Rosh's Reviews

Author: David H. Keller Genre: Horror Rating: 5 stars. One of the first horror short stories I had read in my life! And one of the absolute best! It's a classic for a reason. I had asked my horror-loving friend for scary short-fic recommendations and of the three names she had provided, this is the one that created the maximum impact. The haunting aftereffect still stays with me. Little Tommy Tucker has always been unhappy in the kitchen, and his parents don’t know why. Right from when he was a baby, he did all he could to get out of the kitchen – cry or crawl or complain. When he learns to talk, he tries explaining his reasons to his parents, but they consider it foolish. After a few years, when his behaviour shows no signs of changing, his parents resort to calling the neighbourhood physician to rid Tommy of his irrational fear. What happens next? You have gotta read and find out! Such tales are the perfect example of how horror can be written by using nothing but atmosphere. The...

Author: Sarah Alderson Narrator: Stephanie Cannon Genre: Domestic Drama Rating: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: Loved a lot of things about this book. But also disliked quite a few. Plus, it is more of a domestic drama than a psychological thriller. Go in blind. Story Synopsis: (I meant what I said above. Go in blind. So here’s the most boring and blandest synopsis possible.) Rose Reed has recently begun living in a cabin in the woods. She is afraid of something. She is also waiting for something. Who, what, why? You will need to read and find out. The story tells us about her present and her past through her first person perspective. ✔ Now some of you smart readers might go to the book page on Goodreads to check out the blurb. That blurb is outstanding – whoever wrote it knew how to get the pulse of the readers going. ❌ That blurb doesn’t match the story at all. It appears to promise a psychological thriller but the book is more like a domestic drama with a couple of thrilling scenes. ✔ The...

Author: Elizabeth Wilder Genre: Literary Fiction Rating: 4 stars In a Nutshell: A touching book about a father and his son coping with grief in their own way. Poetic in its style, harrowing in its emotions. Has minor flaws, but overall, a beautiful read. Story: Nat: An eleven year old boy who is lost in grief and tries to find himself through his poetry. Dee: A carefree young girl who is determined to be a friend to the boy. Don: A man who loves his son and wants to help him cope but doesn't know how to. Mia: A woman whose voice we hear only through her journals, a voice that seems to speak from the depths of darkness and despair. These are the four characters whose perspectives we see in this story. Mia’s writing is in first person as we know her only through her journals. The rest of the characters are written in third person. Where the book worked for me: ✔ Though there are four character perspectives, it is very easy to keep track of the plot. ✔ The depiction of grief, eating d...

Author: Victor Manibo Genre: Sci-fi Mystery Rating: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: I liked it. I didn’t love it. There are a few novel elements in this sci-fi thriller but the rest of the plot is somewhat standard. Story Synopsis: 2043. After a pandemic, about two billion people in the world are now “The Sleepless”, staying awake for days on end with no ability/need to sleep. This creates a new class of people who function 24x7, working all hours of the day, earning more and spending more than regular people. Jamie Vega, an investigative reporter with a media company, is one such Sleepless. When his boss Simon is found dead in his office apparently having killed himself, Jamie doesn’t buy it. He sets off looking into what might have led Simon to this end, thereby uncovering plenty of shady dealings and corporate politics. All the while, he is also battling another issue – his Sleeplessness has created an unexpected side-effect. The story comes to us in the first person pov of Jamie. ✔ I li...

Editor: E.V. Everest Authors: Various Genre: Anthology, Young Adult, Fantasy Rating: 3.15 stars. A YA SFF anthology with 16 stories set around books. With such an appealing theme, who wouldn’t want to try out this collection? Add in the SFF factor, and I was ready for a treat. However, the book catered to only some of my expectations. On the positive side, I loved seeing the variety in the book. It covers quite a few SFF subgenres, including dystopian, epic, witchcraft, fae, high fantasy and futuristic. The authors clearly have a vivid imagination, and many stories create a great fantasy world within their limited page-space. As it is, all stories are never at the same level when it comes to anthologies. But with 16 different contributing authors, it goes without saying that the quality is quite varied in this one. Some are highly imaginative, other drone on. Some end perfectly, others abruptly. A few stories seemed to be incomplete in some way, until I discovered that they were set in...

Author: Deepak M.R. Genre: Mythological Retelling Rating: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: Started very poorly but to my surprise, the book improved somewhat as it went on. (Or maybe I just got used to its flat writing.) Not bad, but not great as well. I don’t think I need to provide a Story Synopsis this time. The plot contains some key events in the Mahabharata, as impacted Prince Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna and Subhadra. So you could call it a Mahabharata retelling from Abhimanyu’s perspective, as it goes a little beyond that. The story begins and ends with Abhimanyu. The main content begins with Krishna speaking to the unborn Abhimanyu in Subhadra’s womb and continues with Abhimanyu’s birth, formative years, warrior training and so on. Abhimanyu's main contribution to the Mahabharata was in his role as a warrior who singlehandedly changed the course of the Great War. No wonder then that more than half the book is dedicated to the war itself. This gets somewhat saturating as we nee...

