Faith And The Beloved by Kochery C Shibu

Hello book enthusiasts! Here’s another book review! This is a new book in the market. Hope it helps!

Name of the book : Faith And The Beloved by Kochery C Shibu

Stars : ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5)

Genre : CrimeThriller and Murder Mystery

Favourite Quote : “The wealth of murder will yield murder; male members of your family are cursed.” (Loc 30)

I reviewed the Kindle version of this book

Review :

Have you ever read a story so twisted that it’s insane? Well, faith and the beloved is one such book.

This book has a lot of characters but the main ones are Naithy Cherokil, Tony D’Souza, Alice Cherokil, Prem Rollands and Arun Rollands. These characters are divided into two stories.

The first story starts with Alice murdering her stepfather and fleeing away. Alice’s mother, Naithy Cherokil is a smart, rich and successful  businesswoman from Mumbai. After the death of her first husband, she married a guy who was ten years younger to her viz. Tony D’Souza. Tony D’Souza is a man full of secrets.

The other story is about two brothers Arun and Prem. Prem Rollands is a young boy from Bihar who is a kaliri expert. Things turn south when Arun is killed by the police under mysterious circumstances.

This book mainly revolves around the death of Tony D’Souza and  a black diamond that goes missing. Shibu has done a decent job with creating excitement and suspense till the end. While reading, the book took me to a lot of cities all over India which felt really good (as we are all under lockdown ergo miss traveling :p). Shibu has very nicely put together a story filled with love, lust, cheat, revenge, secretes, mystery and murder. Personally, as a crime thriller enthusiast, I felt that this book had a lot of character description which was not necessary. This book makes sense after you read and understand each and every character and their story. This book also had a lot of adult content, which was not my cup of tea.

I give this book three stars as this was not something for me. If you are someone who prefers long narrations and crime thriller, this is the book for you.

I would also like to thank the author, Kochery C. Shibu for sending the reviewer’s copy. 🙂

About the author :

Kochery C. Shibu is a retired naval officer. A graduate from the National Defence Academy he has held several important posts in the Indian Navy. Post his retirement he has executed hydroelectric projects in the Cauvery river basin in Karnataka, Beas river basin in Himachal and lately Teesta river basin in Sikkim. He holds a postgraduate degree in Defence Studies from Chennai University, and MA in English Literature from Pune University. Men and Dreams in the Dhauladhar is his debut novel. The technical content of the novel, namely the setting up of a hydro-project is drawn from his experience in these projects since 2005, as are many of the characters inspired from those whom he encountered at the project site. Kochery C. Shibu was born in Kochi and now lives in Bangalore with his wife and daughter.

Thank you so much for reading!

Let me know how you liked the book and would you be interested to read this book or not!

You can also check out my amazon book haul here.

Happy reading 🙂

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove is one of the most positive book I’ve read

Name of the book : A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Stars : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Genre : Contemporary Fiction

Favourite Quote : ‘……. she answered that most men ran away from an inferno. But men like Ove ran into it.’ (Pg. 133)

Review:

‘A lower-arm amputee with cataracts could have reversed this trailer more accurately than you.’ (Pg. 16) On this exact line I started laughing so much and understood that this book is not like any other books I’ve read before.

A Man called Ove is about a fifty nine year old Swedish man who is a man of his principles. The book is about how Ove meets each and every character in the book and how his life is affected by them and vice versa. The story is about Ove, his cat, his neighbours, his friends, his family and the love of his life.

The book takes the reader back to the memory lane where we understand the story from past  (Ove’s childhood) to present day and how everything then is impacting everything now. There are sad stories in the past, but there is happiness too.

This book is  also a love story. It talks about his wife Sonja who is the most kind woman there can ever be. She is the one who sees Ove like no one else can. She understands Ove like nobody else. She is the pillar of Ove’s strength and happiness.

This book is also based on family and neighbours. This book talks about how traditional family values evolved with time and has taken a form of modern values. The book also talks about an untouched subject of ‘love thy neighbours’ which also portrays how small talk with neighbours impacts their lives!

Fredrik Backman though is in his thirties, beautifully penned down this character Ove who is an old grumpy man. I felt like Ove was a man who was an old soul born in the wrong era. Ove unapologetically does not change in fact changes the reader. When I kept the book down, I was tempted to include Ove’s values and principles in my life as well.

This book is one of those books that made me laugh and cry with its heart-warming story of love, family, community, grief and then taught me the art of moving on!

I give this book five stars and would recommend it to anyone who has ever gone through or is going through tough times 🙂

About the Author:

A man Called Ove is Swedish author Fredrik Backman’s debut novel. Many publishing companies had rejected the manuscript of this book before it was published. The book was translated into English and published in the US in 2013. The Novel has become commercially successful since then. It has been translated in 38 languages and sold more than a million copies. Backman has authored several other books including My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry , and Britt-Marie Was Here. A Man Called Ove was adapted into a stage play and also a movie in 2015.

