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Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Book Review - Afterlight by Aditya Mewati

What it is - A new dystopian novel by Aditya Mewati, and it's probably the first dystopian novel by an Indian so kudos there.

Blurb from Goodreads - Despite being raised to hate her own existence, Sayra Green found love after she met Aaron and his family. They gave her hope in a world where everyone is segregated as worthy and unworthy. 

They made her feel safe in a dystopian era where beasts prowl the land, and there are only a few walls to keep them out. 

Now, after turning seventeen, Sayra commits an act which sets in motion an event that starts affecting many lives, and with things going from bad to worse, can she save the people who ones saved her?


Review - So this is the story of Sayra and Aaron who are living in a dystopian city where on turning 17 everyone has to go through mandatory DNA test and based on that 25% are selected as unworthy and they aren't allowed to breed. This is a fast read with multiple POV chapters. Like I said this is probably the first dystopian novel by an Indian and this made me so so happy. This was the first book which I finished in the year 2019 and it was my first review on Goodreads for the year. When you would start the book it will feel like a fantasy novel because of the limited facilities in the city the story is based in and then it turns into proper dystopian level. Only issues I found was that sometimes the event occured too quickly and the story would jump here and there. But still it's a very nice effort by Aditya. 

Final Ratings -      4 out of 5
                               **** out of *****

Friday, January 4, 2019

Reading Plans for the New Year 2019

So Let's continue the conversation from my last blog post. It was all about the journey of last year, how many books I read, how did I read, what was the strategy. Now that we are already three days in the New Year let's talk about the Reading Challenge for 2019 and what books I am looking forward to reading. My initial reading challenge goal is set to 250 books. The number is high because I read lot of comics and I love reading them so very much. Like I did last year, if I manage to get to my goal before the year end I would modify the challenge by 50-100 books then.

Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge
This year,

I am planning to finally start reading Manga comics hopefully, so that I shall be able to understand the many Manga inspired cosplay in better details. I bought bunch of graphic novels towards the end of the year and hope to continue the trend.

I am also planning or in fact have already starting to pick those books to read which have been waiting to be read for many years. There are lot of books which are waiting to be read for 10 years now, but all I can say is I would get to all, but all in due time.

I am also participating in few extra reading challenges from the groups I am part of on Goodreads. One such challenge is 12 Months, 12 Genres. Where you have make a concentrated effort to ensure that in the year you read books  which belong to the following genres:

♦ Classics
♦ Romance
♦ Fantasy
♦ Humour
♦ Adventure/Horror
♦ Young Adult
♦ Science Fiction
♦ Mystery/Thriller
♦ Contemporary
♦ Paranormal
♦ Historical
♦ Non-fiction

Now if you read a lot like me then it's not such a difficult challenge and this also helps to keep the reading list fresh if the books are from different genres and who knows if you won't find a new favorite from a new which you might not have tried before? So  Cheers to New Decisions, Cheers to the New Resolutions, Cheers to the New Plannings, Cheers to a New Year, May all you have a great reading year and you find new favorites to cherish this year as well. So remember whether you read only one book a year or many books in a year remember to Keep on Reading.

Thursday, January 3, 2019

My Reading Journey of Year 2018

As readers as much as we love to read, tracking our reading progress and the books we have read is also important. Different readers use different methods, and along with tracking the progress, readers also love to use Reading Challenge to motivate themselves to read more than the previous year or simply read more than they would read otherwise. To that end I love to use and am using Goodreads to track my reading progress over the years and I also participate in Goodreads Reading Challenge to challenge myself to read more and read often. It's a simple challenge where everything you read counts, people who want to diversify their reading they can chose to take countless different reading challenge which has different topics which you have to tackle through to complete that point. 

    Having said that I am using Goodreads Reading Challenge since 2013 and I have been able to complete my reading challenge each time so far. So to that end what was my reading challenge for the year 2018. My initial challenge was 150 books which I reached pretty soon, so then I updated it to 200 books and so on and so forth. My final books target was 300 and I ended up reading total 338 books in the last year.


You might be wondering now how did I manage to read 338 books well it's this way that first I always read lot of comics so that helps, second I starting listening to my e-books so that has helped to continue reading while I work or ride to and fro work and then there is good old fashioned reading. So the number you see above is my year long reading journey and I hope to continue that in this new year 2019 as well. My initial target for this year is 250 and let's see how far I can push it then. So Happy New Year and Happy Reading Year to all my reading friends, also share how do you track your reading and do you also take part in any reading challenge or not. So till then Keep on Reading.

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