Purple hibiscus

PURPLE HIBISCUS

Author :  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Genre : Fiction 

Synopsis : 

Fifteen year old Kambili's world is circumscribed by the high walls and trees of her family's compound. Her wealthy catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home. When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a religious coup, Kambili's father sends her and her brother Jaja away to stay with her aunt. This visit lifts the silence from her world and gives rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in unexpected ways. 

Chandana Speaks:

Kambili is fifteen years old (for most part of the book) and lives with her brother, mother and father - who is an extremely wealthy catholic. Her father Eugene is both a religious zealot and a violent figure in their household, often subjecting his wife Beatrice and her brother Jaja to beatings and psychological cruelty. Kambili discovers a new way of life when she and her brother are sent away to her aunt, who is a university professor. Their house is noisy and full of laughter. Its a complete contrast to what Kambili and Jaja are used to. Though their aunt's family is catholic, they practiced a completely different form of Catholicism, making for a happy, liberal place that encouraged its members to speak their minds. In this nurturing environment both Kambili and Jaja become more open, more able to voice their own opinions. Ultimately, a critical mass is reached in terms of the lives of Kambili, Jaja and the existence of their family as it once was. Unable to cope with Eugene’s continual violence, Beatrice poisons him. Jaja takes the blame for the crime and ends up in prison. In the meantime, Aunty Ifeoma and her family go to America to live after she is unfairly dismissed from her job as lecturer at the University of Nigeria. The novel ends almost three years after these events, on a cautiously optimistic note. Kambili has become a young woman of eighteen, more confident than before, while her brother Jaja is about to be released from prison, hardened but not broken by his experience there. This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new.

Price : INR 246/-

Rating : 4/5

p.s - With this review I bit adieu for a while! Ironically, right from the day I have joined ALOP as a member, the number of books I've been reading has been dwindling down steadily. And being the voracious reader that I am or rather, have been all my life, I couldn't digest the fact that I was hardly posting any reviews here. I mean 2 per month??? I used to read two per day for God's sake!

Anyway now the situation is even more tough. The only kind of books i'll be reading for the next few months are Financial accounting and Statistics and the likes of it. So unless you guys want reviews of those :P, I bow out for now! 

Prey by Michael Crichton

PREY by Michael Crichton

GENRE: Science Fiction

SYNOPSIS:

In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles – micro-robots – has escaped from a laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.

It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed.

And we are its Prey.

Chandana speaks:

Jack Forman is an unemployed software programmer who was fired from his previous job when he discovered an internal scandal. As a result he takes the role of a stay at home husband while his wife Julia serves as a high ranking employee at a nanorobotics company. Julia claims that she is working on a new piece of revolutionary imaging technology with her company, which takes up most of her time. He starts believing that during her long hours away from home she is having an affair, and becomes watchful of her changes.

One night Julia comes home late and shows Jack a video of her demoing the Xymos nanobots. In the video, the nanobots are put into a human test subject, and video from inside the body is broadcast in real time. The next day, Julia is in a car accident, and Jack is offered a job by Xymos, because the project manager, Ricky, is having software issues with the nanobots.

Jack is taken to the Xymos research facility in the desert. Jack is given a tour of the lab and meets the programming team. Ricky claims that hazardous elements such as the assemblers, the bacteria, and the nanobots were blown into the desert, which evolved and eventually formed the "swarms". These swarms start attacking and killing animals in the wild. Most alarmingly, the swarms seem to possess the ability to quickly learn and to innovate. The swarms tend to wander around the plant during the day but quickly leave when strong winds blow or night falls.

Jack goes outside to inspect a dead rabbit killed by the swarm and they find that the rabbit died of suffocation resulting from the nanobots blocking its bronchial tubes. Jack is attacked by the swarm and he barely manages to get through the airlock inside the lab before falling unconscious

The team proceeds to find and destroy these nanobots. After multiple escapes with death Jack discovers that somewhere among them is the person who let them out in the first place and someone among them is the one who has infected everyone else with the swarm. The rest of the story revolves around how they try to destroy this new strain.

Drawing on up-to-the-minute scientific fact, Prey takes us into the emerging realms of nanotechnology and artificial distributed intelligence in a story of breathtaking suspense. Prey is a novel you can't put down.

Because time is running out.

