushed. I mean I liked the ending, but I wish that there were a little bit more details about the final scene.
2) Though I loved that the language of the book was modern, sometimes they were too modern. In a story like this, the language should be little closer to medieval style.

Final thoughts
Happily is definitely a feel-good Cinderella retelling. I would definitely recommend it to everyone who is looking for a quick and fun read. You would be surprised by the world-building and the imagination. This book has important messages about friendship and moral responsibilities and is full of humor and adventure.

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Actual rating 4.5 (but I didn't want to give it 4 stars here!).

Find my full review here: FLIPPING THROUGH THE PAGES

Why I was intrigued towards reading this was because of the title itself: Harappa. I have never read anything about this civilization, of course except the course books. So, when I got a chance to review this book I, I grabbed it instantly. And I was not disappointed at all.

The story starts when Vidyut Shashtri, the main protagonist of the story, is called upon to Varanasi where his great-grandfather, Dwarka Shashtri, is on deathbed. Vidyut is a successful entrepreneur and an eligible bachelor who lives with her girlfriend Damini who is a journalist. When Vidyut reaches Varanasi, his great-grandfather starts telling him the story of the curse that has been brought upon his entire generation and the humankind by his ancestor Vivasvan Shatri.

Parallel to this story is running another story, including Vivasvan Pujari as main Protagonist, in 1700 BCE during the great Harappa civilization or the Indus Valley civilization. Vivasvan Pujari is the chief priest of the city and he was soon to become the lead person of Harappa. This was not acceptable to Priyamvada, the wife of Vivasvan’s best friend and brother-in-law Pundit Chandradhar. She conspires against him with dark forces and ultimately turns every person in Harappa against him. This ultimately leads to the destruction of Harappa and put a curse on Vivasvan’s bloodline.

In present, the story goes to Rome where an assassin is planning to kill Vidyut and thus sends a person Romi to Varanasi to kill Vidyut. With the help of his friends, Vidyut managed to save himself. The story then reveals various secrets.



Character building and plot development
I guess the plot is the main and strongest part of this story. The plot is constructed so well around different eras that you don’t feel that you suddenly jumped from one time period to another. All the events are well connected and fast paced. The author has maintained a very good level of thriller and suspense throughout the book. [a:Vineet Bajpai|4570096|Vineet Bajpai|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1496735675p2/4570096.jpg] has cleverly crafted the storyline. He doesn’t provide with too much secret at one point and just left the other parts simply boring. In fact, he has unfolded the secrets one by one leaving the readers to want more. There are so many twists and turns that you keep turning on the pages.



As this is the first book in the series, the details of the main antagonists were kept short. The main focus was kept on the storyline and the and the characters involved. All the characters are well developed. Each character has been presented according to their era. I haven't thought that the writer would present the environment of Dev-Raakshasa Matth in such a modern way. The author has also portrayed some of the female characters pretty bold. The description of all the food provided in Matth was so tempting!



Writing
The author has used such a simple and easy language that anyone can understand easily. At the same time, it doesn't feel like a writing of an ordinary author. The storyline progresses flawlessly and smoothly, going from one era to another. The writing keeps the reader engaged. One main thing to highlight here is that author has used many Hindi language words (as expected by an Indian author in most of the case), but he has told the meaning of each word in English too. This, I guess, will not stop a non-Hindi reader from reading this masterpiece.



The writing of the author shows how much research has been done about Harappa and Varanasi. The description of Harappa felt as if it is coming straight from a famous history book and many times it made me believe as if all the things were real. The description of Kashi/Varanasi is equally beautiful. It is evident in the author's writing that he follows Hinduism devotionally. I loved how he has described his bold thoughts about religion.

"The succession of horrors and violence that Harappa was about to withstand had never been witnessed before by mankind, but hereon would be endured again and again. Each time man would shed the blood of innocents to quench the unquenchable thirst of one demon. Every era would hear the shrieks of suffering millions, only to satisfy the insatiable hunger of one tyrant who wanted it all for himself. And it was going to begin soon."

What I didn’t like
The main thing that I didn’t like was the use of words like “yaa” in conversations between Vidyut and Damini and sometimes with Naina. The use of those words was not fitting with the story well. Also, I felt that the story was a little slow in the beginning.

Final Thoughts
Mythological fiction is a recent trend in India and though I haven't read much of this genre, I know that it isn't always the case that an Indian author pulls such a great and engrossing story. Vineet Bajpai has perfectly mixed up the fantasy and contemporary, the past and the present. The story ends with a cliffhanger and many questions remained unanswered. It left me hooked till the last page and I really wish the second book comes soon and it is as good as this. Harappa was such a refreshing read. It would be no surprise if this gets adapted to a feature film :P If you are into this genre, then I would definitely recommend it to you.



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Full review on: Flipping Through the Pages

[a:Akemi Dawn Bowman|15068129|Akemi Dawn Bowman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1584360966p2/15068129.jpg] is one of my favourite authors and like her first book Starfish, I loved Harley too. Trust Akemi to write about identity and mental health issues, and she would do absolute justice to these themes.

