Book Review - The Treasure of Kafur by Aroon Raman

One thing which I don't like much about Indian authors is that they seem to focus only on one type of subject love stories. That is why I am always interested in the books which are different. Just like the one I have got today. 

'The Treasure of Kafur' is a tale centered around India of 16th century about 1580s. This is a historical fiction and its a lovely book. There I said it, I loved it absolutely loved it for the language, for the flow, for the characters, for the story, for the research for everything the author has done.

The story as the title suggests about a treasure of lore and legends actually the original treasure wasn't lost and it was huge (241 tonne Gold, 20000 Horses and 612 Elephants all laden with looted treasure of South India). But that's where fiction element come into the picture, its historical fiction and it works beautifully. 

Our Hero is Dattatreya a 21 years old man living with his Grandmother Ambu who are both Guardians and can communicate with animals. Datta is always with few animals Aditi - his Cow, Manas - his Tortoise, Kanka and Shukra - Ravens and Sheherazad - a parrot. Ambu comes to know of the location of the lost treasure of Kafur and the cruel ruler of country Khandesh wants that treasure to wage a war against Mughal empire. So Ambu is kidnapped by him and Datta races against time to reach Agra to Akbar to alert him of the treasure and get his Ambu free.

The story progresses like a fantasy novel and there are certainly few elements. In all I simply loved this wonderful effort by the author. Hoping to read more of his writing.

My Ratings - 5/5
In Stars     - ***** / *****



Note - I received an author signed copy by Aroon himself but that hasn't changed any of my words or review I genuinely loved the book. I even forgo sleep to write this review.



This review is part of First Reads challenge 2014 and IQRC 2014.

Book Review - Hexagon by Ishaan Lalit

Image Credit - http://priyankazneverland.blogspot.in Thanks

So there you have it a Sci-Fi book by an Indian author. That was my primary motivation to buy this book and it was like a breath of fresh air seeing this book among all the myriad kind of love stories which were on offer. Kudos to Ishaan on thinking out of mold. 

Now coming to the review of the actual book. In a word 'Meh' don't get me wrong I liked the book but its not kind of book which would linger in your thoughts by the virtue of being that good. Though the concept is good but the treatment is lacking. 

The story is about a thief Rahul Oberoi who was never caught but his luck runs out when he is caught with his girl friend. But rather than taking them to police station they are taken to a secret base where Rahul's Grandfather worked and we have a secret structure called Hexagon which is a portal between 6 parallel worlds. We come to know that all the worlds are under attack by a vicious people who are called Moths and only Rahul can save all the worlds. And then we are taken through all the different worlds in order to save them all. 

Story is okay but again execution is poor. There are so many mistakes that it appears that there was no editor who worked on the book. Also so many continuity mistakes that it also appears that there was no proofreading done. To top it all there is an entire chapter repeated word to word. Totally unacceptable. 

So in all the book was Okay but could have been better if worked on pace and also if the spelling and other errors are corrected. In all there can be a v2 of this book with corrected mistakes.

In all my rating goes 3/5 ***/*****

P.S. - This reviews is also eligible for "First Read Challenge 2014" and IQRC 2014 (Indian Quill Reading Challenge 2014)

The Curious Incident - Book Review

OK!!! the complete name of the book goes here - "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" Phew that was a big name. Now coming on to the book the book is about and told from the perspective of a 15 year old boy named Christopher with Asperger's Syndrome. This book is really unique as it was the first time that I was reading the voice of a person with said syndrome. The blurb at the end may promise you a murder mystery but don't believe it because the mystery or what's there of it solved by the time we reach the half book. But yes as the cover promises the book does open with the description of a dog who has been stabbed with a garden fork. Who killed him and why that's what our unique hero tries to find out. He is unique as he loves red color and hate colors yellow and brown. The book is told from Christopher's perspective so it follows his life while he attempts to write a book and many chapters are description of the stuff what goes in his mind. Another wonderful thing is chapter number which doesn't go in a linear fashion but are based on prime number because its a book by and for Christopher and he likes Maths and Prime numbers so there they go. Christopher also plays the part of a detective overcoming many of his fears to find out the truth. Christopher loves dogs and has a pet rat. So if you want to read an award winning book, do read this one. It is funny, it is engrossing, it is a page-turner and it is full of scientific terms.

My Score for "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" ****/***** i.e. 4/5

InkHeart - Book Review

This trilogy of books took me many months to finish, where in between they lay unattended in my bag. Then for the sake of finishing the book I would start again and would find something interesting and then I would read it continuously. So now that my rant is little bit over lets start with actual review. And yes since the Books are Huge the review would be little longer than usual.
          This trilogy of Books were written by Cornelia Funke originally in German and they have been translated in more than 26 languages around the world. This Fantasy series is a wonderful treat for Book lovers like yours truly. Every chapter in every book of the series starts with a small quote from a classic book many a times linking to the events of the Chapters.
              First book of Trilogy is called 'InkHeart', which tells the story of our Hero Mo (Mortimer) and his daughter Meggie. Mo works as Book Repairer, restoring old books and making new covers for them, but Mo has an extra-ordinary gift of Voice. Whenever Mo reads aloud from a Book, the character he is reading about would come alive in our world and as an equal transfer someone near by would go in the book in place of those. Mo's wife was disappeared one night when Mo was reading 'InkHeart' to Meggie. Yes! you got it InkHeart is the name of the book in the book which is central to the trilogy. When Mo's Wife was sucked into InkHeart it spit out three people from the Book, Capricorn, Basta and Dustfinger. Capricorn is the main villain for this book of the trilogy. 

How the villains track down our Hero and his daughter and how they fight for not only their survival but also of their friend's. The book is very big and takes its own time to come to the conclusion and it is a good story. You would love it because there is much more to love about this book and very little to not like. I gave too much background information in the beginning and if I continue to talk about the book it would turn in to another book. so do yourself a favor, stop reading the review and start reading the book. You won't regret it well not too much anyway. :)

My Score for InkHeart - **** / ***** 4/5

Flesh House - Book Review

"Flesh House" is a crime thriller from Scottish writer Stuart MacBride set in Aberdeen a city somewhere in Scotland, I had never heard of the city before picking up the book so it was nice reading about a new city. So moving on the book is about a serial killer known as "The Flesher" and what he does is mixes human flesh/meat with the normal meat. 

When an abandoned container is opened, police founds out that it is full of Meat and almost 40% of it Human. Since Flesher hadn't struck in a long time, this puts all kinds of gears in motion. New police officers are called in from bigger cities to track and neutralize the serial killer. I didn't feel that the book was a page turner, may be someone from Scotland might disagree but the book seemed to drag at points. The mystery itself is quite good with the suspects who turn out to be innocent. And bigger surprises as so move towards the end. The book improves on the pace towards the end. All in all a nice book to pass the time. The book doesn't flow in a linear path and generally it's not a problem but its not executed that well. To keep this review short, I would say give this book a chance may be it would be more to your liking.

My Review Score for Flesh House ***/***** 3/5