PRICE: INR 214/- (Flipkart price)

RATING: 4/5

Sphere by Michael Crichton

SPHERE By MICHAEL CRICHTON

GENRE: Science Fiction/Techno thriller

SYNOPSIS:

The novel follows Norman Johnson as a psychologist who is engaged by the united States Navy to join a team of scientists assembled by the U.S Government to examine an enormous space craft discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The depth of coral covering the craft suggests that it has been lying there for over 300 years and so could only be of alien origin.

The novel begins as a science fiction story but quickly transforms into a psychological thriller, ultimately exploring the nature of the human imagination

Chandana Speaks:

Michael Crichton is one of my favorite novelists and I have literally devoured every book of his. Right from Jurassic Park series, to Prey to Andromeda strain. I must have read every book at least twice and never got bored of it.

Sphere, has an equally captivating and chilling storyline – which was made into  a lousy movie, but we all know that right? Books are always way better than their movie counterparts.

So the story!

The spacecraft that they think is of alien origin, turns out to be an American spacecraft constructed 50 years in the future and apparently sent through time, crashing 350 years before its creation. On further exploration, the team discovers a mysterious spherical artifact, clearly of extraterrestrial origin, which quickly becomes the focus of their attention. At this point a Pacific storm traps the scientists on the ocean floor without contact or support from the Navy on the surface for over a week.

The crew soon focuses on attempting to open the sphere and learn about it. Harry eventually succeeds in going inside it. Upon returning, he has a terrible headache and he remembers little about what happened inside or how he opened it.

As they continue to theorize, they are contacted by an intelligent, seemingly friendly life form which calls itself Jerry, from within the sphere. While they struggle to communicate with it and translate its coded language, bizarre things start to happen. Sea creatures that never even existed start to appear.Jerry tells them he is "manifesting" the creatures. Members of the team start to die in various attacks by sea life and a new form of giant squid, and the dwindling survivors struggle to placate the unthinkably powerful, childlike, and temperamental Jerry.

The rest of the story revolves around how they discover who Jerry is and how they escape from the submarine to the surface.

The novel lives up to its expectations. The good thing is that it keeps you going even when you are pretty sure of what will happen next!

PRICE: INR 434/- (Flipkart price)

RATING: 4/5

The girl who loved Tom Gordon - Stephen King

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON

GENRE: Psychological horror

SYNOPSIS: 

Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail. Lost for days, wandering farther and farther astray, Trisha has only her portable radio for comfort. A huge fan of Tom Gordon, a Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, she listens to baseball games and fantasizes that her hero will save her. Nature isn't her only adversary, though - something dangerous may be tracking Trisha through the dark wood

EXCERPT:

Trisha went down a mild slope, her sneakers slipping a little in a carpet of last year's dead leaves, and when she got to the bottom she couldn't see the Kezar Notch path anymore. Good. From the other direction, straight ahead through the woods, she heard a man's voice and a girl's answering laughter -- hikers on the main trail, and not far away, by the sound. As Trisha unsnapped her jeans it occurred to her that if her mother and brother paused in their oh-so-interesting argument, looking behind them to see how sis was doing, and saw a strange man and woman instead, they might be worried about her.

Good! Give them something else to think about for a few minutes. Something besides themselves.

Chandana speaks: I'll be honest. This book made my stomach churn. I skipped a few paragraphs because I couldn't bring myself to read his macabre descriptions. Putting a 9year old girl through that torture, even if its just a book, is completely heartless. I wouldn't have minded much if it was an adult. But then this is a Stephen King book and he is the master of horror and macabre, and that is exactly what you'll get. So let's move on to the story.

The story starts with a family hiking trip, Trisha, her brother Pete and her mother. To avoid listening to her brother and mother squabbling over her parent's divorce, Trisha falls back and wanders off the trail for a bathroom break. She tries to catch up by taking a short cut but slips and falls down a steep embankment and ends up hopelessly lost. All she has with her is a bottle of water, her walkman and some food. She listens to her Walkman to keep her mood up, either to learn of news of the search for her, or to listen to the baseball game featuring her favorite player, and "heartthrob," Tom Gordon.

Her mother and brother return to the car, call the police and start a search. Meanwhile Trisha decides to follow a creek (which turns out to be a swamp like river) because she read somewhere that all water bodies eventually lead to civilization. As the cops stop searching for the night, Trisha huddles under a tree to rest. A combination of fear, hunger and thirst makes her start hallucinating. She imagines several people from her life, as well as her hero Tom Gordon appearing before her. 