Harley in the Sky follows Harley Yoshi Milano, a teen living in Las Vegas, whose parents run the Teatro della Notte circus. Harley dreams of joining her parents’ circus and becoming an aerialist. But her parents refuse that because they want her to join college. She then leaves home and joins the rival travelling circus Maison du Mystère to pursue her dreams.

Both of Harley’s parents’ are biracial and that makes it difficult for her to understand all four different heritages of her. She feels like she exists in this in-between space. People told her how she’s ‘not Chinese enough’ but also ‘not American enough’. Akemi challenges the racial stereotypes and prejudices. She shows that Harley has the right to every part of her identity without anyone telling her that she’s ‘not enough’.

Through Harley, Akemi has tried to show a multi-layered character. Harley makes mistakes but she grows out of them and learns understanding and forgiveness along the way. Though ambitious, she always had good intentions and cared for others. She knows that putting her ambitions above her family and friends is not right, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to regret not ‘trying’.

Vas stole my heart the moment he appeared on the screen. I liked how broody and mysterious he was and took his time to open up. Somehow, whenever there was a scene of Vas playing, I wanted to hear his music on screen? I loved Popo, Harley’s grandmother. She provided some lighter moments in the story as well as the wisdom Harley needed about her heritage.

Everyone talks about a backup plan. and Harley says that why it is always that people who wish to pursue careers in the humanities streams are asked about that? And parents always have some pre-set goals for children and to achieve them they pressurize them. Harley’s mother uses different tactics to emotionally manipulate her. But behind all those, there is, of course, parental love and Akemi has shown this beautifully.

Depression is the core of the story and Akemi has presented it in a very subtle and realistic way. Harley’s emotions were generally all over the place and often she found it hard to get words out of her mouth. I was able to relate to her concerns, her rage and her fury. Akemi has also shown how people still don’t take mental health seriously. We see the neglect of mental health by Harley’s parents. Her family had a stigma surrounding the conversations related to this. Harley also talked about using ‘labels’ that until you put it inside some label, people don’t take it seriously.

This book also celebrates (found) family and the life of a circus. Harley’s love for the circus is infectious. You can’t help but dream about the big top, trapeze artists, shiny stage, costumes and the whole beautiful aura of it. Though in the beginning people of Maison du Mystère didn’t accept her, slowly she made a space for herself in the troupe through her hard work and determination.

The best thing about Akemi’s writing is how effortless it feels. It is always poetic but at the same time leaves an impact that is hard to forget. I was fully immersed in the story since the beginning. Akemi knows exactly how to balance between descriptive elements, characters, important issues, dialogues and pacy plots. Even the characters’ internal feelings and conflicts don’t sound boring. She has distributed this story into essential parts where each moment, whether it’s small or big, has it’s own importance and eventually leads to some important moments later in the story. You can’t help but be compelled and enthralled by the story of Harley and her dreams.

I came to a point now where I would read anything written by Akemi. And if you are someone who is yet to start reading her work, why not start with Harley? In simple words, just READ IT! Highly recommended.

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Full review on: Flipping Through the Pages

Have a Little Faith In Me follows the story of CeCe, who decides to attend Camp ThreeSixTeen in the hopes of winning back her ex-boyfriend, Ethan, who dumped her days after having sex with her. He wanted to get close to Jesus and CeCe wanted to get closer to him. But she knows nothing about Jesus or the Bible. But her best friend Paul, though warning her this was a bad idea, decides to go with her where ultimately CeCe introduced him as her boyfriend(fake) to make Ethan jealous. But Ethan already had another girlfriend and over the time CeCe realises that her feelings for Paul are more than just for a friend.

This book was a super fun summer novel. It has two of my favourite tropes- fake dating and friends to lovers, and both the tropes have been done so beautifully. I was laughing so hard in a few places. CeCe and Paul’s friendship was awesome. Cece never thought of Paul as anything more until the camp. And this camp changes their relationship forever. Paul was a guy who deserves everything. He was funny and lovely. He was a kind of friend who would go to any length to make his best friend smile. He was certainly a king among men.

I loved CeCe bunkmates- Mandy, Astrid and Sarina. Those were known as the girls of Cabin 8. Cece was initially afraid of living with all Christian girls as she was not sure if she would be able to keep her cover as a fake Christian. But soon their friendship grew stronger and they formed a strong group depicting girl power. All these girls had some talent and were fierce and were trying to find their place within their faith.

I didn’t like CeCe’s character in the beginning. She was a little annoying and took stupid decisions. But as the story progressed, we see an incredible transformation in her character. She realises what she actually wanted to be. She came out as a strong, determined and fierce girl and she was never afraid of putting out her bold opinions, even though she was in a Jesus camp. She learned how to fit in with the people where she was least expected to be.

Apart from being a book about summer romance and finding your place, there is one very much important topic, and that is the concept of CONSENT. This book heavily explores the topic of consent and I am glad it did because this topic is so less talked about in YA and this certainly needs to be improved. This book is framed beautifully around this topic.

