Beyond the Book

  Holly Black has proven herself to be a prolific writer of the genre of fantasy by giving her readers the most spectacularly exhilarating experience in the last book of The Folk of the Air series. The Queen of Nothing i.e., the power-hungry and fierce protagonist Jude, is under exile and suddenly stripped of the power she once dreamt of acquiring.  Jude Duarte after successfully navigating through the treacherous waters of the High Court of the Faerie has managed to halt the conflict between the land and the sea but finds herself in a position of no power unlike before. Under exile in the human world, she despises herself for being too trusting which results in her losing her position as seneschal in the High Court of King Cardan as well as her unrelenting control over him. While she bides her time afflicted with feelings of betrayal and anger, she finally finds an opportunity to sneak back into the magical world of the Faerie when her twin sister, Taryn, is faced with deep t...

  One might believe that after a book like The Cruel Prince that precedes The Wicked King, Holly Black may only be able to do so much in order to continue the plot. However, she manages to leave you baffled along with an exhilarating experience plagued with moments of double-crossing and the evil bargains of the Fae.  After nearly five months of overthrowing the tyrannical rule of Balekin, the elder sibling of Cardan, Jude Duarte finds herself in a new position of power which comes with numerous benefits coupled with an unmooring sense of danger. As she walks on eggshells in order to keep the Faerie Kingdom running, she realizes it is rather much more difficult and burdensome to hold onto power as compared to obtaining it in the first place. Plotting and scheming her way through the newly established High Court of the Wicked King, it seems rather impossible to feel a moment of rest as Jude must control and navigate through the constant riddlesome alliances of the Fae who despi...

  It is quite safe to say that once you enter the world of fantasy novels, there really is no escaping it. Holly Black is certainly in the same category as Sarah J Maas if not her equal in terms of creating a world of Fey that delights the human mind and makes it more real than it could ever possibly be.  Book one of The Folk of the Air series, the Cruel Prince is a story about three sisters, Vivienne the eldest, along with Jude and Taryn who are forced to enter the Court of Faeries when their parents are murdered in front of their own eyes.  Despite undergoing the extreme harshness and impoliteness of the Fey, the 17-year-old Jude wants nothing more than being able to belong with the cruel Fey and learn their ways of life. She is power-hungry, cunning, and charming and wants a place for herself in the High Court of those very creatures who loathe humans, which is exactly what Jude is.  However, with her struggle to find herself and her place within the Fey, she must...

  Normal People, Sally Rooney's brainchild is nothing short of an absolute wonder to be read. One of my favorite books that takes you on an emotional rollercoaster of love, friendship, and heartbreak, Rooney won me over with her ability to showcase the reality of the complex relationships that people unknowingly form.  Marianne is an awkward teenager with an eccentric yet distant personality who wants to accept the reality of her unfortunate world that is composed of an ignorant and unfeeling family and hardly a  handful of friends. Connell is the exact definition of what one might describe as the high school sweetheart. Famous, friendly, and extremely handsome, he tends to suppress his own feelings and desires only to be someone the world adores and loves. Rooney somehow transcribes certain extreme qualities of love and loneliness along with a common urge to suppress one's true desires which in my opinion, might actually be one of the biggest factors that bring the two c...

To base one's first novel on a story as famous and repeatedly told as that of "the best of all Greeks",  Madeline Miller has achieved a tremendous and courageous feat.  Achilles, the hero of the legendary Trojan War, was the son of the fierce sea-nymph Thetis and the renowned King Peleus. Prophesied to become one of the greatest warriors to be born, he was prepossessing, alluring, and charmingly humorous.  The novel begins with the story of Patroclus an awkward Prince and son of Menoetius, who was exiled to Peleus' court after killing a nobleman's child in anger. Thus, Patroclus meets Achilles and as fate would have it, goes on to become his life-long companion, friend, and lover much to Thetis' dismay.  Patroclus and Achilles are trained by the wise centaur Chiron in the art of war, medicine, and survival. After the kidnapping of Helen of Sparta, Achilles and the Kings of Greece are forced to join the King of Mycenae, Agamemnon's army to fight the Trojans...

Beautiful World Where are You is Sally Rooney's latest brainchild. The contemporary novel revolves around the complexity of relationships just like her previous works, Normal People and Conversations with Friends. You essentially know the sight of a good book when it's aggressively tagged and highlighted, and with this one, I went as far as making notes because Rooney really hits you in the gut with her observations in this book.  The book revolves around the lives of four people, Alice, Eileen, Felix, and Simon who want to experience life to the fullest yet, like most people it soon turns into a hazy bundle of the mess that you endlessly start despising. Alice a novelist, is an eccentric woman who suffered a mental breakdown due to the newfound fame of a celebrity novelist and now lives alone in a huge rectory in Dublin. Her best friend, Eileen, often lonesome, is an excellently witty and intelligent female who works at an extremely low-paying literary agency. Unlike the usu...

  I'm not a big fan of self-help books (I'm rather bad at following advice and I tend to forget the previous chapter) but Atomic Habits managed to change my opinion.  Written by James Clear, an American journalist and author who proudly calls himself an advocator of useful ideas, the book is an essential framework towards building better habits through simple yet effective strategies. Through the book, the author tries to reveal how making small changes however minuscule in nature, can lead to greater outcomes. The best part of the book is that Clear uses stories of successful CEOs, athletes, musicians, artists, etc in order to prescribe an evidentiary value to his theory of building better habits. An interplay of psychology and neuroscience opens your eyes to the working of your own lifestyle and what changes you must make in order to live a more fulfilling and desirable life. Clear has the astounding ability to make the process of habit formation seem simple and easy to achi...