Hours and soon days begin to pass, with Trisha wandering further into the woods. Eventually she begins to believe that she is headed for a confrontation with the God of the Lost, a wasp-faced, evil entity who is hunting her down. Her trial becomes a test of a 9 year old girl's ability to maintain sanity in the face of seemingly certain death. Racked with pneumonia and near death, she comes upon a road, but just as she discovers signs of civilization, she is confronted by a bear, which she interprets as the God of the Lost in disguise. In imitation of Tom Gordon, she takes a pitcher's stance and throws her Walkman like a baseball, hitting the bear in the face, and startling it enough to make it back away.

 A hunter who has come upon the confrontation between girl and beast frightens the bear away and takes Trisha to safety, but Trisha knows that she earned her rescue. Trisha wakes up in a hospital to find her divorced parents and older brother waiting near her bedside. A nurse tells the girl's family that they must leave because "Her numbers are up and we don't want that." Her father is the last to leave. Before he does Trisha asks him to hand her her Red Sox hat (autographed by Tom Gordon) and she points towards the sky, just as Tom Gordon does when he closes a game.

PAGES: 224

RATING: 4/5

Bright shiny morning - by James Frey

BRIGHT SHINY MORNING

GENRE: Fiction

AUTHOR: James Frey

Chandana speaks:

So this is the last and final book by James Frey. This is entirely fiction and is in no way connected to his previous books. But it is just as in-your-face, touching and truthful as the previous ones. The story is about L.A, a city of contradictions. It is a home to movie stars and to down-and-outs. Palm-lined beaches and gridlock. Shopping sprees and gun sprees. There are filmy snapshots that zoom in on the parallel lives of the many characters in the book, bringing their egos and ideals, hopes and despairs, dreams and anxieties to life. Its the story of L.A and its people. The land of dreams and also the land where dreams get shattered. 

There are four main parallel stories:

Amberton and Casey - the rich actor and actress couple living in their huge mansion, with their kids, with all kinds of luxuries you can think of and leading a so-called perfect life. But what they hide is a deep and dark secret. Their marriage is a sham, a facade for the public. Amberton who thinks he can have it all, finally realizes that there are some things that are beyond his reach.

Old Man Joe - He is homeless, except for the bathroom where he sleeps at night. He sits on the beach every morning waiting for an answer. He hopes to do some good someday. His attempts at trying to save a spoilt teenage runaway backfire and instead result in getting someone killed.

Esperanza - the mexican immigrant with loving parents and obnoxiously large thighs. She spends all her life struggling to cope with her self-confidence and self esteem.

Dylan and Maddie - the madly-in-love young couple who run away from their respective dysfunctional families in search of a better life. They are both big dreamers. They are hopeful, in love, and their simple wish is to be together.

Frey throws in a few snippets of stories of people with dreams, hopes, who go west, who drive towards "the glow", to start a new life. And true to his style the ending is tragic. Some of them suffer, like the noble homeless Joe who tries to save the teenage girl, others gain and then suffer like the canny talent agent who turns sexual harassment into blackmailing advantage. Some are loaded or grounded or have luck on their side. Others like the countless actress-turned-waitress, singer-turned-hooker, or schoolboy-turned-gangster are plain doomed. 

At first the title 'Bright Shiny Morning' seems to be making a mockery of the whole book. But somehow the stories wouldn't have been right with a happy ending. It is so disappointingly, tragically perfect.

This book has got a lot of mixed reviews. A lot of brick-bats from biggies like L.A Times and New York Times. I liked it, it made sense to me but its definitely not everyone's cup of tea!

PRICE : INR 295/-

RATING : 4/5

PAGES : 547

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

NEVER LET ME GO

AUTHOR: Kazuo Ishiguro

GENRE: Science-Fiction

SYNOPSIS:

In one of the most acclaimed novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishigaro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatizes her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Halisham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

EXCERPT:

"What I think", said Tommy slowly, "is this. Suppose its true what the veterans were saying. Suppose some special arrangement has been made for Halisham students. Suppose two people say they are truly in love and they want extra time together. Then you see Kath, there has to be a way to judge, and see if they are telling the truth. That they aren't just saying they are in love, just to defer their donations. Or they think its love but its really just a sex thing. Or a crush. But the point is whoever decides they need something to go on"

I nodded slowly. "So that's why they took away our art…"

"It could be.. Suppose two people come to Madame saying they are in love, she could find the art they have done over the years. She can see if they match. She said our art reveals our soul. She could decide what's a really good match and what's just a stupid crush"

Chandana says: 

The children of Hailsham House are afraid of the woods. In the days when their guardians were much stricter, the school myth goes, a boy's body was found there with its hands and feet removed. Despite the incessant rumors, Hailsham children seem to have a nice life. The school places considerable emphasis on self-expression through art and, especially, on staying healthy. There are frequent, exhaustive medical check-ups. Smoking is a real crime, because of the way it can damage your body. 

