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My Rating
Book Name : Fifty Shades of Grey
Author : E.L.James
Genre : Erotica
Blurb : When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms.
Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires. Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.
Book from My Eyes: Fifty Shades of Grey is one of the biggest bestsellers of our time. However, the book is not as thrilling to read as I expected it to be, going by its sells figure. This is book really made me feel horrified about the sex part at least. There are more negative points I can figure out than the positive ones about this book.
Thumbs Up :
- I like the way infatuation between Anastasia and Christian Grey has been depicted in the book. They way the can't keep each other's eyes off from each other, the way Christian is possessive about Anastasia is definitely given everyone a love goal.
- I loved the description of first love making part between Christian Anastasia.
- E.L. James wanted to portray Christian Grey as a control freak bastard and she didn't leave any single stone unturned to prove that which is commendable. In fact, all the characters have kept the consistency from the begging to end.
- Though the story was quite boring sometimes in between, but it has an abrupt ending that will make sure the readers buy the second part of the book, 'Fifty Shades Darker'. This is definitely a thoughtful move if the business is concerned.
Thumbs Down :
- Anastasia a beautiful and independent girl, who is not aware she is beautiful. Cliché!! She is in love with Christian Grey, the billionaire, who claims not to do love but only fuck hard, who don't believe in sex, who is a control freak and tried to control everything Anastasia does. On the very 3rd or 4th meeting with Anastasia, he throws the contract of being his submissive on her. She is always scared of him, can't be herself with him, but still she sleeps with him on the 4th meeting. On the other side, her inner goddess claims her as Whore for taking expensive gifts from Christian but she justifies herself well enough that she has no way of not accepting those. She tolerates the beating from Christian though she doesn't like that and has no guts to say that. A bigger Cliché!! Which independent girl does that?
- Christian Grey a man of mid-twenties, had a disturbed childhood until 15-16 years age, been submissive for Mrs Elena Robinson for 6 years after that and then 15 submissive of his own, and still a billionaire. I am really wondering if years of Christian Grey are of 1000 days each or what. It very unrealistic to me.
- How a man, which such a big business to handle on his own, can keep track of Anastasia's each and every activity.
- No one knows anything about Christian Grey. The entire world, including his own mother, used to think he is a gay but Kate knew he had commitment issues. Another cliché!!
- The book is very much repetitive. The same thing what Anastasia feels about Christian, what Christian says to Anastasia has been repeated again and again and again.
- Anastasia's inner good, subconscious mind and Anastasia herself, three different entities has bored me to the death.
Verdict : One is not going to loose anything if doesn't read it. But if you really want to give it a read, I would suggest buying entire trilogy as you can't resist your self from reading the second part as this has ended really abruptly.
My Rating
Book Name : Since She Went Away
Author : David Bell
Genre : Suspense Thriller
Blurb : Three months earlier, Jenna Barton was supposed to meet her lifelong best friend Celia. But when Jenna arrived late, she found that Celia had disappeared—and hasn’t been seen again. Jenna has blamed herself for her friend’s disappearance every single day since then.
The only piece of evidence is a lone diamond earring found where Celia and Jenna were planning to meet, leading the national media to dub Celia “The Diamond Mom.” And even though Jenna has obsessively surfed message boards devoted to missing persons cases, she is no closer to finding any answers—or easing her guilt.
But when her son’s new girlfriend—who suddenly arrived in town without a past—disappears, a stricken Jenna begins to unwind the tangled truth behind Celia’s tragedy. And as long-buried secrets finally come to light, she discovers how completely lives can be shattered by a few simple lies.
Book from my eyes : Often our lives turn upside down with very small and apparently unpredictable steps we take. So does happen to Jenna Barton, a nurse in a small town of Kentucky. One fine day she makes a place to relive her childhood memories by meeting her lifelong best friend, Celia at a wee hour of the night. But when she reaches their usual meeting place, she finds Celia has been kidnapped leaving behind an earring as the only evidence of her being there. Worried, lost, guilty Jenna takes it completely as her responsibility of Celia's kidnap. If she would have been there a couple of minutes earlier, she wouldn't have to lose her friend to the night. Since the night, her only priority becomes finding her best friend Celia, which led her to became the puppet of media, upbringing her son in a house where visits and interrogation by cops became a regular affair. But still nothing changed, no one could find any trace of Celia. As the novel progresses, slowly knots of Celia's disappear starts to loose or may be more complecated. But finally, when the mystery resolves, no one, could have even thought in a nightmare of that possibility.
