Sabaa Tahir has officially destroyed me. Let me start by saying, that I’ve been waiting for A Reaper at the Gates for about a year, since I read Torch in May 2017. And I have now finished Reaper in three hours on my first ever solo girls trip in Europe on a train from the Matterhorn all the way to Zurich. And I have been destroyed.

An Ember in the Ashes follows the lives of three characters, Elias, Laia and Helene as they navigate the cruelties of the Empire they live in. It talks about suppression and rebellion and magic, it possesses all the things that make a book fantastic, romance, fleshed-out characters, compelling villains and heart-wrenching scenes. Every thread is tied together so perfectly. From the first book to the mind-blowing reveal at the end. This review will include spoilers for the first two books, proceed at your own risk. 

I started out this series with lots of love in my heart for Elias. He’s perfect. He’s a specimen of what it means to be a man without having male toxicity in any form. That hasn’t changed. He remains the steadfast hero, selfless to the point of destruction and even then I have held hope in my heart that he will come out okay, because if Elias isn’t okay then I don’t know how I’ll survive this series. There’s a tiny love triangle in the beginning which led me to be annoyed whenever Helene was around. If anyone is a master of changing minds, it is Sabaa Tahir.

By the time Torch was done, I adored Helene. And now that I’ve finished Reaper, I can say with complete conviction that I am reading this series for her and her alone now. It’s funny because I don’t know how exactly Tahir writes, did she have the entire story planned out before she began the series, or is she going along with it as she writes, I’m unsure as to whether Helene was intended to be a protagonist. But she becomes one by the second book. And the best one at that. Helene’s chapters are by far the most gripping. They held my interest the most. She is the strongest character. The character who deserves happiness the most. I am reading the last book (waiting for it anxiously) for Helene’s happy ending. Helene is the ideal character, she feels so deeply in a world that encourages the suppression of any emotion and she is taught to find strength against those odds. And her romantic storyline had me swooning. I had every scene bookmarked on my Kindle and had post-its stuck in my hardcopy. I still love Elias, but my main priority in this series is now Helene, her survival and her happiness. If I come out with those intact I will be ecstatic.

One of the other compelling characters in this book is Harper. His love for Helene is silent and strong and steadfast. He is PERFECT. Every scene between them is a masterclass in foreplay and tension. 

Reaper managed to meld magic and the political fantasy of the book seamlessly. In the earlier two books, one of those genres was explored more, but Reaper manages to meld together both beautifully. The entire book was just a work of art. My favourite so far in the entire series. 

I think what hits me most is how hard The Ember Series hits home. The world is filled with so much sadness as we cull people after people, race after race, religion after religion. We reduce our tolerance as the years go by, and as fascism seems to come to rise again in every corner of the world, the series becomes more and more accurate. A reflection of the horrors of war and genocide and the unbearable nature of the loss they bring with them. So unfathomable, and yet we go on refusing to change. There is a small window of peace and then everything is shattered yet.

Sabaa writes loss so beautifully. It’s like a caress on the wind, but a grief so deep it burrows in you long after you have finished reading.

Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure.”

A REAPER AT THE GATES

I cannot wait for the last book. I must see the peace that comes after battles hard-fought. For Elias and his steadfast heart. For Helene, for her happiness. For the mothers who lose so much to battle. For the peace, I so desperately want in my own world.

Thank you for making this the toughest, longest wait of my life Sabaa…

UPDATE : Read my review of the final instalment in this series here!

I adore faerie stories. The possibilities seem endless and yet in our own ways we have demarcated rules of their world. Whether these rules have come from fae yet to be discovered or books of the old I will never know, but the idea of the fae world has always enchanted me. This book is a testament to any other novel wishing to tell a story of the fae. Every author who is enchanted by the fae needs to read this novel.

An Enchantment of Ravens written by Margaret Rogerson is a work of art. It tells the tale of the seventeen-year-old artist Isobel, as she embarks on a journey through the fae lands alongside the Autumn Prince Rook after she paints him with human emotion brimming in his eyes.