Yet despite the care lavished on them, their world has a puzzlingly second-hand feel. Everything they own is junk. Sometimes you get the feeling they're being taken care of on the cheap. In fact, they are; and their fear of the woods reflects, in a distorted but pretty accurate way, their fate. They're organ donors, cloned to be broken up piece by piece and used as spares. The purpose of Hailsham is to prepare them for their future - to help instill in them feelings of self-repression and denial that will keep them steady and dependable from one donation to the next.

Never Let Me Go is the story of Kathy and Tommy and Ruth, and of the love-triangle they begin at Hailsham. Ruth is the controlling one, Tommy is the one who used to find it hard to keep his temper: they hope that love will save them. They've heard that love or art, or both - will get you a deferral (Couples who are deeply in love will be allowed to live together for a while like a "normal couple" before they begin their donations). Kathy - well, Kathy is a carer by nature as well as profession: she watches her friends break themselves against the inevitable, but never lets them go. After Hailsham, they grow from puzzled children to confused young adults. They live in a prolonged limbo, waiting for the call to donate. They're free to wander. They learn to drive, roam Britain looking for their "possibles" - the real human beings they might have been cloned from.

Although this is science-fiction the actual 'science of cloning' is no where discussed. How exactly are the clones created? How are they kept alive after they start donating? How do they survive their third, fourth and fifth donations? The author is more interested in the emotional world of the clones. This extraordinary and, in the end, rather frighteningly clever novel isn't about cloning, or being a clone, at all. Its about three friends and the simple hopes that they have. The title of Never Let Me Go is taken from Kathy's favorite song, by make-believe folk singer Judy Bridgewater.  Kathy listens to the song while dancing and holding a pillow that she imagines to be a baby.  It presents a very sad image, for she can never have a real baby.  Moreover, she has never been held as a child, never had a mother she could ask not to let her go.  Though she soldiers on, tending to her dying fellows without complaint, Kathy's silent dance betrays how greatly she is in need of tenderness.  Aren't we all?

PRICE: INR 523/- (Flipkart Price)

OTHER INFO : Turned into a movie in 2010

PAGES: 282

RATING: 3.5/5

The Watchman - Robert Crais

THE WATCHMAN

AUTHOR : Robert Crais

GENRE : Detective Fiction (Elvis Cole series)

SYNOPSIS :  Pike must protect Larkin Barkley, a spoiled rich girl who is a witness in a major case. But someone is leaking information about their whereabouts, and the killers are getting all too close. So Pike hatches a plan: turn the tables and hunt down the hunters. Enlisting the help of Elvis Cole, Pike uncovers a web of lies and betrayals where even the cops aren't who they seem. But as the body count rises, it is clear that Pike's biggest threat may be the girl herself - an edgy yet intensely vulnerable soul who seems determined to destroy herself.

EXCERPT :

Pike shouted, “Get in. In.”
Another man appeared at the edge of the house, snapping out shots as fast as he could. Pike fired, but the man had already taken cover.
“In.”
Pike pushed the girl across the console, jammed the key into the ignition and gunned his Jeep to the corner. He four-wheeled the turn, buried the accelerator, then glanced at the girl.
“You good? Are you hurt?”
She stared straight ahead, her eyes red and wet. She was crying again.
She said, “Those men are dead.”
Pike placed his hand on her thigh.
“Larkin, look at me.”
She clenched her eyes and kneaded her hands.
“Three men just died. Three more men.”
He made his deep voice soft.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you hear me?”
She still didn’t look.
“Do you believe me?”
She nodded. 

