Category Archives: Books

Queen Of Babble

Image June 27, 2014 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

What’s a Girl without a big mouth?

Sensible, maybe.

Well, Queen of Babble by “Meg Cabot” is everything a chic lit should be, just not sensible enough. No complains though, as I opted for a lighthearted and fluffy read after going through some serious psycho business like “Along Came A Spider”.

Meg Cabot has written a list of series on “Queen Of Babble”, and I just came to know that a movie is also under production on this one. Great going. It would be better to watch a silly comedy than to read and waste your time on a stupid book.

Coming to the book, this story is about Lizzie Nicholas, who is a silly girl, just graduated from college with major in Fashion (actually not yet graduated, she forgot to submit her thesis, see how stupid :P), and now she is going to London to visit her boyfriend for a month. Problem is, the guy that she says that she has fallen in love with, Andrew; she don’t even remember his face (butt off-course, she remembers).

She met Andrew for a span of, I think, 24 hours and she falls in love with him. So madly that she agreed to go all the way to London (first time alone), to live with him. Unknowingly, that he has no car or even a roof of his own. He is living with his parents, two brothers and a dog, with no bed or room to offer her. So she has to make adjustment with the laundry room/partition. He told her that he wants to be teacher but instead is working as a waiter, and still getting the unemployment benefits from his government. Above all he needs money from Lizzie to complete his education, as he has blown his, on gambling. :@

Enough lies from him, but this is not what deter our romantic girl from leaving him, but the fact that he told his family that Lizzie is fat. What FAT??? You called your girlfriend Fat? Don’t you love your life?

She leave him finally, after much drama of her own (sobbing and losing consciousness and all…).

But where to go? She has no money, her return ticket is non refundable and is scheduled after a month. Saving grace, her best friend Shari is in France, helping out in managing a wedding with his boyfriend Chaz, i a rich chateau. She left for to France, alone in a train knowing little of french and all distressed with a broken heart. Only, her luck have it that she met the handsome dude Luke in the train who not only consoles her but also turned out to be the true gentlemen, and Chaz’s friend and owner of the beautiful chateau.

You will guess, story complete. No, because he has a girlfriend, Dominique, who is rich beautiful and too classy to handle alone by Lizzie. Our damsel, poor girl still falls in love with Luke. Only problem other than, him having a girlfriend, that our girl Lizzie, has a big mouth. Queen Of Babble, you know. I am not elaborating more on the story, don’t want to spoil the most predictable story. 😛

Problem with this kind of chic lit is that it’s a no brainer. A stupid love story, without any story. If you want to read something without using your brain and rest of the common senses then you should probably go for this one. Otherwise, pick something useful.

Books

Along Came A Spider

Image June 9, 2014 jcisnowjs 6 Comments

A thrilling, fast paced novel filled with gory details., but this is not all which can be said about James Patterson’s famous novel “Along Came A Spider”. For the lovers of thrillers and psychotic characters, this could be among the best choices, but if you are not very fond of insane characters, than go take a nap instead.

This novel takes a very good start by building the very gruesome foundation for our psychotic character Gary Sonezi, who starts off by kidnapping and killing an infant mercilessly. You can guess easily what he is capable of doing, if he starts his killing spree in such a sick way.

To match this psychotic killer we have our very own hero in the form of Alex Cross, the famous homicide detective who is determined and passionate about his work. Main plot starts off with kidnapping of two kids, one girl Maggie Rose and her friend, Shrimpie as known popularly . What makes this kidnapping, a crime of the century, is the fact that both the kids belong to the affluent families, one being kid of a celebrity and other one of treasury. In-fact the kids had their own personal bodyguards assigned to them by the secret services for protection.

Alex Cross is assigned to solve this kidnapping, along with Jezzie, from the Secret Services, who later becomes his love interest too. The mastermind of kidnapping, Gary Sonezi is shown as a cruel and devilish person, who has no remorse or soul, indeed he is a brilliant plotter who is always two steps ahead of Cross and whole bunch of secret service personnel. He comes across as one who makes backup plan, of a backup plan. Still he was caught in a very dramatic way. Later, however it does looked like, that this was also a part of his terrific plan.

Their is one interesting twist to the whole story, when even the kidnapper got duped by some opportunists. Incidentally Gary Sonezi, trusts Alex Cross to solve the final mystery more than himself or the police. Their is also a dramatic turn of events with a double personality disorder, which was actually being shown marvelously.

Now, coming to the points where this novel lacks, is number one it is pretty boring in the second half. It seemed to stretch beyond a point making it dull and heavy. At one point you just want to put down the book, but you are hanging only to see if Gary received the punishment he deserved. Romance is exaggerated and in such a boring taste. You can yawn easily between the love making sessions. They talk as if no two lovers or even normal persons talk to each other. What disgust me about this novel is the Racism card, which was played over and over. Their was no such need to glorify it or to make it such a big deal. It was like getting distracted by something which is so out of place for this kind of a book.

Only thing that this book needs is a better editing.Rest, it is a marvelous story told beautifully.

Books

The Templar Legacy |Book Review

Image April 28, 2014 jcisnowjs 2 Comments

If you are reading “The Templar Legacy”, without knowing about its author, I can bet that you will most probably think of it as a C grade draft version of Dan Brown‘s novel, something which he used to practice before writing The Da Vinci Code. Sadly, author is not Dan Brown. It’s sad because if it had been the same pathetic novel but written by Brown, I could have enjoyed the company of Robert Langdon.

Steve Berry‘s novel “The Templar Legacy”, is by far just one time read which you would like to forget as soon as you reach the end. It has two male protagonist, Cotton Malone a retired US operative, now a book seller; and another one is Mark, who is next in line to become Master in Templar legacy. Female protagonist is Stephanie who is mother of Mark and previous boss of Cotton Malone.

