Book Review - "Turtles All The Way Down" - John Green

Author: John Green

Genre: Fiction

Sometimes, expectations hurt you quite a bit and this happened to me while I read "Turtles All the Way Down" from John Green. I was quite excited to get this book after I had read "Fault in Our Stars" from the same author but this book is a complete disaster according to me though it’s another Bestseller copy.

The story constantly revolves around a girl called Aza and her paranoia about the intestine related disorder, C.Diff. She constantly keeps worrying about how she is helping worms breed in her body by feeding the energy through the food she eats. Her hysterical behavior of cleansing her stomach by popping in hand sanitizer at times got way too obnoxious and the entire read becomes deranged at times.

The good part of the book was the explanation of Tuatura and the Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. The detailed explanation of the disorder and the behavioral changes has been expressed phenomenally and this is unimaginable but somewhere, the plot loses its significance and gets a little too complex with long and endless sentences.

The author has tried to squeeze in too much of information all at once and the story loses interest as there seems to be a loss of connection. The friendship between Aza and Daisy gets muddled up when they start involving in romantic relationships with Davis and Mychal respectively.

The plot which initially seems to be a thriller slowly loses its essence when Aza gets into a relationship with her old acquaintance, Davis Pickett. But ultimately, the novel gets a closure but I never found what happened to the Tuatura later and it was quite unbelievable to know that an animal can also become a legal heir of somebody's billion-dollar property.

"I thought about how we all believed ourselves to be the hero of some personal epic, when in fact we were basically identical organisms colonizing a vast and windowless room that smells of Lysol and lard." - Turtles All The Way Down

Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert - Reviewed

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Genre:

Non-Fiction

“The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.”  - Big Magic.

This has been one of the best books I have read after a pretty long time. I had seen one of my colleagues carrying this book along with her to the office and I was drawn to the cover page of the book. I was curious and ended up asking her to lend me the book for a week but I guess the Universe had a different plan.  Of course, I ended up ordering a new book for myself because the "IDEA" of borrowing did not work quite well.

That's how my relationship with the IDEA of BIG MAGIC finally started. Elizabeth Gilbert, one of the most celebrated authors knows how to keep her readers interested. I ended up studying the book instead of reading it and the best part of the book was the "Elk Talk" bit. I literally could visualize the entire story as I read through the words. The way the author takes a complete grip on the content by explaining the advantages of creative living and how the world of "IDEAS" can actually exist and work.

She also explains how the creative living can make each one of us happy without asking much of us. The way she explains why creativity is important in our lives and why should we not be scared of creating things is matchless.

Reading this book would certainly elate you and would give you a totally different perspective on the concept of creativity and ideas. The author explains explicitly the collaboration of ideas with us and the occurrence of “BIG MAGIC” in an effortless manner.

I would certainly like to thank my colleague for introducing me to this wonderful book, "Thanks Siji" :)

Book Review - Daughters of Arabia - Jean Sasson

Cover page

Genre: Non-Fiction

Author: Jean Sasson

The book revolves around 'The Princess' from an Arabian family and as she explains the journey of her life with her two beautiful daughters Amani and Maha and the struggles she goes through in raising her kids in the culture that does not convince her. The author pens down everything in detail and a magical way and transports us to the royal lands of Sultans of Saudi. The Protagonist Sultana explaining the mishaps and the unfortunate events that occur in the royal families.

It’s a non-fiction and Sultana depicting her gutsy nature in bringing out some of the darker secrets of the imperial families back in Saudi Arabia.

"A Girl Possesses nothing but a veil and a tomb" - Saudi Arabian Proverb

As you read the book

There are still a lot of illegitimate happenings in those regions and that includes the practice of female genital mutilation and polygamy in the name of Islam and Holy Quran. Every chapter has its own crux and my personal favorite is the Monte Carlo chapter which is filled with extreme emotions and this is one of the chapters that are gruesome, in this chapter the author has tried her greatest possible degree to capture the moments as is. 

When Sultana gets forlorn in defending her maidservant Fatma's family from committing a female circumcision on her grand-daughter, Sultana rushes to her daughter's house but comes back empty-handed. Though having a title of Princess, Sultana ends up coming back to her home defeated because of the ignorance in the name of religion.

The story gets intriguing every word by word but you need to have a lot of endurance to bolster the happenings and events.The author sometimes slows down but at times the story gets completely heated up and as a reader, it triggers the levels of curiosity to greater levels.