Chandana Speaks :

"A long time ago, Joe Pike asked for help. Now he must return the favor, no questions asked…"

Larkin Conner Barkley lives in LA , she is young and staggeringly rich and speeds through the city during its loneliest hours in her Aston Martin as if running for her life. Until out of nowhere a car appears, and with it the metal-on-metal explosion of a terrible accident. Dazed, Larkin attempts to help the other victims. And finds herself the sole witness in a secret federal investigation. For maybe the first time in her life, Larkin wants to do the right thing. But by agreeing to cooperate with the authorities, she becomes the target for a relentless team of killers. And when the U.S. Marshals and the finest security money can buy can't protect her, Larkin's wealthy family turns to the one man money can't buy - Joe Pike. Pike lives a world away from the palaces of Beverly Hills. 

He's an ex-cop, ex-Marine, ex-mercenary who owes a bad man a favor, and that favor is to keep Larkin alive. The one upside of the job is reuniting with Bud Flynn, Pike's LAPD training officer, and a man Pike reveres as a father. The downside is Larkin Barkley, who is the uncontrollable cover girl for self-destruction -- and as deeply alone as Pike.

Pike commits himself to protecting the girl, but when they immediately come under fire, he realizes someone is selling them out. In defiance of Bud and the authorities, Pike drops off the grid with the girl and follows his own rules of survival: strike fast, hit hard, hunt down the hunters. With the help of private investigator Elvis Cole, Pike uncovers a web of lies and betrayals, and the stunning revelation that even the cops are not who they seem. Larkin, a lost soul in the city of Los Angels puts her entire trust on Pike, who teaches her the value of life and love.

Murder mysteries and detective novels were my bibles. Until I got bored of the predictable plots, and the typical ex-marine/ex-cop hero giving it all up to protect the rich and pretty damsel in distress. After a gap of two years I came back to this particular novel because of the rave reviews I had heard about this author. This is the eleventh book in the 'Elvis Cole' series although the stories are not connected. Its neither disappointing nor thrilling - its predictable. Its not boring but then again its not something that you would desperately want to finish in a single sitting either.

Pages : 304

ISBN : 0743281632

Rating : 3/5

Price : Rs 333/- (Flipkart price)

My friend Leonard - James Frey

GENRE - Semi-fictional Memoir

AUTHOR - James Frey

Best Sellers - Million Little Pieces

SYNOPSIS -

My friend Leonard is the story of an extraordinary friendship formed in the most unlikely circumstances.

While in rehab James Frey finds a father figure in Leonard, a shady mafia boss. When Loenard returns to his dubious, prosperous life in the criminal underworld of Las Vegas, he promises James his support on the outside. Tragedy strikes the day James is released from jail and his world seems set to implode. Unsure where to turn, he calls Leonard. Paradoxically, it is in Leonard's lawless underworld that James discovers the courage and humanity needed to rebuild his life.

EXCERPT - 

Would you mind coming back to my office?

Why?

I need to talk to you. I'd prefer to do it in private.

Where's Lilly?

Why don't you come to my office?

I want to see Lilly Tom.

Please, James.

I'm not going back to your office Tom. Just tell me where the fuck Lilly is.

He looks at the floor, takes a deep breath. He looks up at me.

Before I tell you, I just want you to know that Lilly loved you very much. She talked about you all the time and….

He looks at me. He doesn't speak. His eyes are wet.

What the fuck is going on here?

He looks at me, bites his lip, takes a deep breath. My heart pounding.

Lilly.

His voice breaks.

Lilly.

His voice breaks again.

Lilly passed away this morning.

I stare at him. I am holding her roses.

What? My heart pounding.

Lilly died this morning. 

My heart pounding. What happened?

Pounding.

She took her own life.

I stare at him. 

My heart, my heart, my heart. 

He stares at me, speaks.

I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry

Her flowers slip from my hand. What happened?

My heart.

We don't know. Her grandmother had just died. She was very shaken. We found her hanging from the shower faucet. She dint leave a note

I turn around. I walk out of the house.

My heart.

My heart.

My heart.

