Book Review - 8 Hours (✩✩)

(Review Copy received from Writers Melon.)

Disclaimer: The views presented are only my own perspective of the book and should not discourage anyone from reading it. You may prefer apples, I may like oranges. Doesn't say much about the fruits, only about our choices.


8 Hours is officially my most difficult read of 2018 (yet). I could not, for the life of me, get through this book. Every chapter seemed repetitive, every hour felt like a lifetime. In fact, even though I was buddy-reading this with two of my other bookstagrammer buddies, none of us could motivate the other. Much contrary to that, I think we all just pulled each other down. This book, no matter how much I tried, just did not work for me.

The story explores the fate of a family-owned company, Arya, on the verge of its demise and the protagonist, a shareholder in the company and the daughter of the founder, Aratrika, is on a mission to save it anyhow. The book is titled 8 Hours, which is reflective of the last 8 hours of the company (from 1am to 9.22am, to be precise) before the said empire crumbles in its own mess, but it took me more than that to get through the book. While the first few chapters of the book are intriguing and did excite me initially, the boredom that overtook me subsequently enveloped me like nothing I have ever experienced.

I am not going over the storyline. You can read the same in the blurb.
I will just quickly go over what did not work for me.

1. Too many characters - It was, after a while, difficult to keep a tab on who was doing what, and related to which other character and how, and what they were up to and why. You get it? The entire book was as big a struggle as this sentence. I initially thought that once I got a hang of the characters and their relations, things would be easier (and maybe interesting?). No such thing happened.

2. Repetitive - If I had a penny for every call that each character made and received, I may be able to buy back my weekend that I spent on this book! Every chapter sounded the same, every 'plan' and 'trick' was same as the previous one and the plot just REFUSED to move forward. In short, nothing, absolutely nothing happened for the entire duration of 8 hours. (To be honest, I was only able to read till page 115; I mostly did not - could not - pay attention after that.)

3. The end was good only because it was the end. I had to suffer no more. (I would've apologised for being so harsh but I need to vent right now.)

Did not work for me, may or may not work for you.
The plus point is that the writing is decent and lucid. One of the very few error free books I have read in a while. 

*****
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Book Review - Hell! No Saints in Paradise (✩✩✩✩)

Received this review copy from Writers Melon.



I was very confused about this book in the last 24 hours, so much so that I couldn't commit to giving it 4 stars, but 3 seemed too less and hence I have decided to stick to 4.

The story, set in 2050, is of a 30 year old Ismael, a Pakistani-American doing his thesis on Hell and Paradise (or rather aiming to refute the existence of both through his study). In a chance meeting with a girl named Petra, Ismael is convinced to try the hallucinogen Ayahuasca, which will set him on the path to discover the secrets unknown to the real world.

What follows is a divine intervention in a drug-induced state that further convinces Ismael to take an unplanned trip to Pakistan, reunite with his estranged father and convince him that he is a 'firm believer', and help the 'higher beings' in their 'mission'. Unknown to the level of his mission, Ismael lands in Pakistan and finds it in a condition that shocks the soul out of his living body. The entire country is in a frenzied state to attain 'paradise'!

Isamel's journey through heaven and hell is painted so vividly by the author that one can almost, almost, imagine actually being there, experiencing everything first-hand. A series of ups and downs finally leads to the revealing of the mission to Ismael, who is already so much in shock with what all is happening that the extent of the mission doesn't surprise him anymore. The climax is detailed and leaves the reader satisfied (even though the end did not come as a big surprise to me).

The characters of Chacha Khidr and Pir are well etched and are bound to make a space for themselves in your head. The language is flowy, without being too full of jargon. The book is sprinkled with Urdu words but the author has done a good job of explaining the same in simple lucid language, making one feel in sync with the story-line at all times. The satire and mockery and the interpretation of the Quran were the highlights for me.

Definitely recommended.
Read it in a couple of sittings, preferably on a weekend when you have time to spare. The book will be far more enjoyable then.
P.S. The cover is one of the most beautiful I have seen and own. The texture, the print, the quality, everything is spot on!

*****
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About Time!

Hello Lovely People (some of you are still reading this, I hope?)
Anyhow, realising how my efforts for reviving this blog have failed miserably over the last few years, I have decided to make this platform more than just a personal blog. I plan to post my book/movie reviews from hereon.

