Summer Book Reviews : Young Adult Genre

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -

Astra - The Quest for Starsong by Aditya Mukherjee, Arnav Mukherjee


The world should burn . . . burn like a star!
Blurb (From Amazon):
The balance of the world is askew. The winds speak of a terror from the south. Ravana, the Lord of Lanka, is on the march. Seers whisper that he has awakened Starsong, a mythical astra of the gods. And that he thirsts for this weapon that will make him invincible.

But there is one thing that he hasn't considered. Up high in the glistening tower of the city of Ulka is a boy, held captive. Today is the day Varkan, the young prince of Ashmaka, will taste freedom. Today is the day he will lay claim to his destiny as the wielder of Starsong.

And along the way, perhaps he will change the destiny of the world itself.

My Take on the Book:
Off late we have seen a lot of books based on the Hindu Mythology and each one is unique in its own way. Though the base of each story is always the same, what makes a book apart is the narrative that takes its course. One must ofcourse give that to the authors of this book for taking an entire different course which is along the same timeline when Ravana has captured Sita. Apart from having new characters, unfortunately the book doesn't offer much since it follows the same plotline as Good vs Evil and how an all powerful weapon should be used wisely. There is a lot more potential for the authors though since they have learnt to balance various elements of a story but the character build up might need to be more refined.
My Ratings : 🌟🌟🌟 (3 out of 5)

Red Card by Kautuk Srivastava

One team. One year. Everything to lose.
Blurb (From Amazon) :
When Rishabh Bala reaches the tenth standard, life takes a turn for the complicated. The bewildered boy feels the pressure of the looming board exams and finds himself hopelessly-and hormonally-in love. But what he yearns for most is victory on the field: at least one trophy with his beloved school football team.

Set in the suburban Thane of 2006, here is a coming-of-age story that runs unique as it does familiar. Hopscotching from distracted classrooms and tired tutorials to triumphs and tragedies on muddy grounds, this is the journey of Rishabh and his friends from peak puberty to the cusp of manhood.

My Take on The Book :
When I heard that Kautuk Srivastava had come up with this book, I had pretty high hopes since I had seen a few of his shows on YouTube. I must say I wasn't disappointed. The best book of the lot, this one is pretty much closer to reality than the movies that have been churned out this year on student life. The characters are pretty much nostalgic and it did bring back my memories of my school days (though I wasn't much into sports). With right element of humor and excitement along the way, this one is a must read for anyone looking for coming of age book. For someone debuting with this book, this one is a must read.


My Ratings : 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 (5 out of 5)

The Children of Destruction by Kuber Kaushik


We used to live in a world of magic . . .
Blurb (From Amazon):
For Alice, life as a teenager is hard enough without turning into a supernatural herald of destruction. And you would think that after causing minor hurricanes with a major sneeze, being visited by a talking fox and ending up on a journey with death around every corner, things can't get much worse.

Between a blind and telekinetic mass murderer, a girl bound to a shadow-demon and a genetically engineered pseudo messiah, a whole generation of weird is ready to come of age. And when it does, the world will change.

My Take on the Book:
With most of the YA Novels these days coming on the same plotline, this one isn't much different. A pretty predictable storyline with not much element of surprise. Though, it is the sarcasm in the dialogues that actually takes the cake here. It does start out pretty well but then the excitement starts ebbing away as the book keeps repeating the same tone throughout even when it is not needed. With pretty simple writing, this is one author I'm pretty much looking forward to in the future. This one does show a lot of potential.

My Ratings : 🌟🌟🌟 .5 (3.5 out of 5 stars)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review : From Quetta to Delhi - A Partition Story by Reema Nanda

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -
Image
Never Judge a book by its cover nor by the name it possesses. The same case happened with me when I read the title of the name 'From Quetta to Delhi'. To be honest, I didn't take any pains to read the blurb because a story on partition is something I always wanted to read an action packed story on Partition. Sadly, the book wasn't what I had expected. So, what was the book about? What did made me read the book? Read further to know about it. Blurb: The invisible cost of the Partition of the Punjab in 1947 - besides the violence, loss of life and property - was that it destroyed the psychic equilibrium of the displaced population. This is the story of one such woman, Shakunt, who rebuilt her life but could never get over the trauma of losing her homes in Quetta and Jhang - not just the loss of a physical space but of the language, culture and ethos that it had embodied. A syncretic culture of multilingualism - Urdu, Persian and Punjabi - and of multiple identities o...
Read more

Travel : Trip of a Lifetime - II

By -
Image
The cruise.... Too excited to go on a cruise, we three musketeers reached the spot 4 hours before the departure time. Unfortunately, even the cruise was late that  night. Whatever might be the case, it was worth the wait. It was the first time in our life, we had dined, partied and slept (of course individually) on a ship. 24 hours later, we were heading towards the train station to our very next destination, “The Eternal City”, Rome. Roaming in Rome... Adventures started as soon as we reach Rome. We forgot to validate our ticket and were dead scared that we might get caught by the officials. Getting down at the railway station, we helped an old lady who was struggling to come out of the train. It took us 2 hours to reach our hotel even though we were roaming on the same street and finally arriving at a disastrous room. I regret not checking the reviews for this one. Of all the places, Rome turned out to be the cheapest and our little stint at Rome and Vatican took ...
Read more

Thoughts : Love Thy Neighbour

By -
Image
Ahhhh... Love Thy Neighbor .. Years back when I was doing my schooling, an extract of the classic novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was taught to us in our English Literature class. The extract was aptly titled "Love thy Neighbor  as it portrayed the way how Uncle Tom, the central character, lived his life spreading love everywhere. So, why am I talking about this subject right now? I believe that today technology has crippled us so much that we have forgotten what it means to be with real people than being virtual. In fact, the same even applies to me as I was unaware of my juniors living in the adjacent room of mine. A few weeks back, when I was returning back via Bangalore airport, I took some time to notice people around me. People were busy with themselves either working on their laptops or talking on phone, but there was this one small incident that caught my eye. A family of 3, father, mother and their son who must be of around 6 or 7, dining together. I...
Read more