Stephanie and Cotton got entangled in a thrilling chase running after a riddle to find Templar treasure and secret. Lars, Stephanie’s late husband was searching for the Templar’s great secret, referred as Device in the novel, which can reinstate their power again on the royals and popes of the religious world. Lars, got killed in his hunt for the truth, but he was the nearest to the device in his search when he died. Now, everyone is behind Stephanie and Malone to get their hands on Lars’s journal and decipher the location of device.

Their are other characters too, mostly uninteresting ones. What lacked in this novel was the fact that, chase is one dimensional. It’s not for clues, it’s just running from a villainous character. Most of the time they are just reading from the journal or one of them is remembering the past stories from Templar’s book. They are just reading or running. When they find out the key to unravel the secret location it was too simple, and was almost all over the place, which they couldn’t decipher for so long.(they so needed Robert Langdon in this story)

The big secret, around which the whole device is built upon, is based upon the Resurrection of Jesus. This could be a big secret, if and only if, it would have been less for religious gains but rather for discovering a new kind of faith. Author did tried to do that and justify the resurrection in his own way, through a letter, but it was not as convincing as it should be to instill that long lost faith in humanity rather than supernatural miracles.

I have always enjoyed Dan Brown, but Steve Berry, you are not even near what a real reading zestfulness is.

Waiting for my next read… 😦

Books

How to deal with a Cheating Husband, When You are Pregnant

Image April 8, 2014 jcisnowjs 1 Comment

(Watermelon: Book Review)

When I pointed out in my last posts that I have enough of seriousness and now I wanted to read some fun stuff, I never knew that I would encounter this. I picked out Watermelon by Marian Keyes and started the story with so much anticipation of reading some trashy romantic or just a silly novel. As soon as I finished my first page, I realized I have made a wrong decision.

You know why?

Because Watermelon by Marian Keyes is story of a woman named Claire whose moronic husband is a cheater. Worst of all, he cheated on her when she was pregnant with his child. The husband “James”, first of all, he is an idiot, just because, who cheats on a beautiful woman who is soon going to be mother of his child, and that too, cheat with a neighbor. Ironically Claire refers that other woman as “big cow” everywhere in the story, I would have just called her a buffalo, a big ugly but useless kind of buffalo living in neighborhood.

James is cheating on his pregnant wife with a woman living in neighbor, all of Claire friends are aware of this affair, but none of them are friend enough to warn her on time. So that stupid fellow James declare his extra marital affair to Claire same day she delivers her beautiful girl child. She is now lying in a hospital bed all alone with a crying baby and no father in picture. She was not ready to be a single mother. She was not at all expecting it, not from James, her husband. Thought of living alone, coming back to an empty house and above all raising a kid all on her own, makes her more miserable than she ever was.

This was all in the very first pages of book. Now, you could have guessed how I wanted to put down the book and go to look for something which I can actually laugh about or enjoy in a comical way.

Not so soon. :O

I was in for a surprise. It was not at all gloomy or dark, sad or a pathetic story. It was not even about women enlightenment or some inspirational tale. Watermelon is a simple story told so beautifully and ease like your everyday emotion. You don’t feel pressured down into some deep emotional pit by going through a perfect marriage gone wrong kind of pity, but it is written like a day to day conversation which Claire have with herself and the weird but interesting kind of people around her. (By people around her I meant to say her unusual family 😛 )

After James deserted her on the same day her child is born, she move back to her parents house, which is already occupied by her two beautiful sisters, Ana and Helen. Her parents are quite conservative but her sisters are rebellious in nature which make this whole process of Claire coming to cope with her sorrows, much more intriguing. Then comes Adam, a perfectly chiseled boy (oops man, as per Claire) in Claire’s life, who she just falls in love with in their very first meeting. To top it, she thought that Adam is actually Helen’s boyfriend. To do or not to do is the game that plays thereafter.

Story took another turn too when her stupid, moronic, idiotic husband comes back and she falls for his lies. Well, for some time though. 😦

I completed the story with satisfaction of reading something good, not extraordinarily beautiful, but still a good and nice read. Now, next in line is Templar Legacy.

Till then, if you know any trashy novel that you can refer to me, I am all up for it. Till then, Templar Legacy. 🙂

Books, Life

Enough Seriousness, Let’s Read Some Fun

Image March 21, 2014 jcisnowjs 1 Comment

Since last two months I am reading books on Meditation, Yoga, Chakra, Buddhism, and Holistic Healing etc. So, believe me when I say that these two months have been very hard in terms of reading. It took me double the time to read these kinds of book, than I have taken to read a murder mystery or a fantasy or thriller. It’s just so hard to read and learn.

It reminded me the time when I used to study my course books. Gosh! How I used to wish that phase to get over. Reading is my favorite activity but it becomes a task when you are reading to learn new things. I mean you always learn, when you are reading, even if you are reading Twilight kinds. At least I learned how boring it could be to love a vampire, just staring in the eyes, for hours and hours. Boring.

When I was reading all those books, they did give me a different perspective of life. Whole universe and our existence in it, harmony of our body with the nature around us. This perspective helps in answering a lot of questions about everything that happens in life. It helps us to bear the pain of tragedies, it also helps in controlling the flow of happiness, to be at ease with ourselves.

But, sometimes, you have to let loose. Life is supposed to be fun along with true happiness. So, now I have picked out a fun read. Watermelon, a chick flick, a girly girly read. Irony, it’s also based on a tragedy in the protagonist life. But, it’s written with wit and I am kind of liking it so far. Will post a review as soon as I’ll finish it. This time I am positive that it won’t take much long.

So, let’s have some fun. Happy Reading. Angel