I think the world-building is the best part of this book. It’s an immersive one. From the different Fae Courts to the Green Well and Whimsy itself. They come alive, every part of this new world of humans and fae described in detail. Much like the art within the book the world comes alive in faint colors, I could almost see the scarlet leaves of the autumn court and the golden summer that lay atop Whimsy. It’s a new sort of idea (or a new one that I have read of) where the outside world is negated to tell the story of a town on the brink of the fae world where fair folk are welcomed. In all other novels, the fae world is often veiled so mortals may not chance upon it. To have a world where mortals and fae live together of sorts, or rather encounter each other so regularly, was quite new. I actually enjoyed the concept a lot more. It allowed for far greater world-building, the plot points and characteristics of the fae came across more naturally. Earlier this year I read The Cruel Prince in which Jude tells us the rules of the fae quite methodically. The rules and ways of the fair folk flow much more naturally in this world-building system and one slips into the story with more ease. I can’t say any more lest I spoil the story itself.

The writing itself is lovely. It’s rather simple but it has an archaic sort of air to it. It made me feel like I had fallen into Disney’s 1959 Sleeping Beauty. The language was prosaic and lovely and the story came across sort of like magic. It felt very in tune with the fae theme. The entire effect of the language with the plot was wonderfully cohesive.

I adored the characters, much like the name of the town I found all of them to be amazingly whimsical. From Gadfly’s narcissism that gloves his secrets to the madness of Lark and the hulking danger that lurks within the sleeping Alder King. Every character small or big had a touch of whimsy. It was lovely to see those touches in the story. But the true masterpiece of this story is Rook. He has been so far removed from humanity for so many aeons that his inability to understand their idiosyncrasies and his resolve to be proper (because he is a prince) renders him the sweetest character. He is laughably proper and dangerously feral when he wants to be and yet he is so tender that you can’t help but fall in love with him.

“Isobel.” Rook looked at me gravely. “Isobel, listen The teapot is of no consequence. I can defeat anyone at any time.”

He says this completely seriously and it killed me. I swooned while reading this, simply because he is far too sweet a protagonist.

On a usual basis, insta-love is my least favourite trope but the entire romance between Isobel and Rook is so lovely. It seems like insta-love but it is only a faint infatuation and only far later in the book do both realize they are in love and confess. It was such a lovely romance and with Isobel’s human rules and Rook’s inability to understand yet unquestioning acceptance of them, the romance that blossomed felt filled with understanding, affection and respect.

In short, this was a five star read and I would like to make my new home Margaret’s mind while she wrote this, so I may have lived in whimsy writing my own stories or danced in the autumn court in a dress of fallen rose petals.

On a usual basis insta-love is my least favorite trope but the entire romance between Isobel and Rook is so lovely. It seems like insta-love but it is only a faint infatuation and only far later in the book do both realize they are in love and confess. It was such a lovely romance and with Isobel’s human rules and Rook’s inability to understand and yet unquestioning acceptance of them, the romance that blossomed felt filled with understanding, affection and respect.

In short, this was a five star read and I would like to make my new home Margaret’s mind while she wrote this, so I may have lived in whimsy writing my own stories, or danced in the autumn court in a dress of fallen rose petals.

So personally, Hans Christian Anderson is just not a writer I look to for happy endings, especially after he turned the mermaid into sea foam at the end. When I’m five it’s not the story I was looking for. And Disney kind of screwed it up for me with the whole giving up of the voice for a man. The Disney movie is always phenomenal but it’s not what I look for in my Little Mermaid retellings. So when I read the summary of To Kill A Kingdom, I was ecstatic.

To Kill A Kingdom is written by Alexandra Christo and was released in March 2018. It follows the story of a siren Lira who prides herself on stealing the hearts of Princes and the Prince Elian who just so happens to be the siren hunter of the hundred kingdoms. The premise is clearly Little Mermaid with the flaming red hair of the siren to the romance between the two protagonists and the beautiful singing that sirens generally manage to produce. But everything else was a completely new dish, one where the flavours burst upon your tongue, in a delightful new way as each chapter came and went.

One of the biggest things that sold this book for me was the world-building that Christo has carried out. She’s created a world with a hundred kingdoms and I could tell that each one had been thought out in terms of trade and culture and history. That for me was so appealing because to create that kind of immersive world is so immensely difficult, very few are able to achieve it. It’s almost on par to J. K. Rowlings Hogwarts world.