If you want me to review your favourite book, do comment and let me know!

Follow me on instagram @booketlistindia

Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag

---

Hello readers! Here’s another book that I would like to recommend everyone for your booket list 🙂

The book Ghachar Ghochar that I highly recommend.

Name of the book : Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbagh

Stars : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

Genre : Psychological Fiction

Favourite Quote :

“It’s true what they say – it’s not we who control money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us.” (page 49)

Review :

Our society is divided into various financial classes. This subliminally determines a lot of things like our behaviour, our friends, our residential area, our happiness etc. This is what the book Ghachar Ghochar is mainly about. Ghachar Ghochar is a 115 paged novella which is beautifully written by Vivek Shanbhagh. It talks about a story of a family, that turned from rags to riches. It has been translated from a Kannada book by Srinath Perur.

This book revolves around 6 main characters viz. Appa (the father), Chikappa (the uncle), Amma (the mother), Malati (the sister), Anita (the wife) and an unknown narrator.

The story skilfully glides from the time the narrator’s family had financial hardships to the time they had everything they could ask for.

At the start of the story, Appa, the sole earner of the family, works as a salesman and is asked to get an early retirement. This creates financial distress in the family. Chikappa then proposes an idea of opening a business of spices called Sona Masala. This venture turns out to be a success.

The author has very nicely narrated the tale of how wealth changed the relationships within this family. Chikappa is now held in high regard. He is now a ‘mukhiya’ (the head) of the family.

The story takes an interesting turn when the narrator gets married to an outspoken girl named Anita, who has her heart in the right place. She is not shy to speak her mind and that creates domestic unrest.

There was not a single boring moment in this book. I feel that this novella will touch the hearts of many Indians, as many of us have seen days when the mukhiyas needs are considered of utmost importance, where the mother takes care of everyone, where there’s a sibling’s sweet and sour relationship, where there is a newly married couple starting a life etc. As a reader, I felt like I understood the family and knew them personally. The book took me to a roller coaster ride. The ending was something very interesting and open to your perception which was the cherry on the cake for this book.

I would recommend this to all the readers and non-readers out there!

Happy reading 😊

About the author:

He has published five short story collections, three novels and two plays, and edited two anthologies, one of which is in English.Vivek’s stories have been translated into English and other Indian languages.

Many of his stories have been adapted for the stage, and one of them, ‘Nirvana’, has been made into a short film.

Vivek founded and edited the pioneering Kannada literary journal Desha Kaala for seven years. He is an engineer by training and lives in Bangalore.

SRINATH PERUR writes on a variety of subjects, often to do with travel or science. He is the author of the travelogue If It’s Monday It Must Be Madurai. He lives in Bangalore.

---

• Faith And The Beloved by Kochery C Shibu
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
• The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
• Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
• My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik

My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik

Name of the book : My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik

Stars : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Genre : Mythology, Spirituality, Philosophy

The path of my GITA!

---

Review :

Born and brought up in a Hindu family, I’d heard a lot about the ‘Bhagvad Gita’ and somehow I got the courage to pick it up and read it. In my childhood mom and my grand-parents used to narrate short stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata to my younger brother and I which always fascinated me! As an adult, reading Gita at least once was in my ‘book-et list’ (see what I did there? subtle no?)

Devdutt Pattanaik’s My Gita is not a translation of the Gita but instead is a paraphrasing of the same. At the start of this book, the author makes it clear that this is his perspective of what Gita is and that to me as a reader, made a lot of sense. He says in the book that “The Gita we overhear is essentially that which is narrated by a man with no authority (Sanjaya) to a man with no sight but full authority (Dhritarashtra)” which makes it obvious that there is a difference between what is told (gyan) and what is heard (vi-gyan).

Devdutt Pattanaik also very beautifully explains how Hinduism has changed with time as time has progressed. From the Vedas to Upanishads to Puranas to Ramayana, Mahabharata to today’s society, My Gita very successfully deciphers the meaning hidden in Gita’s verses and makes it very easy to understand for everyone. Though the original verses were written in Sanskrit which is a highly coded language, the author has not used all the versus from the Gita but has paraphrased them into various themes and 18 chapters throughout the book. This book takes a divine course among its chapters as he talks about karma yoga, bhakti yoga and gyan yoga.

This book also time and again drafts a comparison of Hinduism with other religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Greek mythology, Abrahamic religions etc. and highlights the difference of the opinions and some similarities in them. Gita is nothing but a book that helps the people who have accepted the ‘society life’ over the ‘hermit’ life and helps us in having inner and outer peace in life.