Chandana Speaks - 

So the second book, the sequel to 'Million little pieces' is just as captivating and touching. By now you know that Lilly has died. Don't worry, I haven't given away the story! This is just the beginning. At the end of the previous book we get to know that James was going to spend three months in Ohio County Jail, finish his sentence and then join Lilly, who was going to be at a halfway house until then. As soon as he is out he rushes to meet Lilly but finds out that she has died. Desperate, James goes to a liquor store and buys the cheapest bottle of wine with the intention of drinking it. He spends the night in his car and does not drink the alcohol. James asks Leonard for thirty thousand dollars, which he uses to bury Lilly and her grandmother. Leonard had told James while they were in the treatment center that he would look out for James as though he were his father. He gives the money to James on two conditions: 1) James must agree to tell Leonard later what he did with the money, and 2) if James does decide to drink the bottle of wine (which he still keeps in his apartment), he must agree to call Leonard beforehand. At the end of the story, Leonard goes into hiding and James does not hear from him for eighteen months. Finally, Leonard meets with James in San Francisco and informs James that he is dying from AIDS. Leonard takes his own life by overdosing on pain medications.

Yes this books starts from the bottom, slowly climbs up, gives you hope, and then spirals down and smacks your head on the concrete floor.

When I read James Frey's Million little pieces, I though it was the most intense book I had read in recent times. But this one is even more intense. Frey is unbelievably stubborn, which for some reason makes him very attractive and appealing! He transforms his traumatic 24 year old life into something very raw, emotional and human. He struggles, he is afraid of himself, hates his fears, suffers, but never gives up. Especially since he knows that giving up will mean death for him. Leonard plays a major part in Jame's life. He has his own issues but is a brilliant father figure + friend.

This book is brilliant. DONOT read it without reading 'Million little pieces' first.

Pages - 375

Price - INR 304/- (Flipkart price)

Rating - 4/5

The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

THE TIME TRAVELLER'S WIFE

GNERE: FICTION

AUTHOR: Audrey Niffenegger

SYNOPSIS:

(Blurb)

This is an extraordinary love story of Claire and Henry who met when Claire was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Claire was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. In the face of this force whcih they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Claire's struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. 

EXCERPT:

Claire: It's hard being left behind. I wait for henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays.

I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?

Chandana speaks-

This book tells the story of Henry DeTamble, a librarian in Chicago and his wife Claire Abshire, who is an artist. Henry has a rare genetic disorder (Chrono-Displacement) that causes him to travel through time involuntarily. In the opening of the novel, when 28 year old Henry meets 20 year old Claire, he has no idea who she is although she has known him her entire life. Weird much? It just gets weirder. Henry begins his time traveling at the age of five, jumping forward and backward in his timeline. Where he goes, when he goes, and how long he goes is never in his control. He could be doing an everyday task like brushing his teeth and he would suddenly find himself with a 12 year old Claire. Most often he travels to places and times related to his history. He goes jogging to remain calm and stay in the present. Henry cannot carry anything with him during his sudden travels so he always arrives naked and then struggles to find food, clothes and shelter. 

The Time Traveler's Wife follows the story of their lives mostly in a straightforward chronology, at least from Claire's perspective. She's a child and then a teenager with their secret rendezvous throughout the years in the meadow. Henry first visited her at an older age, so he knew the dates that the earlier versions of himself would visit the older versions of Claire (Its confusing I know.. but keep up!) She kept clothes hidden for him in the meadow and sometimes hid him in a basement room of her house. He was her big secret that she always kept to herself. How could she explain the presence of an older man who traveled through time to be with her?  During another visit, he inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future. Over time they develop a close relationship. Claire is last visited in her youth by Henry in 1989, on her eighteenth birthday, during which they make love for the first time. They are then separated for two years until their meeting at the library - which is the 'actual meeting' when both of them are in the present.

At its heart, and a very big heart at that, The Time Traveler's Wife is a love story, one populated by realistic characters. Even with the time travel and its effects on their lives, Henry and Claire are people you intimately know and empathize with, their fears and flaws common to us all. Even through their rough stretches of their life, the lifelong fear of something terrible happening to Henry while time traveling, their anguish at the miscarriages when Claire wants a baby more than anything else, the moments where they'd just rather be alone, their love for each other is never questioned and their hope is never extinguished. Henry plans carefully and worries often during potentially stressful situations, like his wedding to Claire or meeting her family for the first time. It also adds to the suspense of the story, not knowing when Henry will arrive or leave during any important part of their life together.

You kind of start to guess where the story is headed when finally Henry and Claire finally have a daughter,  Alba. Alba is diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement as well but, unlike Henry, she has some control over her destinations when she time travels. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets his ten-year-old daughter on a school field trip and learns that he died when she was five years old. Once you're buried within this novel and fully immersed in their lives, you have to suffer their pain - the knowledge that they know Henry is going to die, as well as celebrate their joys with Henry and Claire.