WHY?
I managed to read 41 books in 2017 and have already read 13 in 2018.
I have become supremely active on my bookstagram and goodreads page.
I am reading and reviewing books like a pro!
Makes sense to use that impetus to revive this dying soul?

That's it for now.
I will be uploading reviews every 2-3 days from now on. Hopefully that will motivate me enough to keep this blog alive even otherwise.

P.S. This July/August will be the 10th anniversary of this blog. :D

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And here to have a look at a cute Book Subscription Box I run!

Love
Mishika

"Committed"

No, I am not sharing my views on (not) being committed.

Yes, this is one of my (vain) attempts to keep this blog alive.

No, I have not made any effort of writing in the past few months even though I had all the time.

Yes, that is certainly not a very good thing.

So, this is a book review.

Well, not really a review, just a few words here and there since I finally managed the onerous task of finishing reading this mostly boring book.

Just a few things that will stay with me.

Ok fine.

Yes, this is a book review.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9805465-committed

A brief background about how I came to read this book. My dear friend for almost six years now gifted me this this Valentine's Day (much to my surprise as I did not expect him to actually take into consideration my all-time love for Eat, Pray, Love) and hoped this would give me some insight on our 'future'. Marriage was always on the cards albeit things have been extremely rocky lately. This was supposedly my anchor to rough the high seas. And I must admit it did serve its purpose. And so I began-

Nothing quite like its prequel, Committed did not manage to hold my interest for long. It was, therefore, quite a task to get it over with. I had dropped it almost altogether after February, but managed to pick it up again a couple of days back. Apart from the chapter on Marriage and Infatuation (and a part of Marriage and Women), the entire book seemed like a crystallized educational thesis on marriage. The narrative is mostly drab and, for the lack of a better word, seems educational. 

However, I very much related to the narrative on infatuation. Fortunately or unfortunately (one can never be sure since even this marriage of Gilbert, after all her issues, her phobia of getting married, her extensive research, has fallen apart, and how!!), I see a lot of Gilbert in my own life. I understand what it is like to lose yourself completely to another person, to not be able to see where they end and you begin, to not be able to understand, as she aptly puts it, that sometime 1 plus 1 has to equal 2. So while her love story with Felipe does give me hope that I may eventually grow up to not always get so swayed by another person that I lose myself completely, I am very skeptical about how long it will last (considering, well, you know what), or how it may eventually end.

The book does have some good parts. I have earmarked those to get back to them later. What I do understand now, and I quote - ...anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can always unchoose later-again, for its own mysterious reasons.

Pick it up for the love of Gilbert, if nothing else.

Gyaan and Geisha

Happy New Year?

Not really. It's a new year, alright. Not all that happy though. Hoping a bad start leads to a better end.

Anyhow, it's good to be back after a year. I think this has become more of an annual ritual for me now which, to say the least, is extremely disappointing. And since even this post is rushed, I will only say the things I absolutely want to.

A dear friend gifted a copy of 'Memoirs of a Geisha' to me for my 26th birthday (yes, that happened :/) and needless to say, I am thankful to him for more than one reason. Firstly, it took away the most tedious task of choosing what to read, which is what takes (wastes?) most of my time. I ABSOLUTELY cannot make up my mind about what I want to read. End result? Piles of unread dusty books. Since that was taken care of, all I needed to do was be diligent enough to find time to read it. And I did! In less than a week! You see, that's the thing about a good book, you just cannot keep it down till you're done. But the tragedy is that once you're nearing the end, this irrational fear of your life losing meaning once the book is finished floods your mind with so much intensity, it's hard to explain. And hence the last 50 pages of this book were rationed by me very carefully, so that I could delay seeing the end of it for as long as possible.

And now secondly, because the book is such a wonderfully written, beautiful beautiful book! Safe to say, it was the best book to have reignited my voracious reading habit. Not only did the book transport me to another time, another place, the narrative is so honest, it teaches you so much about life and more!

And hence this post. Just sharing my favorite quotes and thoughts from the book. :)

"This is why dreams can be such a dangerous thing: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes consume us completely."

"Grief is most peculiar thing: we're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it."

"We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things."