Thumbs Up:
- This is a good suspense thriller read, with every new evidence, every new victim, I felt I am bit near to the revelation of criminal but most of them were just a hallucination created by David Bell and I fall for that. I just loved how the author convincingly made me fall in the trap he created and proved me wrong. That's the best way of writing a suspense story.
- The flow of the story was very crisp and smooth, kept me on the hook every second of it and not even for a second I got bored.
- The emotions of Jenna and his son Jade were captured too well that anyone could feel the same while reading the novel.
Thumbs Down :
- There are certain situations which were quite a bit of coincidence and seemed to be unreal, like
- Tabitha's father's arrival in the kitchen, Tabitha being in the kitchen, Detective Poole leaving the place unguarded and Jeena's online friend reaching there, all at the exact time and sequence how is needed is quite a bit of coincidence and truely unreal.
- Every important incident like Ursula plotting Jade in TV, Jenna hugging Celia's husband and Ursula seeing the same, Tabitha reaching Jenna's home, The online guy tracking Jenna and coming to meet her, Ursula disappearing from her home and finally the revelation of the mystery, everything happening within a couple of hours. These all also seemed a bit planned and unreal.
- Certain things are given overly importance, which I doubt is really a big deal. One being Jeena's use of 'F' word in the national television.
Verdict : This book is a good read and will definitely keep you in suspense until the last moment until when it's beyond imagination who is the main culprit.
My Rating
Book Name : My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Author : Fredrik Backman
Genre : Fiction
Blurb : Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa's best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.
When Elsa's grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa's greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother's letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones, but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.
Book from my eyes : I picked this book due to my fondness towards PS I love you as this book is based on the concept of letters by Elsa's late grandmother to be delivered to different people whom she wants to say sorry and Goodreads rating of 4. But not to be mentioned, this was the utterly disappointing novel. I know I shouldn't compare one book to other but I am saying this considering this novel as a unique novel. First of all, I couldn't understand the concept of this novel up to first 110 pages and after that, this book still made some sense. But by then this book lost the charm to impress me.
Thumbs Up:
- The concept of merging fairy tell with real life is a good and unique one.
Thumbs Down :
- I couldn't understand the concept of the novel up to first 110 pages. Till then, it was very boring, because of weird terms used to describe the different kingdom, different animals. When it started making some sense, it seemed to be very dragging and boring.
- As the story is mainly narrated from Elsa's point of view, there are many things which really didn't make any sense.
- Almost everything, be it an incident, be it feeling, be it some words has been repeated again and again and again which is utterly boring. The book might have content of hardly 100 pages but because of these repetitions, it became one of 370 pages.
- Characterization is really poor. Elsa, a girl of just 8 years of age is smarter than anyone and everyone. The same person can be a doctor, a father at a church, an attorney and many more thing which is really unrealistic.
- Some people do the same thing all the time, like someone making eggs or running, someone offering cookies, someone drinking coffee is too much to handle.
Verdict : I am disappointed with this book and will not promote anyone reading this.
My Rating
Movie Name : Me Before You
Directed by : Thea Sharrock
Written by : Jojo Moyes
Cast : Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Janet McTeer
Plot : Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what coming is what keeps her sane. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that. What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of color. And neither of them knows they're going to change each other for all time.
My take on the movie: Everyone I know, loved the movie. I wouldn't say I particularly loved this one but yes I definitely liked it. When I say I didn't love this movie, doesn't mean that there is something wrong about the movie, but I had read the novel just a week ago and so I had really really high expectation from the movie. J. W. Eagan said, 'Never judge the book by its movie' and I will say never watch a movie if you have read the book already. Me Before You is definitely a good movie but I particularly am not that impressed as my most favourite parts and the the things which I felt was situation turner, are not been included. But saying that, we need to consider that everything a novel has couldn't be included in the movie.
Thumbs Up:
- The movie is based on one of my most favorite novels. So, the no need to say the storyline is the best thing about the movie.
- Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin did really give a life to my imagination while I was reading the books.
Could Have been better : I would not say below points as thumbs down for this movie, as the people who haven't read the novel actually loved that
- 1. The movie went on real fast pace chopping out some real important parts of the books which should have been included
- Most importantly, Lou's effort about bringing Will to normal life was not detailed at all. Some part of those like her joining the chat rooms, buying a laptop for Will which is speech operative, planning the trip with all sky diving and everything else for quadriplegic which got canceled due to his Pneumonia should have been included.
- The chemistry between Lou and her sister Treena was a vital point of the movie however, that was completely ignored in the movie.
- Upon knowing about Will's wish to die, Lou resigned from her job and Mrs. Camilla Traynor and Treena convinced her to join back which was kind of vital for me but is ignored.
- During their vacation in Mauritius, when Lou learns that all her efforts are failed and Will is still stubborn about his decision of ending his lie, Lou leaves the place and doesn't talk to Will or anyone from Traynor family until Mrs. Camilla Traynor requests her to come to Switzerland to fulfill Will's wish of she being there. Between those days, she lived a life of keeping herself house arrest.
- The entire part of Lou moving in with her boyfriend Patrick and then with Will is missing in the movie.
- There are couple of factual error which were explained properly in the book but were
- Will has tried to cut his wrists in a suicide attempt, though this would be physically impossible to do this due to his quadriplegia. It is in fact explained in the book that he ran himself in his wheelchair into a sharp edge multiple times.
- Patrick fights with Lou about she going on a vacation with Skydive, luxurious spa and room service which is not her job. But there was no skydive and spa in the movie during Mauritius trip. In the book, there was a USA trip planned which got canceled due to Will's illness which justifies this fight but not in the movie.
- There was a scene in the movie of Lou's mother Josie getting mad about Will's decision and not allowing Lou to visit him at Switzerland and Lou is fighting for the same. It happens as soon as Lou reaches home after the vacation from Mauritius. But the question is while Lou herself was so mad about the incident, how was she fighting with her mother. But book justifies this situation as well.
Verdict : Though there are a couple of things which could have been improved in the movie but this movie is definitely a good watch. My friends who didn't read the novel found this is one of the best movies of this year. :)
My Rating
Movie Name : Junooniyat
Directed by : Vivek Agnihotri
Produced by : Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar
Written by : Vivek Agnihotri
Cast : Pulkit Samrat, Yami Gautam, Taran Bajaj
Plot : Indian army captain Jahan Bakshi (Pulkit) who rescues a damsel in distress, Suhani Kapoor (Yami) swimming in a restricted area in Sonmarg, falls in love with her.When everything started working well between then, family comes in between. As three members already died in Indian Army, Suhani's father didn't want her to marry any army man. Then comes the second part of the movie where Jahan saves the life of an NRI guy who came to India to get married and insisted Jahan to accompany him for his marriage. The bride turned out to be Suhani. Though at this point rest in very predictable but I would still leave it for the audience to watch.
My take on the movie: Initially I didn't plan to watch Junooniyat expecting it as Sanam Re part 2. But then somehow changed my mind. It's another Bollywood love story of boy meets girl, gets into a fight and then falls in love, separated from each other for some misunderstanding and then unites again. There is nothing new which Junooniyat has offered. Especially the second half of the movie is real cliché. But yes, it's not Sanam Re part 2 which I couldn't bear even for first 30 minutes and way better than that.
Thumbs Up:
- I liked the first half of the movie. Yami Gautam and Pulakit Sharma really makes a nice pair.
- Costumes, especially for Yammi were really elegant and eye catching.
Thumbs Down:
- The major drawback for this film is its second half. I felt like I am watching DDLJ remake which really turns out to be really irritating these days as we already have watched all possible remakes.
- Actingwise, Yami Gautam seemed to be a bit over acting in times.
- The story is not really concrete and there are flaws. Especially on the part of Jahan's engagement. Getting into an engagement when he is just out of one relationship and breaking it off just a few minutes before the event is a real cliché. A bigger cliché was Suhani's fiancée's sister telling about the incident to Jahan.
Verdict : Though it's not a great movie, but definitely time pass and can be watched over a lazy Sunday afternoon.