When he is 43, during what is to be his last year of life, Henry time travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. As a result of the hypothermia and frostbite he suffers, his feet are amputated when he returns to the present. Henry and Claire both know that without the ability to run and escape when he time travels, Henry will certainly die within his next few jumps. On New Year's Eve 2006 Henry time travels into the middle of the Michigan woods in 1984 and is accidentally shot by Claire's brother, a scene foreshadowed earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Claire's arms.

Claire is devastated by Henry's death. She later finds a letter from Henry asking her to "stop waiting" for him, but which describes a moment in her future when she will see him again. The last scene in the book takes place when Claire is 82 years old and Henry is 43. She is waiting for Henry, as she has done most of her life, and when he arrives they clasp each other for what may or may not be the last time.

PRICE: INR 280/- (Flipkart price)

Film Tie-in (Paperback)

Pages - 615

RATING: 4/5

The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak

The book is available in two versions - The Adult version and The Teenagers version, although there is no difference in the story. Both are easily available.

GENRE - Historical Fiction

AUTHOR - Marcus Zusak

SYNOPSIS - 

DEATH has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger's life is changed when, by her brother's graveside, she picks up an object partially hidden in the snow. It is The gravedigger's handbook left there by accident and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words as Liesel with the help of her foster father learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, her world is both opened up and closed down.

EXCERPT-

God there were so many of them.

So many sets of dying eyes and scuffling feet.

Liesel searched them and it was not so much of a recognition of facial features that gave Max Vandenburg away. It was how the face was acting - also studying the crowd. Fixed in concentration. Liesel felt herself pausing as she found the only face looking directly into the German spectators. It examined them with such purpose that people on either side of the book thief noticed and pointed him out.

"What's he looking at?" said a male voice at her side.

The book thief stepped onto the road.

Never had movement been such a burden. Never had a heart been so definite and big in her adolescent chest. She stepped forward and said very quietly "He's looking for me".

Her voice trailed off and fell away, inside. She had to re-find it - reaching far down to learn to speak again and call out his name.

Max.

"I'm here Max!"

Louder.

"Max I'm here!"

Chandana speaks - 

This is one book that I have read around 10 times but have never tired of it, which is pretty rare for me. The story is set during the time of the Nazi rule in Germany during World War II, and oddly enough is narrated by Death. As you keep reading the narration, he almost feels human and at some point you start empathizing with him, because Death is actually sorry for what he has to do as his job. He describes the first time he sees 9 year old Liesel Meminger (in the 1930's) in a graveyard shortly after the death of her brother where she steals her first book The Gravedigger's handbook after it is dropped by one of the gravediggers. Despite being un-educated and unable to read it becomes her link to her past even after she is taken away from her mother and put in the care of Rosa and Hans Hubberman - her foster parents. She has difficulty adjusting to her new life and often has nightmares about her mother and brother. Hans Hubberman whom she later starts calling 'Papa' discovers the stolen book one night when he comes to comfort her during her nightmare. They form a special bond and thereafter Hans takes it upon himself to teach Liesel to read and write. Liesel also befriends a boy named Rudy Steiner who, apart from falling in love with her and annoying her also becomes her best friend and partner in crime. The pair eventually takes to stealing as an occasional pastime, usually fuelled by Rudy’s constant hunger. 

The story takes an unexpected turn when Hans Hubermann is contacted by Max Vandenburg, the son of a Jew who saved his life in the First World War. Keeping the promise Hans made to the man who saved his life, The Hubbermans hide Max in their basement and he forms an unlikely but very special friendship with Liesel. But when Hans publicly gives bread to a Jew being sent to a concentration camp, his intentions become clear and the it gets too dangerous for Max to stay hidden in their house for any longer. Max disappears. The next time she sees him is when he is being marched through the town to a concentration camp. 

What happens later is something you should read and find out. It would be too cruel of me if I disclosed anything beyond this.

It is a raw, deeply moving and immeasurably sad story. Its the story of a little girl who tried to change the world in her own little way, which is also very inspiring. A must read!!

"She has been robbed of a brother, who dies at the start of the book. Her mother disappears, and then Liesel is left in foster care. A great deal has been taken away from her. She steals books to settle the score".

Rating - 5/5 

PRICE - INR 245/- (Flipkart)