Rosh's Reviews

AUTHORS: Vedika Agrawal & Kunal Das GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: February 8, 2021 RATING: 4.25 stars. Daddy Donkey And His Little Son is a cute little picture book that is full of fun. I found the story setting hilarious, and I am sure little kids will enjoy it even more. Just the thought of having a donkey as the adoptive father for a lion cub makes me burst out into laughter.  The book isn’t very preachy, though it does build up on the values of love, kindness and helping others. Children will certainly enjoy this funny story. I liked how the book stresses more on dads, as they are usually not the topic of focus in children’s books. There are a couple of interactive activity pages at the end of the story. The illustrations are really very cute (especially the donkey in spectacles), though the donkeys seemed to be standing mostly on all four legs but sometimes, only on the hind legs. The drawings should have been consistent. Very minor issue, this. The book...

AUTHOR: Peter Chiykowski GENRE: Flash Fiction Collection. RATING: 4.75 stars. Wow! Let me take a moment to collect myself!! Because I am dumbstruck by this collection of micro-fiction and I don’t want to sound like a gushing nerd in this review. From its title, “The House of Untold Stories” sounds like a regular SFF or horror anthology that will provide you some dark twisted tales. The dull cover doesn’t help in stimulating excitement. The book even starts off a bit slowly. But after the first 3-4 tales, I was hooked onto the gripping fables and how! I simply couldn’t let go till I reached the end. The tales span a whole range of genres such as fantasy, sci-fi, humour, drama, mythical, horror, dystopian… So there’s no feeling of boredom at all as every page flip offers something new and exciting. Each of the stories is divided across two pages. The first page presents an innocent straightforward tale while the second page introduces an unexpected twist that takes the story to a whole n...

AUTHOR: Onjali Q. Raúf GENRE: Middle-grade Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: October 3, 2019 RATING: 4.75 stars. Would you like to read a book where the child in you wants to join the lead characters in their adventure, the parent in you wants to ask the children to be careful as their planned quest is very dangerous, and the human in you is shocked at the brutality of fellow humans? A book where you laugh out loud, sob silent tears, feel angry, frustrated, relieved, afraid? A book you can share with your child and yet enjoy it yourself? Your search stops here. Aniyah is a little 10 year old girl who finds herself, along with her 5 year old brother Noah, in foster care. Her memory is hazy about how she reached Mrs. Iwuchukwu's foster house. All she knows is that her mother has become a star in the sky and her dad is looking for her. When the news channels report a previously-undiscovered star that seems to be moving across the skies, Aniyah knows that it's her mom trying to reach out t...

AUTHOR: Jessica Redland GENRE: Romance SERIES: Whitsborough Bay, #4 RATING: 4.5 stars. I've never read a Jessica Redland book before, not have I heard of her Whitsborough Bay series. But now that I've read this book, I think she'll be one author whose work I'll keep in mind for whenever I'm in the mood for a light-hearted and yet captivating read.  All You Need Is Love sounds like a typical cheesy love story. But it is not. The book covers a whole gamut of emotions through its story and though it is almost 400 pages long, the writing is such that you can maintain your pace easily.  The story is told to us from two perspectives: those of Jemma and Sam. A greater proportion of the book is from Jemma's pov. Having recently discovered that her fiancé Scott was not exactly what he claimed to be, she has lost her trust in love. Adding to the heartbreak is her mom's recent diagnosis of Parkinson's. Jemma's luck lies in the abundance of good friends she has ...