Beyond the Book

One of the most compelling and thrilling novels I’ve ever read, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, proved to be my favorite novel and therefore, recommended to a lot of people. Hosseini, an Afghan-American writer describes the plight and atrocities faced by Afghan women. A “mother-daughter” story, unlike his first novel, The Kite Runner, the novel encapsulated me in a whole new world that I couldn’t fathom. This breathtaking story takes shape during the events in Afghanistan,  the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding . From conflict to fear, to love and hatred the story connects you with the characters that you start feeling as if you were part of their world and viewed the society through their eyes. Surely, the book has parts that leave you wide eyed and parts where the sadness gushes over you, but those same emotions left me dreading for more and leaving this constant curiosity in me to know if things could get worse. My fav...

Carve the Mark is a young adult science fiction by Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series. Released in 2017, Carve the Mark is the first book in a duology. The characters of the book live among nine planets: Othyr, Koloande, Ogra, Essander, Zold, Pitha, Trella, Tepes and Thuvhe/Urek. All though, the Shotet and Thuvhesits live on the same planet(Thuvhe/Urek) they disagree on a lot of issues and envy each other.  Cyra Noavek, daughter of Lazmet Noavek, the ruler of Shotet, is a young girl with a "current gift" of constant pain in the form of black liquid coursing through her veins. Akos Kereseth, son of Sifa Kereseth, oracle of Thuvhe, has a very unique current gift. He cannot feel the current and so he can disable the current gifts of others.                                                                 ...

An Abundance of Katherines is a young adult novel, released in 2006 by John Green. The book revolves around the "love-life" of a child prodigy, Colin Singleton, who loves languages, anagramming and code breaking. Colin has a very specific type when it comes to the opposite gender: he dates only girls named Katherine. And till date, he has been dumped by 19 Katherines. We follow Colin as he goes on an unplanned road trip along with his best friend Hassan. A road trip is a total solution for Colin because he finds himself changing as a person with the change in surroundings and situations.                       Colin and Hassan go for various adventures including feral hog hunting, that lead to introspection and a new-found courage. The most interesting part of the book is The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability. Colin tries to come up with a theorem which could serve as a basis to predict the end of r...

Fangirl is a 2013 contemporary novel for young adults by Rainbow Rowell. It has been called a “true and relatable novel for geeks.” I found this book while going through various lists about famous young adult reads. The book is about a teenage girl named Cath who is a freshman at the  University of Nebraska- Lincoln along with her identical twin Wren. Having a “social anxiety disorder,” Cath finds it very difficult to make friends and speak up during discussions and is a big Simon Snow fan. During the novel, Wren is shown as drifting away from fan fiction and turning into a “socialite,”  while Cath can’t end her day without it. She spends her leisure time writing her award-winning fan fiction, Carry On, Simon. Due to her scholarship, Cath gets to attend a fiction-writing class where she finds herself a writing partner, Nick.  Incidents and happenings, cause Cath to become good friends with her roommate Reagan and her best friend Levi. However, Cath feels miserable ...

"Steve Jobs" is a biographical novel of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, by Walter Isaacson, writer of best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. The book is based on the information provided by various family members, colleagues, friends and competitors during several interviews. The author throws light on different situations in Jobs's life and how he dealt with them. His "reality distortion field" is often discussed in the book through different opinions and views. The book is an account of the subjects 56 years of life in a well ordered fashion. It begins with explaining Jobs's difficult childhood. A rebellious young boy, Steve had an intense disliking towards the parents who put him up for adoption. A Zen follower, the author tells us about his strange eating habits and diets. The readers are taken back to the days when desktops and laptops were unimaginable. Isaacson gives an insight on how Jobs started Apple along with St...