fathima_ashab's Reviews (159)

The fragrance of sunshine is a collection of bundled up hopes, love, fear and suffering expressed through beautiful words.
First of all, I can't ignore the fact that how much I adore this cover😍 It is such a suitable design for the theme of this book. I loved how the author has divided the book into five sections with the mixture of poems, prose and quotes. One thing I felt for sure while reading this book is that Sadaf Shakeel has such a beautiful heart😍❤️ Omg! I just can't express how much I loved her writing and the feelings it had. And the main reason I loved this book is because she has touched so many topics like about love, pain, refugees, war and stuffs like that. Her writing was thought provoking. I really enjoyed this book. And I would definitely recommend it if you love poetry like me.

This poetry anthology is a collection of verses from ten beautiful people. Even though it's written by different people, the flow was smooth and everyone's style was unique. It was a soul searching and mood lifting read. Also, it did give me some hope for me to start writing again. A little hope maybe. But I don't know how to give rating since I liked few poems over others. And I could connect with three poets at different levels more than I did with rest of them. So to make things even I would give 4/5⭐

I just wanted to do a light reading and picked this up thinking it's a romance but it turned out pretty deep and heavy. It did have romance here and there though. A guy named Shreyansh who is down and depressed inside but always finds a way to help people around him. People take him for granted and he ends up getting what he doesn't deserve. On the other side, it is also a story of a girl named Manya who is naive and pretty selfish at moments. It's the story of love, regret and loss between them. It was a quick read and had an easy way of writing style but it could have been better. The main theme of the book was about Mental illness. So it was devastating and heart breaking throughout the story. but the feelings were raw and real and that's what I liked about the book.

Here is my review on Adelard Klaus:
Let me first tell you what this book is about and how it is structured - A guy named Nathan Brian. let's call him Brian. So this Brian comes to Mumbai for a job, there he ends up becoming the flatmate of a famous and intelligent detective named Adelard Klaus. He is someone like Sherlock Holmes. He works privately and helps people unraveling the mysteries. And he is really very good at it. This book is not a whole novel but a series of short stories representing each case of Adelard Klaus.
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Okay, so, telling the stories were good would be underestimating them. I mean they were brilliant. Such clever tactics and tools were used in each and every story. I was honestly mind blown with a couple of them. Crime and detective thrillers always blow my mind with their unique perspectives and angles. And this one definitely lived upto my expectations.
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The only thing that bothered me was the dialogues and writing. Nah, it wasn't bad but it could have been better. That would have made the book even more awesome. Also, having given a role for Brian, his characterization should have been deep and made him more relatable to the stories. Other than that, this book was really good.

This book is definitely an inspiration for youngsters or whoever wants to make big changes in the Indian society. We often complain about our corrupted government and puppets in the name of leaders. But do we have any other choice or plans to change them? That's a question we need to ask ourselves before criticizing too much, isn't it? Now, there are only two kind of people here. 1. With no brain and follow the leaders blindly. 2. Cynical about everything and not really making any changes. ( of course, I will come under the second category too) But this book made me realise so many things. And the author really has solutions for things we don't even know it's a problem. He talks about everything in this book right from government, economy, education to healthcare, science and technology.

He points out at our existence here beautifully in such a short sentence as 'We are at once both free and trapped'. Isn't it resonating with us so perfectly? We think we are free but are we really free?

And he has definitely done a detailed research on everything he is talking about. It should not be read for entertainment. It has wisdom and has to be read very carefully. It was little tough for me to read it because my small mind couldn't take everything in and it felt like Greek and Latin to me in few places because I have only little knowledge about them. So I would say the narration of the book could have been little loose and easy for everyone to grasp the concept and understand.

But it's definitely worth reading. And I would recommend you to read it. Also, I wish people in higher positions like politicians and activists would read this and make sense of something. I really do. They should definitely read it.

A historical thriller set in 403 C.E. India. I didn't expect it to be a murder mystery even the first quarter of the book didn't give any sign to that but as the plot developed, it became a gripping story involving a mysterious family and a royal family. I guess the description and character developments were pretty good and interesting. Though there were many characters involved, it didn't confuse the plot. Even the writing style was really good.
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But there were three things that didn't sit with me well. 1. The mentioning and emphasizing the well known historical character named Kalidasa to be the centre of the story by the author in the beginning. But his appearance was only few times throughout the book and he didn't do anything much as he appeared to be at first which was disappointing. 2. The title of the book. It says 'the curse of Anuganga' but even the name Anuganga was only mentioned once or twice and I don't know why the plot has anything to do with the title. 3. I loved how it was descriptive but also I find it too lengthy and boring at times. It would have been better with some more editing and cutting down some unwanted descriptions.
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Apart from these three points, I really enjoyed the book. As I mentioned earlier, it was gripping. So I couldn't put it down for any longer and finished it in two sittings.
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**Review copy**

This book is a compilation of six short stories of women who are named after the goddess Parvati (my favourite character of all time). We all know how Parvati is so quirky, relentless and has her own way of doing things and these six women from Bengal are nothing less than her. They somehow turn every bad situation of their lives into something meaningful and through their journey, they can even make us laugh at how relatable they are.

It was different and of course, it has strong women characters so how would I not love it when it's something I mostly enjoy to read. The writing was simple yet good. It is a satire comedy. The book was short on the whole and I craved for more in the end. Good one. Pick it up if you would like. You will not be disappointed.

An Indian mythological fiction, first book in the trilogy, that continues in the Kaliyuga long after the Ramayana ends where Hanuman was asked by Ram to raise and train a group of warriors who will born multiple times in different periods of time to gain the ability to kill the demons that still lurk in the nooks and cranny of the Earth and awaiting the destruction of the world and to control us using their demonic powers. This is clearly yet again another war between the good and the evil but with a twist of magic and tools from modern fictional worlds such as invisible cloak, time turner and superpowers.

I really enjoyed the plot since it was so interesting with many factors that I considered seeing in the Indian fiction which we often come across in other fantasy series. There were few instances that really gave me goosebumps but I found the editing so minimal which really put me off. It's a trilogy and I felt the author could have taken time to sit with the characters a little long instead of rushing to actions throughout the book. I also found few things repetitive and could have been easily avoided and the story would have been still good to understand. But I am not blaming the author. She definitely has done a great job with research and themes. I really appreciate it but the editing should have been at least better if not the best.

I would give 3 stars for writing this epic fantasy and I am sure the author has the potential to do better.