Author: Susie Bower Illustrator: Francesca Gambatesa Genre: Children's Picture Book Rating: 4.5 stars. Don’t ‘Shoo’ away from this amazing book! Mrs. Golightly hates animals. So when a zoo moves in next door, she finds her house invaded by a different creature each day of the week, and all she can do is to shoo it away. When it gets too much to take, Mrs. Golightly doesn’t go lightly (dad joke, sorry!) but barges ahead, shoos all the creatures away and barricades every possible entrance to her home. However, just as she begins to enjoy her solitude, she realises that she is lonely. What will she do next? I simply loved this whimsical story! It was silly and yet so much fun. Mrs. Golightly’s reactions to the animals are as amusing as whatever the animals are doing in her home. Kids will surely enjoy the animal antics as well as the hilarious text. The book has a lot of educational value too. The content comes in simple prose for most of the text, with a few rhyming words for the ani...

Author: Geraldine Brooks Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 1 star! In a Nutshell: The more the expectations, the bigger the disappointment. Utterly dismayed at this ‘Hollywoodised’ version of the Eyam plague story. Story: 1666. Anna Frith is a young widow who works as a housemaid to support herself and her two little boys. When the rector sends a boarder her way to supplement her income, she readily agrees. Little does she know that this boarder brings with him some cloth infected with ‘plague seeds’. As the disease begins spreading its virulence, the villagers turn to religion as well as superstition. The story comes to us in the first person pov of Anna. Where the book worked for me: 😊 The author’s vocabulary is outstanding. The lingo of 1600s Britain is visible on every page. Never have I used my Kindle dictionary so much, and it didn’t even have an answer every time! 😊 I liked most of the initial quarter of the novel when it proceeds logically and focusses only on how the vir...

Author: Georges Feterman Genre: Children's Nonfiction, Animals Rating: 4.5 stars. A wonderful animal-facts book for little animal lovers. The introductory note sets out the purpose of this book clearly: “Discover the clever and inventive ways in which nature has given birth to superheroes.” Thus the content provides a glimpse into some of the more unusual natural superheroes, each of whom have developed/adapted a unique ability that lets them stand out. The 98 page book is divided into six sections, each tackling a specific skillset such as metamorphosis or speed or sensory accomplishments. A whole range of animals is covered, ranging from the known such as otters and starlings; the not-so-known such as stick insects and lemurs, and the unknown such as the axolotl and the plumed basilisk! Each page has a photo of the animal, an info-box containing three data: Super Power, Super Stats (scientific name, size, location and weight), and Super Fact. Most of the ‘Super Facts’ will blow y...

Author: J.C. Deveney Illustrator: Núria Tanarit Genre: Graphic Novel Rating: 2 stars. Hello from Outlierland once again! L This simply didn’t match up to that exquisite cover. A farmer finds a giant baby girl in a forest. As he and his wife have six sons and no daughters, they adopt her and name her Celeste. Celeste lives a sheltered life with her brothers for many years. But after they venture onto their separate career paths, Celeste’s true life journey begins. As she traverses new places and meets new people, she comes to an understanding of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal world and she learns through mistakes and mishaps how she can finally make a place for herself and be what she wants to be. This doesn’t flow like a typical giant story. While Celeste is the only giantess in the entire book, her size plays only a minor role in the plot. Her femininity and her self-acceptance gets the major focus. In a way, this is good as Celeste is treated almost as a normal characte...

Author: Laura Deal Illustrator: Emma Pederson Genre: Children's Picture Book. Rating: 3 stars. This didn’t go the way I thought it would, though the intent is good. A little boy makes his way along the Arctic shore while in an ‘ugly’ mood. As a result, everything around him is ugly to his eyes. However, when the sun shines its radiant beams on his face, his mood swings to a happier one and he sees that nothing is as ugly as he thought it was. I loved the idea of this story. It highlights the importance of perspective and how our mood affects our response to our environment and those around us. However, the implementation left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, the writing is very poetic. It emphasises not just on the words but on their sound and feel, thereby adding greater credence to the boy’s ugly mood. It focuses on the importance of breathing and allowing the negative feelings to ebb away. At the same time and quite paradoxically, the content is quite literal too. There’s no...

