Gone Girl : A Review

Rating: 3.5 out of 5



Author: Gillian Flynn










This book is like |sine| wave. For those who don't know what that is, well it looks like this:

                                                                           


Yes, just like the graph above, the story has a lot of ups and downs. Initially, this story appears to be of a recession-hit couple whose relationship is going down the gutter. But as the story progresses, more twists and turns keep you hooked. The plot of the story is not fresh but is interesting. The writing is good but there are many technical flaws, the author should have consulted a forensic scientist.


Amy Elliot is a super smart girl who doe't know how to lose. She has a book series, Amazing Amy, which her parents wrote inspired by her childhood. She met Lance "Nick" Dunne or just Nick Dunne who is a movie critic. They try to woo each other and get married. Then comes the recession and both lose their jobs. Also, Nick's mom gets cancer and they move to his hometown. Now, everything changes. They get to see the real side of each other and they simply stop trying.


Initially, while reading Amy's diary one tends to like her and sympathize with her. At one point I hated Nick for what he allegedly did to Amy. But the next twist just blows you. And one tends to hate both of them.


Other characters like Margo or fondly referred to as Go, is an ideal sister. She loves her brother and takes care of him like a baby. She believes him and helps him throughout. Marybeth and Rand Elliot, Amy's parents, are psychologists and soul mates. Well here is the catch, either they extremely bad psychologist or Amy is extremely cunning from birth because they just don't know the hell is wrong with their daughter. Or it could just be that they are pretending that they don't know.........somethings not clear.


This story is full of technical mistakes. If one takes a urine sample, then it can last for only a certain amount of hours, not days. Same goes for vomits. Forensic techniques like tough-DNA and post-mortem autopsies certainly do not exist in this 2011. There are a lot more but lets just end here.


The ending is disappointing. I expect some real blood bath but it turned out to be quite the opposite.


Thus, it is an interesting story but could have been better.

Mockingjay : Review

Rating: 3.81 out of 5

Author: Suzzane Collins









My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead.

I laughed, I gasped, I choked, I almost cried and finally I smiled. This book really moved me. The ending 100 pages really did hit me on a level which I still am trying to comprehend.

This book begins with the rebels launching attack on the Capitol.People are dying and everyone is now living under a routine in District 13. Everyone's lives seemed to have been tangled in the cobwebs of this military lifestyle. As the war progresses things look worse.

The plot is now the whole war scene with people dying at the fall of the hat. Transfer of power is never peaceful is more often than not bloody. But even in all this chaos love thrives. All kinds of love- sister-sister, mother-daughter, love between friends, frenemies, even strangers. The characters are now all very sharply defined I do respect Katniss for sure. Though Gale, in the end, disappoints me big time but Peeta and Hymitch save the day.

This book had a huge impact on me and I still don't know why but I guess I will figure it out slowly, with time.

And I highly recommend this book :)      

Catching Fire: Review

Rating: 3.55 out of 5

Author: Suzanne Collins





As soon as I finished Hunger Games I wanted to read this one.I was a little disappointed by the previous one so I did not set high marks for this one. But as this book progressed I started really liking it.

The book begins with chaos, chaos in every relationship, chaos in Katniss's heart and chaos in the land of Panem. This time the story is really gripping as bombs drop both physically and emotionally in Katniss's, Peeta's and Gale's life. The plot grows and is very interesting. The characters, especially Gale's takes new depths.New voids are formed in Gale's and Katniss's relationship. At one point everything seems like going kaput. But the end is a real shocker and makes you want to dive into Mockingjay.

Character wise katniss's growth is remarkable. She is not portrayed as a miss goody two shoes or the ever so perfect heroine but she is the brave imperfect girl who is trying to figure out the world around her, trying to make sense of it . Also Gale is now given some limelight and it is very interesting to read about his actions and to think from his point of view. The dynamics of relationships is changing all over and some real shockers grip one to this book.

So If you like the first one, then the probability of you loving this one is quite high!!!!

Going to finish Mockingjay in a few days and will post about it :)

The Hunger Games: Review

Rating: 3.45 out of 5 

Author: Suzanne Collins

I started reading this book because of the popularity this one got. I mean some people even said this was better than Harry Potter. Thus, I had a lot of expectations from this book. But after having finished it today I’m not sure how I feel about this book.

The story is not Harry Potter best but it is interesting. Katniss, the protagonist, is shown too much in the positive light except for in the last 50 pages. She hunts for the whole family, takes up the role of the breadwinner, and then she sacrifices herself for her sister, fights till the end, just too much heroic.  Also I think the beginning lags a bit before the actual hunger games begin. Peeta, on the other hand, is the love struck boy who risks everything to save the girl he loves. Other characters such as that of Prim, Katniss’s mother, Gale would have been better if there was a bit more detailing and some stories relating them. But I guess that might be the central theme of the next book.

The plot is nice and I do like the post Armageddon scene with one group ruling over the entire land and controlling the people as they wish (not much different than our own world).I somehow feel this book is unfinished. Having read many open-ended stories, I do realize that ambiguity of the end is inevitable in such stories but to me this book had the concept, the plot, the characters but in some way it didn’t make it. This book had the potential in its plot to bring something fresh to the table but it misses its shot.

  Nevertheless, I will read the next one in this series, and I seriously do hope that it is going to be better than this one.