As someone, who had tried to read the English translation of the Bhagvad Gita, and was kind of taken aback by the words such as yagnya, yoga, paramatma, atma etc. I remember not being able to relate with the text and closing the book forever (at least that’s what I thought!). Devdutt Patanaik’s My Gita has helped me apprehend Gita better. I did read the Iskon translated Bhagvad Gita after this and loved it.

If you are someone who is looking for a translated version of the Bhagvad Gita, this book is not for you. But I would recommend this book to everyone as this book consists the gist, essence and message of the Bhagvad Gita.

---

About the author :

Dr Devdutt Pattanaik (born December 11, 1970) is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist and author whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, mythology, and also management. He has written a number of books related to Hindu mythology, including Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology, a novel, The Pregnant King, and Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata (2010).

He is the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group, one of India’s largest retailers, bringing the wisdom of Indian mythology into Indian business, specifically in human resource management. He also writes a column for the newspaper MIDDAY.

---

P.S. If you read this book please share your reviews about the same! Let me know did you feel as divine and spiritual as I did?

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

I read the kindle version of this amazing book!

Name of the book : The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Stars : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Genre : Psychological Thriller

Favourite Quote : Be careful who you let in.

Review:

How would you react when you suddenly get to know that you have inherited a huge mansion in a very posh locality near Thames river?

This is what happened with Libby Jones on her 25^th birthday. She got a letter which unveils that she has inherited a mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighbourhood.

On digging further, she came to know that twenty five years ago, police had found a ten month old baby crying in the bedroom. Meanwhile, downstairs in the kitchen there were three dead bodies dressed in all black. The four children also living in the house were nowhere to be found and yet the baby was found there, well fed and well taken care of.

The plot thickens as Lucy and Henry also have their stories running parallel.

Lucy is a single mother, struggling on the streets of France with her two children, striving to get her family from France to London.

Henry narrates series of events that took place in the mansion in past. He was a teenage boy, who lived there with his rich family. They were almost happy a family until his mother invited a stranger’s family to live with them. The whole household was then turned into a weird cult eventually draining the whole family of its wealth.

Lisa Jewell has very sophisticatedly described the dark and twisted fate of every character in this book. The protagonist, Libby seems like a regular girl next door whose actions and thought process makes the reader feel relatable. The author didn’t lose the theme of the book – can you ever get rid of the past?

While reading this book, I felt a flush of emotions like happiness, sadness, pity, anger, resentment etcetera. This book was a whole journey in itself.

The book starts with the phrase ‘Be careful who you let in’ which justifies the whole story. It’s so bizarre to understand, how a simple friendship with a stranger can actually turn your life upside down . Once I picked this book up, I just could not keep it down. What an amazing book this is! It definitely gets a five out of five from me.

If you love mystery and domestic thriller, then this is the book for you.

Happy reading!

About the Author:

Lisa Jewell is the internationally bestselling author of sixteen novels, including the New York Times bestseller Then She Was Gone, as well as I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and The House We Grew Up In. Her debut novel, Ralph’s Party, was an instant Sunday Times (London) bestseller, and more recently her books have become #1 bestsellers in Canada and the UK. In total, her novels have sold over 2 million copies across the English speaking world. Her work has also been translated into sixteen languages. Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.

Do check out my new video on instagram on my latest amazon book haul here.

If you have read this book already, comment and let me know whether you were as intrigued as I was after reading this book?

---

Who am I?

Hello fellow readers! I hope you guys are all doing great! Well here I am letting you an insight on what is the purpose of this blog site and how did I start to go about it!

So well I am a newbie blogger and this page belongs to me… oh by that I mean me.. Rashmi Tripathi and I stay in Panipat, Haryana. I have always been a reading enthusiast and more than that I have always loved to encourage people to read more. That being said, I do respect those people too who are just not that much into reading but like the idea of reading books!

This is not just a book review blog but a blog which will be helping the reader to get encouraged and pick up a book and start reading!

What will you get to see in my blogs?

• If you are someone who loves reading a lot and is confused on what book to pick next, book-et list is the place for you
• If you are looking for a mix of fictions and non-fiction recommendations, you are at the right place!
• If you are someone who does not call himself an avid reader and want to know where to start?? Well my dear friend, you are at the perfect place.
• Looking for a light read or a heavy read, this is the place for you!
• At the end if you are feeling that you want a reading partner, well here I am! You can just ping me in and let me know which book is it that you want to read together and we shall then do so!

Also, what is better than being captive in our own houses with lots of books and lots of recommendations! So why not quarantine with book-et list as it has always been a part of my bucket list!

See you all on the other side!

Lots of love!

Connect with booket list’s insta page from https://www.instagram.com/booketlistindia/

Connect with me on insta on https://www.instagram.com/love_me_rush_me/