I think what I adored about this rendition was the fact that this wasn’t an insta-love story. Insta-love is the most hated trope in my back pocket. There was a slow build up to the romance between Lira and Elia, and there was a lot of banter that brought them closer gradually. It was the perfect blend of infatuation and flirtations and loyalty that brought the romance to perfection.

The characters are well fleshed out and they tie together in their own ways. I love that the protagonists were well described, because for me leaving appearances to imagination is very unfulfilling. So I liked being able to envision both Elian and Lira and build the scenes up in my head. The language was descriptive and written with a harsh sort of beauty matching the theme that Christo tried to intertwine within the sirens themselves.

SPOILER ALERT!!! I loved that the book ended with Lira in a more powerful position than Elian. It was a lovely way to end the book giving Lira what she deserved and allowing Elian to be what he wanted and not conform to what was expected of him.

This was a five star for me. I loved every aspect. From the characters to the plot to the entire retelling aspect. It was brilliant, and something I’d read again when in a romance slump.

How much of our stories are written before we are alive, before we are born before we are even conceived? How much of our future is written in stone and how much of it dependent on the choices that we are to be faced with? What does it mean to know that all the great secrets of our life have already been written and the idea that we might not have any way to change them.

The Kaunteyas by Madhavi Mahadevan is a revelation. It tells the story of Kunti, the woman scorned for not looking when Arjuna brought her Draupadi and saying to share the princess from Panchaal as though she was a sweetmeat at the dinner table. The mother of the 5 Pandavas.

The Kaunteys is written in an extremely descriptive manner. The descriptions are done well, using flowery language to describe the beauty and weaving dense darkness around scenes that required more of a sinister depth. The language and writing is a masterpiece. The characters are all given depth even though some might appear for only a page, characters from Saubali who appears only for a sickening assault scene to Gandhari who considers blindness by choice a virtue to Kunti herself, are given an inexplicable depth. They may have only a passing role in the story and yet the emotions and pain they feel are tangible on one’s tongue as we read.

Often I have wondered at the world that authors who write retellings of the Mahabharata and Ramayana create. It is indeed a mirror of historic India from the idea of caste and God and rank and war and kingdoms that one sees in the kingdoms of the past from Magadha to Gandhara. But it takes some semblance of skill to write and create a world wherein most of history records how people behaved and what correct behaviour was for every caste. To create a world that has mostly been chronicled through rules and war is a task. And yet Mahadevan has built an immersive subcontinent. One where the Ganges flows in a rush through the land illuminating kingdoms with life and vigour. But it is the characters within these kingdoms that Mahadevan has written that is the true masterpiece of the book. From the snakelike Dhritarashtra to steadfast Kunti, all of them have an intriguing story to tell, where every word they utter or step they take proves cataclysmic for events yet to take place. They all play their roles in bringing about the battle of Kurukshetra that annihilated the kingdoms. And above all are the women, the pain of every single woman palpable, pulsing across the entire story. At its very heart, this story is about women. From the very first page to the last word written, this is a story about women, one to be passed on in stone rather than water.

A point of interest was the ideas of names. Children carry the names of their fathers and those unable to are considered bastards, shamed for life to carry the name of their mothers. Why has that been a point of shame I wonder. After all, it is the mother’s womb that carries the child, her life’s blood that nourishes it, her pain and damage as she pushes it into the world and yet the child is denied the name of its mother, the name that allows its blood to run through its veins. The idea that Kunti would rather forego raising Karna than simply give him her name, allow him to be called Kaunteya, should be looked at more closely. Even today children take their father’s name when it is the woman who contributes more in every aspect. It is a sad truth of life, one we are capable of changing and yet do not.

In the Palace of Illusions, the book focuses mostly on Draupadi and her experience as the catalyst of the Mahabharata. Other women’s stories are told in passing, fleeting through the story as barely there. But in The Kaunteyas, Mahadevan focuses on every woman in Kunti’s life with equal detail, giving the story immense depth as we read about women raped on the dictate of their own family members, women forced into blindness to prove a point, women denied desire due to curses that they have not been told about. In the tales of men, the women are always on the losing side. Kunti’s sons win the war, they win Hastinapur and yet she still loses Karna. Gandhari married Dhritarashtra and availed the respect of maharani and yet has forsaken sight. Sairandhris and serving girls who live lives better than village girls are cornered like animals so their flesh may be used for pleasure. In the stories of men the women always lose, even when they stand on the winning side.