Author: Sangu Mandanna Genre: Fantasy Romance Rating: 4.75 stars. In a Nutshell: This is the sweetest and the cutest and the loveliest book I’ve read in ages. Imagine sunbeams and moonlight strewn together in a magical combo! Go for it without a doubt. Story Synopsis: Thirty-one year old Mika Moon has lived a life of solitude. As a witch, she knows that she cannot let the dangerous world know about her magical abilities. With no family or friends, lonely Mika resorts to posting “fake” witchy videos to an online account, just so that she can talk about her favourite topic – magic. She is sure no one will notice. She is wrong. When she receives an anonymous message summoning her to a remote place called “Nowhere House” to teach magic to three young witches, she feels uncertain but goes there anyway. What follows is a cute, funny and sometimes dangerous adventure with Mika, her three young wards and their three not-so-young caretakers. Oh, and there’s Jamie too, who hates strangers. How w...

Author: Rhiannon Lee Illustrator: Alice Needham Genre: Nonfiction, Feminism. Rating; 2 stars. In a Nutshell: Great intent. Decent research. Half-baked execution. Nothing “science” in the content. Let’s begin with the structure. The book begins with an introductory note on the history of feminism and then goes into iconic “feminist” characters from fiction – books as well as movies/TV shows. Thus spotlighted are fifty characters from a variety of genres, time periods, and backgrounds. The main content is divided into eleven sections depending on the role the character is most known for. Thus we have “Teenage Drama Queens”, “Fierce Females of Fantasy”, “Wonderful Warrior Women”, and so on. Each section contains a character sketch of a few characters, with a mostly fixed pattern for each sketch. 1. A grayscale illustration of the character – The illustrations were mostly good. Many of them were based on the actresses who played the parts in the movies (Katniss Everdeen, Matilda Wormwood, ...

Author: Bernadette Watts Genre: Children's Fiction. Rating: 4 stars. The retelling of an old Russian folktale that highlights fellowship and faith. Varenka was a widow who lived a life of peace and solitude in a clearing inside a forest. When war breaks out, the villagers approach her to escape with them but she refuses, stating that she will stay back to help those in need. As a woman of her word, she does help out three villagers who come to her, all the time keeping her faith in God and asking him to build a protective wall around her house to safeguard her. The three villagers – an old shepherd, a young artist, and a little girl – stay with Varenka until it’s safe once again. And yes, they were protected by a wall when the soldiers ventured too near, though it didn’t exactly come to pass as Varenka had assumed. This book was first published in Swiss under the same title in 1971. This is the English translation, due to be published in September 2022. While this is a picture book...

Authors: H.P. Mallory & J.R. Rain Genre: Fantasy Series: Midlife Mermaid #1 Rating: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: Better than I expected, though it did have some clichés and some errors. The focus is more on living the life you want than on romance – this makes it worth the read. Story Synopsis: Eva is in her forties, widowed, childless, on the curvier side of the scale. Unlike most female protagonists in this situation, Eva loves her life and the freedom that comes with it. However, when her late husband’s brother Cullen (who is a big jerk) decides that she’s his property and hence to become his latest wife, Eva decides to dash for freedom. She lands in an unknown place, where a woman named Wendy and a dog named Tom help her settle in and make a fresh start. But is Eva safe from Cullen in her new home? The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Eva. Oh, and I should mention, Eva is a mermaid. 😉 Where the book worked for me: 👍 Honestly, I was expecting a typical light ...

Author: B.A. Bellec Genre: YA Contemporary, Coming of Age. Rating: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: I can see why the book has such a high rating, but either it wasn’t my kind of read or I picked it up at the wrong time. Left me with plenty of mixed feelings. Story Synopsis: Narrated from the first person perspective of a teen who calls himself ‘Someone’ through the book, this is literally “Someone’s Story.” With his mom not being part of his life since he was just a child, 12th grader Someone has only his single dad to connect with. When Dad moves to a new city, Someone, who is supposedly a loner with anxiety issues, finds himself struggling to fit in and find a space for himself. But with some help from a new counsellor and some school and work friends, Someone begins to adjust, though the journey isn’t the one you would imagine. Where the book worked for me: 👌 Despite the 300+ page length, the book goes by fairly quickly. The writing doesn’t force in embellishments, keeping things simple...

Author: Bobby Palmer Narrator: Johnny Flynn Genre: Literary Fiction Rating: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: Can’t believe this is a debut work! So nuanced, so well-developed, so innovative, so wacky! The audiobook narrator took the great plot ever higher. Story Synopsis: (Don’t want to reveal much, so just giving the barest of outlines. But the story is a lot more than this.) Isaac Addy is contemplating suicide. While standing on the ledge of a bridge, trying to build up the courage to jump off, he suddenly hears some screaming. In following the noise, he stumbles upon a 2 feet high white egg in the forest. Isaac feels a sudden kinship with the abandoned egg and decides to take it home. Thus begins the unexpected journey of Isaac and his strange companion, whom he decides to name ‘Egg’. (Yeah, not the most imaginative guy, this Isaac!) The story is written in the present tense using the third person limited perspective of Isaac. First things first. This book won’t work for those who take th...