Mridula Ramesh

This second book of the series is story wise great and I applaud the author for making such great characters with decent depth and great camaraderie, it makes for great reading. There are exciting hints of a bigger story lurking in the background which will surely be interesting. Having said that, there are a couple of things that take some fun out of reading - editing is the first. I am not sure if it's a kindle problem but there are numerous typos and some really bad sentence construction that should definitely have been caught before publishing. In terms of the magic also - I feel the highly technical style of description of the spell working (aided by bad sentence construction) was sadly was very confusing for me and mostly went over my head. Another thing is this series could highly benefit from a map and some historical background to add to the reading pleasure. Overall enjoyed it and will definitely continue the series.

This is my first book by this author and I must say that after the halfway mark I shamelessly looked up the synopsis and jumped to the last chapter. The writing style is decent but I felt the pace of the book wasn't so great, I was constantly waiting for the story to move forward. Based on the description was expecting a thrilling read but it was a bit boring. The mystery is revealed around halfway in the book and is a bit underwhelming and you could probably see it coming. All the characters are flawed, "real" and well developed but I just couldn't care for them at all. I have read some books where the main character is not essentially good, does things that are awful but they have a strong presence and even if they are normal, they seem extraordinary and interesting. Here the characters were a bit boring - hadn't really done much and nothing so interesting had happened till halfway so I just couldn't bring myself to keep reading about all their emotional stuff. So I basically just jumped to the last chapter and finished it off and didn't really feel like I missed anything.

This is my first book by Jojo Moyes and the writing style is nice enough that I'll try other books. This book was an ok read, I didn't really connect so well with the main characters and I felt that even though there was so much information about how difficult the life of a quadriplegic can be, it was a bit detached and there was virtually nothing from the point of view of Will. Lou on the other hand is more fleshed out but I somehow couldn't really see the "potential" she's supposed to have. Much is told to us rather than experienced. I was more drawn to the hinted turbulence of Will's mother's feelings and things left unsaid and how she was portrayed which I could connect to better. Also enjoyed the relationship of Lou and her sister Trina which was way more richly fleshed out. I must mention that I did skim read some parts which felt very descriptive. Also I guess since the quadriplegia was used more as a point to advance Lou's character, the book wasn't as hard hitting as expected and ended up being an easy enough tears free read - for me at least.

This is the first in the Space Opera genre that I've tried and thoroughly enjoyed. Without giving away too many spoilers, I really liked the way the Radch society was presented - where gender has no relevance. Reading about this was a bit disorienting initially - because we give a lot of importance to it especially while trying to visualize the characters. In this book the appearance of the characters has largely no importance whatsoever and it was different and nice. Also I enjoyed reading about the AI of the ship Justice of Toren and the character growth of Seivarden. As expected from the genre, the book is an easy read without too much focus on the details or correctness of the physics and maths. The world (or I guess universe would be better) building is great and though there aren't too many details, what is there is perfectly adequate for the progress of the story. I enjoyed the book and will definitely continue the series.

This book was a great read, the writing style is a bit meandering but wonderful - very visual and elegant. The characters are all beautifully described, the light and darkness in people juxtaposed in a way that was great to read. The mystery was decent enough, though towards the end easy to guess due to the huge clues dropped for the reader but not really for the characters. The hows and whys of the murder and police procedure are not explored in too much technical detail, focus is on the emotional aspect. Also the fates of people are open ended - we'll learn more in coming books I think, as they seem to be recurring characters. As the writing style is attractive, already picked up the next in series. Go for it if you like a mellow murder mystery that's not heavy on the dark and gory details.

It took some time for me to warm up to this book, in part because the writing style is somewhat archaic. There are bits of Latin thrown in, fencing terminology in fight scenes with no explanation for the layman whatsover and purple prose like saying "for the nonce" instead of "for now". Also some references to North American people who I had no idea about. As I had to constantly interrupt reading to look up words, it took some time to get a good flow going. The story was good and the characters interesting, but not with much depth to them except the main character Corwin. Also there weren't any strong female characters I felt. The world building is a bit nebulous with not much history or depth, however it's a unique concept. There are some interesting twists and turns and I did manage to retain an interest in finding out what happens next so I will be reading the next book.

Enjoyed reading this book it was well written and story was fast paced. The climax was a bit underwhelming and not so well explained and there were no strong female characters - a man's world completely. Still, overall was an enjoyable read.

Warning: Contains spoilers I will mark this as Did Not Finish. Writing style is fine, the heroine is mixed race and not a standad cut out. Even the love interest is a bit different. I'll even buy into the hate turning to love concept. But. First of all there is no perspective provided from the hero's point of view - sure we may be told later why he is so horrible to the heroine even though secretly he is extremely attracted to her. However this isn't good enough without giving his point of view too. On top of that, ok the heroine had a long "dry spell", is a bit insecure, introverted and she has to pretend to be tough in an all male environment - however why she has tolerated the horrible behaviour is a bit odd - bet if the hero wasn't so very handsome she would have reported his unprofessional behaviour. After all this, they have some sort of confrontation in an extremely contrived circumstance and despite all he has done she kisses him and obviously its the best first kiss ever (he's so handsomely handsome) and he apparently has no taste when she kisses him because " he drinks so much water". What was really surprising was she's ok with kissing him but she doesn't ask him why he was so horrible to her. Then she falls off a ladder when its so obviously unsafe and she's even scared of heights (she does it just to show him she can do it and she doesn't need any help) it doesn't seem mature and is frankly extremely juvenile behaviour. This is followed by a hospital stay where he devotedly takes care of her and she's a bit unsure of him, etc.. I don't know at this point I just didn't care - it was boring. Obviously there'll be some issues coz they don't fully trust other and some sexual tension and stuff but I lost interest by this point. So I don't think I'll finish- maybe will skip ahead to the final few chapters.

Its an ok light read - nothing so great and nothing so bad either. Everyone is shallow and as usual all the people are "gorgeous and perfect". I use to be ok with the shallowness of the physical descriptions and a large chunk of the romance based purely on the "gorgeousness" of the characters but nowadays it's just irritating. I am not so sure I want to continue.. the mystery is interesting but is it worth it to sit through all the shallow stuff.. not sure right now.

This was an interesting read containing African folklore - not sure what the original folklore is but seems interesting and will look it up. Writing style is decent, not the usual type I've come across - in terms of descriptions, the way people talk. The characters are well developed and story is interesting though the mysteries were very predictable. There's even a picture of the main character at the end and that was nice. Overall enjoyable.