So when I finally turned the last page of the book, I wondered how much of our lives have already been penned down? Are we simply chess pieces placed on a wider cosmic board, ready to play the roles that have been written for us? In the very beginning of the book, the sage Durvasa looks through Kunti’s future before giving her the boon he gifts. Did he not know when he gifted the boon that Karna would be the unwanted result, that he would change the course of the great war, that he might have prevented it had he been kept? Why then did he not tell Kunti the true danger of using it? There are so many threads within the Mahabharata. Story within story that comes together to bring men to the battlefield, and I can’t help but wonder how different it might have been if only one man, had had a different story.

The compelling writing, the characters, the descriptions and world-building, and the epiphanies that come forth in a readers mind make this book a true literary paragon. Five glowing, golden stars.

There has been so much hype over this book and frankly, I just don’t understand why. To me it was a slow read. It wasn’t horrible, but it just wasn’t good. It was the sort of book I’d read while doing something else, or listening to really good music. It’s not a book I’d read again.

The Cruel Prince written by Holly Black follows the story of Jude, a human girl who has been raised in a world of faeires, where almost everything is fatal including the fey inhabiting it. She lives with her faerie guardian Maddock, her twin Taryn and elder sister Vivi. It is at school that Jude meets Cardan, a prince of Faerie, who along with his gang of friends bullies the two human girls in their world.

All of this is at the back of the dust jacket. And you’d think there’d be more to the story. But aside from this nothing else happens. There’s a (SPOILER) sidelined plot of how Jude trains to become a spy and eventually uses her skills to take the king and his son off the throne so her younger brother Oak can rule. But this happens maybe in the last two chapters. Every other aspect of this book focuses on how cruel Cardan is to Jude and his unhealthy obsession with her.

I am all for romance books with a hate to love plot. In fact, it’s my very favorite kind. But this was just a lot of Cardan being mean and using his magic to be as cruel as he could. There was no chemistry, no small sparks that led to larger infatuations and eventually allowed Jude to fall in love with him. I understand that this is just the first book in this series, but even the slightest build-up would be better than nothing.

I didn’t find any of the characters compelling. Taryn was so annoying and Jude was just a girl trying too hard. Maybe that is the character development, but for me it wasn’t gripping, captivating or interesting in any way. The world building seemed dull, with lack of proper description. Holly Black has once created the world of The Spiderwick Chronicles, it’s astonishing to me how much that word-building has fallen short in this new series. I kept waiting for something to pick up, the character arc, the plot line, the world.

With my problem, I probably will try and read the sequel, though I don’t see the point considering the best description I could probably give this book was that it was boring. So I might, I might not, let’s see how desperate a book slump I have to be in to read this series again.

2020 UPDATE: So it’s quarantine here, so I did pick up Wicked King and Queen of Nothing to help pass the time, and the story has definitely improved. I’d say the first book is the biggest hurdle to get through in this series. It still seems like an average series for me, because while the plot picks up a little bit the romance seems unrealistic. There doesn’t seem to me anyway as to why Jude suddenly falls in love with Cardan. It could be described as sexual desire – lust, but love seemed farfetched, on Jude’s end that is. Now that I’ve finished it, I still don’t have any horrible feedback, nor any feedback that would advertise this series as fantastic. I may be one of the few who found this series average, and that’s okay too.

I was sucked into this book within seconds. Just reading the first few lines had shivers running through my entire body. And I was right to be. Because this book is one of the best contemporary fiction/romance books out there. While it lacks the historic aspects of ‘The Shadow Lines‘ it matched it in every way in terms of depth and character development and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful writing.

Jellicoe Road written by Melina Marchetta was published in 2006. It tells the story of 17 year old Taylor Markham, a senior in the Jellicoe High School who finds herself mired in the darkness of a tragedy that occurred many years prior to her birth. The story jumps between Taylor’s narration and the tragedy that has been penned down in the third person, by Hannah, her legal guardian, which reads as a story rather than a reality. And amidst all this are the historical territory wars played between three different schools every year when a faction of Cadets comes to visit Jellicoe, bringing along with them the enigmatic Cadet, Jonah Griggs.