"A woman living in a grand house may pride herself on all her lovely things; but the moment she hears the crackle of fire she decides very quickly which are the few she values the most."

"Nothing is bleaker than the future, except perhaps the past."

"Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true."

"I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it."

"Sometimes,' he sighed, 'I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see."

On that note, Happy New Year! :)

New Year and All That Jazz

I had a brilliant opening to the year, less clutter, more positivity and definitely more happiness.

But the last two weeks have left me thinking about the point of all the momentary pleasures which make us give on the permanent ones. After all, what's the point of all this? After all, the moment will pass and we will be left with nothing, nothing at all.

I read about the death of Rohith Vemula. I had no, or probably very little, knowledge about the events that let to his suicide. But his last words struck a chord with me. Rohith talked about the feeling of emptiness that we all have, every once in a while. He talked about things that I think about. Few seconds, minutes, hours before he decided to take his life, this is what he had to say:

"Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs coloured. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt.."


The more I think about it, the more I understand it. Life has to have more to it than temporary decisions based on temporary emotions. It can not always be about living in the moment, especially moments that may destroy the future that could have been.

A lot of this doesn't make sense, a lot of it doesn't make sense to me either. My actions are not guided by clarity of thought but mostly because I apprehend what will happen if I do, actually, think things through.


As of today, all I know is that decisions are best taken when you are fully conscious of the consequences that will follow. If you are not aware of those, or choose to be denial about them, they will come back and haunt you in the long run.

You can run, you can hide (and although you may be able to escape someone's love), you can't escape from life. It has a way of catching up with you are reminding you of all that you've done, and all that you could've done.

Memories are a bitch, seldom do we realise that they'll last a lifetime. Must be very careful about making them. They'll come and haunt you too.

tornintwo
Mishika

Excerpts

Whatsapp group chats can be the most annoying thing at times. It's not surprising that most of us have almost all the groups on 'mute'.

However, every now and then, some really interesting conversation happens, and that is what I'm reproducing below, with just the initials of the people who sent them. Some thoughts are mine, some are not.

***
It started with this early morning message from one of us: ('A')

P: I think the biggest mistake people do is to attach love to happiness. The last line of this is guilty of that. Detaching happiness from everything else is the only key to happiness. Love, on the other hand, is another Pandora's box all together!

A: Morning gyaan part 2. So true.

M: Second that, P. And a Pandora's box should never be opened

A: Pandora box full of love should never be opened.

M: It's Pandora's box, you can never be sure what you're signing up for, love or all kinds of evils and miseries.

A: #heavymornings lol

K: But happiness is temporary. Love is more prominent even if we don't understand it. One can be happy if he knows he is loved. When have you heard someone being happy while he is hated by everyone ?

P: K, tum bache ho abhi. Zindagi nahi dekhi. Happiness is ONLY in your control, and love is one of the ONLY emotions not in your control.

M: The opposite of love is not hatred, it's mostly indifference. And it's easier to be happy when people are indifferent towards you, lesser people to disappoint, lesser expectations to meet

S: Omg guys

M: Happiness is most definitely in your control. Couldn't agree more. The day you stop looking for happiness in love is the day you may actually find it, my friend.

S: Shut up

M: Hi S! Welcome!

S: Kaafi unhappy hai log. Baaki pyaar mein

M: Yeh last wala gyan on point tha, M. Kaun unhappy hai?

S: Jo sab itni happiness ke baatein kar rahe hain

M: S ne kuch padha hi nahi😂😂

S: Naaahhiinn. Itna gyaan

M: Gyaan is good

S: Apna hi zyaada pad jaata hai

A: Hahaha. I am loving this

***

I have very recently learnt to dissociate happiness from love, especially love that is built only on reciprocation from the other side. More than learnt, it's an art that I have developed over the last few months. I am a hopeless romantic, and by hopeless, I mean really really hopeless. I have lived in a fantasy world which is fueled by love. (Un)fortunately, I have had to finally get out of this bubble, more like kicked out of it and shaken to face things as they are. Luckily for me, things have only been better post that realisation. I'm less anxious, less dependent, less *insert other negative things*. 

25th birthday did some really beautiful things for me. This was one of them. (More about birthday in the next post.)

Silver lining on silver birthday. :)