I am not a Christian so I don’t know much about all the beliefs and stuff. But I was so glad this book talked about sex education. This book also talks about how your opinions can be different from the others but you need to respect those. It highlighted what needs to be changed in the community but it can’t be done by blaming and shaming others who think differently than you.

I am not sure about this but I think this book can be a little problematic for some, especially Christians?? This book takes place at a very conservative Evangelical Christian Bible camp. There are some opinions expressed by some of the side characters in the book that certain people can find a bit troubling. So read this book with CAUTION if this is something that can trigger you.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend this. This is a fun summer book which you can finish quickly. Besides having a lot of humor and fun, this book is packed with important topics of consent and sex ed. It also talks about finding your beliefs and going down the path which you find suitable for you.

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Full Review on: FLIPPING THROUGH THE PAGES

I didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected. This is so sad considering the beautiful cover (the alternate edition) and the blurb gave so much hope to me 🙁 In fact, I realize it now, that I went into a reading slump last month because of this book only. It was too dragged. In simple words, this book was not for me.

This story is about Alice who grew up moving from one place to another with her mom Ella. They were always haunted by bad luck so they kept changing their places until one day they receive a letter that Alice’s grandmother, Althea, is dead. Althea was the author of famous fairytales books titled Tales of the Hinterland. Alice was never able to get her hands on the actual book but once her mother gets disappear she had no way except entering the dark and mysterious world of Hinterland and the Hazel Wood.

What I Liked
-----------------------
1. Like everyone else, I loved the writing of Melissa Albert. There is no doubt that she wrote beautifully and at times it was captivating.
2. I loved the different fairy tales that the author wrote. In fact, reading those fairy tales were my favourite part of this book. All the stories were creepy and some of those even gave me goosebumps.
3. I loved the relationship of Alice and Ella here. Alice was so determined to find her mother that she was ready to do anything and go anywhere to find her.
4. Finch as a character was so adorable. I liked how he was so invested in Althea’s book.
5. I like all the description of the Hazel Wood and Hinterland to some point. Knowing all those little details about the estate was really interesting.

"Life never turns out how you imagine it will when you’re young. Everything is smaller than you think, or too big. It all smells a little funny and fits like somebody else’s shirt.”

What I didn’t like
--------------------------------
1. The first half of the book seemed very slow and was dragged too much. I don’t think it was required to make it that long. Most of the first part contains the road trips of Alice and Ella which doesn’t add much to the main plot.
2. I was not able to relate to Alice as a character. I wanted to love and understand her. But with all the craziness and anger that was portrayed for her, I felt it really hard to connect with her. At times I was irritated by all the foolishness she was doing and the way she used Finch.
3. I wanted more story for Ella and Finch. I really wanted to know Ella. I felt that her part as a character in the story was too small. Also, a major portion of the book was set around the stories written by Alice’s grandmother Althea, yet we don’t see her side of the story as much as required.
4. The second part of the book was filled with so many random and bizarre characters. I had a hard time remembering the purpose of each of them in the story. Later part became Alice in Wonderland for me with all those creepy characters kept popping in.
5. There was too much information withhold with each character and sometimes I was irritated. You don’t need every character to hide some information so that you can introduce a new character. It just made the story more confusing for me.
6. I didn’t like the ending. I felt it was too rushed and complicated. I had a hard time understanding it and all the coincidences were just weird.

Final Thoughts
--------------------------
As I said earlier, this book was definitely not for me. Though I appreciate the author’s writing style and her imagination, I am not impressed by the story itself and the characters. I felt that this book would have been more interesting if it was just a short stories collection of those creepy fairy tales instead of a whole novel. For most of the parts it was boring for me and I had to literally drag it till the end. This book is more suited for the readers who like creepy tales and heavy fantasy world.

**** Thank you Penguin Random House UK and NetGalley for providing me eARC of this book.

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** Note: A free copy of the book was provided by the author and Sidra Ahmad in exchange for an honest review

There are 3 short stories in this book all related to different topics. In the introduction, author says that these are his babies and he hide them from the world for two years! Though the introduction sounds good, I hope the stories were that good too.

I originally rated it 2.5 stars but half extra star for the first story. The first one was a good thriller kind and hope that the rest of the stories were similar too. However, it's a story about an author who fells in love with the main lead of his novel. It was something interesting to see.

I loved the concept of the second story. It's a dream for all the wives that their husband them them like that not for just a single day, but everyday. The story of Sidzy and Jihan was cute. But I must say, I was not a fan of the writing here. There could have been some more insight. The repeating lines like "why do you love me so much?" and "what good deeds have I done to get you" made me irritated. Those lines just kept repeating over the whole story. I really wished it to be written more beautifully. And I don't know, if anyone else felt this, but I kept thinking that some surprise is coming, something bad is going to happen, but nothing. I guess it was effect of the first story.

Third story had the same issue - beautiful story but not that well written. The motive of the author was clear that what he wanted to express, but he has not expressed it well. However, this story tells us that how important it is to be happy everyday despite the hard conditions and how you can make other people lives happier by just doing the act of happiness.

If you need a light read or you are going out and want to read something quickly, then this is for you. Though the stories are good, its not well executed and I wish there were some more stories.

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