I think the beauty of this book lies in how harsh reality can be. It doesn’t use exaggerated language to describe tragic events. But it describes it in simple language, like it is a fact of life, until it roots in you deeply. That this is, indeed, life. A culmination of ugly and beautiful things that most often we don’t get to choose. We get dealt a lot and it depends on how we play the cards. The realization crept upon me slowly, until the story settled within my skin. I couldn’t read a book for a few days after because it was hard to get this story out of my mind. And that in itself is the mark of a five star read.

I love how effortlessly Marchetta weaves the tale of Fitz, Tate, Web, Narnie and Jude that took place so long in the past alongside Taylor’s own story and interspersing it with the tiny amusements of the Territory war that allowed friendships to grow between Taylor and the contemporaries from the other school. There are enough light moments to balance the dark ones out so that the book doesn’t become a total grief fest.

One of the best parts of the novel is the blossoming romance between Taylor and Jonah. The chemistry is exquisitely written. With a complicated backstory, lots of soft moments that are lovely but don’d dip into cheesiness and crackling chemistry between the two with lots of banter, the romance is a beautiful part of the story. It ties together perfectly and every girl should be so lucky to possess a Jonah Griggs.

Taylor grows as a person in this book. She transform from a petulant teenager to those first steps of womanhood, accepting the friendships and romances and familial relationships in her life with open arms. The character development is very well done.

In the end, what’s left to say is that there is no aspect of this book for me to criticize. From the language, to the plot, to the characters, the two stories, every single thing was perfect. If I were to rewrite, I wouldn’t change a single thing. And that is the biggest compliment I would offer it, that I would read it as is for the many years to come.

I love fantasy. It’s therapeutic, to be able to transpose myself into a new world. Peter and The Starcatchers written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson is a fantastic retelling of Peter Pan in historic London and the seven seas. It is such an amazing story that despite being more a middle school book, it still lies on my shelf 8 years after I read it.

The series follows the young Peter as he embarks on a journey aboard The Neverland to Rundoon where he will work as a slave for King Zarboff the Third, with a mysterious and beautiful Molly and the cruel crew headed by Mister Slank. The story follows Peter and his friends as they try to save the magical starstuff that has heavenly capabilities from Mister Slank, The Others as well as the notorious pirate Black Stache who roams the seven seas pillaging and looting. I’ll give this book the highest form of praise by saying this is a story I would have loved to write.

The entire series follows Peter and Molly as they continue to try and save the starstuff, and because the fantasy is so intricate and complicated and basically perfect I’m going to review the series book by book.

Peter and the Starcatchers

As the story kicks off, we see Peter already showcasing classic Peter Pan characteristics. He’s been carted off and now he tries to keep his friends alive and his curiosity is piqued when he sees the starstuff and what can do. This is my favourite of the three books. The introduction to all the characters is so well done, it’s riveting. The characters jump off the page, I can practically see Black Stache rushing for the Wasp. The World-Building seems incomplete but this works well for the series because it’s children who are doing the world-saving. If Molly were to spout philosophical truths of the star-stuff it would be unrealistic. But the other aspects of the world-building were so well done. Like the way mermaids are created and the way Leonard Aster creates Tink, the healing powers of the starstuff. The writing is simple and aimed towards middle schoolers and that actually adds to the story because so much is happening content-wise that if it were flowery language filled with over the top metaphors it would take away from the plot.

Peter and the Shadow Thieves

This instalment is far darker than its first companion novel. Peter has been living on Mollusk Island which he has named Neverland as all original Peter Pan fans would be familiar with. The Starstuff from the first novel remains unreturned but is supposed to be safe with Lord Leonard Aster in England. The Others recruit the sinister Lord Ombra who consumes shadows and is seemingly undefeatable and indestructible. I did like this one but there were times I felt a chill crawl up my spine. I can never read this one without the lights on. There are scenes where Peter is navigating London and you see what a grim place it is for so many people. The fantasy aspect takes more of a backseat as the book focuses on Peter’s search for the Aster house in an attempt to warn them. The fantasy content comes roaring back in the latter half of the book and we find out more about the Starstuff, but more mysteries are introduced. I did find myself not as interested in James and the other Lost Boys, but they had a negligible role to play in the book.

Peter and The Secret of Rundoon

While this is my least favourite in the series it is still a fantastic book. In fact, it ties most of the loose ends, the plot twists are marvellous and the mysteries of Starstuff that have been circulating since book one. We finally meet King Zarboff the Third (scroll up for the gif please) and his snake and Lord Ombra returns with a plethora of other interesting characters. We see Hook and the Starcatchers work together as he is captured and taken to Rundoon alongside Peter. Mollusk Island is caught in a skirmish of its own with a vicious attack from a neighbouring tribe. This book is all about tying things up. We find out the reason that Peter seems unaffected by the Starstuff, Ombra explains the philosophy and history behind the Starstuff, Peter’s parentage is revealed. It’s a fantastic end to a trilogy. The book actually sets up the premise for the original Peter Pan story, including the ones made by Disney with Wendy and the mystery of Peter’s shadow, the introduction of J.M. Barrie.

I wish I could travel in time and space to be apart of this series. It’s magical, fantastically written, filled with stunning plot twists, pirates, mermaids and lots and lots of adventure. It’s a must read series.

Everyone who knows me knows how interested I am in studying the Partition of India. (Read the pieces I wrote for my high school newsletter here and here.)

It’s one of the biggest woes to me that we’ve lost so much culture by tearing the country apart, so many lives, so many stories. But Aanchal Malhotra’s Remnants of a Separation is one of the best mediums I’ve seen to bring forth the stories of partition, that more often than not drift away into statistics and cautionary tales in CBSE textbooks. She brings forward the heart behind the bloodshed, shedding light on the people behind the statistics, she gives them names and histories and small material memories that bring forth the horror of partition while reflecting on hope and the idea of being able to bridge the gap between our two nations.

The book is non-fiction, Aanchal has interviewed those who have lived through partition in both India and Pakistan, but it’s so well written it reads like short stories. For anyone who finds reading history unpalatable, this is the book for you. A history, in my opinion, is well written when it reads like fiction, like a story woven together.

Every account is filled with first details about the object and then delves into the reason the interviewee or their families chose to bring it to the other side of the border. And within these accounts lie the stories of how they came across to either side and how they remade their lives. Every interview showcases the horror of that event and at the same time manages to thread a gleaming silver glow of hope, that despite all the enmity we might still be able to bridge the gap and overcome the atrocities we once committed against each other.

Of all the interviews I particularly loved Azra Haq’s where she showcases her pearls gifted to her by a Maharaja. And more than the soft demeanour of the elderly lady in her pink suit, it’s the way Aanchal writes. She doesn’t change what any of her speakers say, but the way she describes and sets the scene is so lovely. The language is lyrical and descriptive, telling hidden truths that aren’t in the spoken word. She describes the grooves of metal, the wrinkles on hands, the feel of wool and silk. Whenever I read it, my mind conjures the scene that is being described in a blurry watercolour frame, where colours are vivid and more than the actual setting in which Aanchal sits, foggy memory comes to life. I was enraptured so many times that I ran out of my usual post-it’s to mark pages I loved and had to resort to another kind.

With her attention to detail and her passion and compassion for the stories she is telling, Aanchal is rewriting history. She turns statistics that were printed in newspapers 70 years ago into stories. Deaths start to become memorable because they are being remembered not as sacrifices for this new divided world that we have created but rather as true losses, like the oneness we once shared. We are the same world in many senses, especially culturally, and in writing this book she lessens the distance between people of the same kind. Of histories shared. She points out the irony of how we claim we are different from those on the other side in the subtlest manner. Describing the fragrance of geeli mitti when it rains, the people of the Punjab that was once one, the styles of clothing and manner in which food and drink is made and served. She writes about how Lahore reminds her of Delhi and describes traits that can’t be either Indian or Pakistani because they are one and the same. It is not one side’s story. It is a story of people who were torn asunder. Aanchal brings them back together in this book.

Five glowing stars for something that I now hold dear to my heart and that has become invaluable to me in my own study of India’s Partition. And if I could give more, I would.