Books and Musings

📗 BOOK: The Women of Troy 👩‍💼AUTHOR: Pat Becker 📗GENRE: Historical Retelling 📗THEME: Plight of women after the fall of Troy 📗RATING:     ⚡Storyline- 4.2/5     ⚡Literature- 4.2/5 📝PLOT: When I picked up this book, I was prepared to read some horrific details about how Trojan women must have been treated as 'Prizes' by the Greek men. Little did I know that my preparedness was not enough.  The story has been narrated from Briseis's eyes who is carrying the child of the great Achilles. Before Achilles died, he has ensured the protection of Brisies by marrying her to his trusted aide, Alcimus. Given that Brisies has the protection of being a Greek wife, she fairly had it easy as she was not treated as a mound of flesh only to be used for pleasure. Other women were subjected to untold misery. ✒MY TAKE: The author has the sublime quality of narrating horrific incidents in a non-dramatic manner which mirrored the scenario in Troy at that time. When the royal...

📗BOOK: Chronicles of a Broken World 👨‍💼AUTHOR: Daniel Cunningham  📗GENRE: YA Fantasy Fiction 📗THEME: Adventure, Magic and Mystery 📝PLOT: The enigmatic island of Graux houses many types of species starting from shape shifters to humans. This continent is gripped in the throes of dark forces causing destruction and suffering. Moreover, the inhabitants of Graux cannot fathom what they are up against neither they are powerful enough to stop the dark forces.  Until Erin, a half-human-half-wolf, is born who will strive to rescue her people from the evil forces. ✒VERDICT  🥇Pros: 1) While reading this book I felt the vibe of television series, Supernatural, meets The Lord of the Rings and other fantasy dramas that I have come across. The author has built the story well and the pace has been gripping from the first chapter itself. 2) I liked the character development of Erin and the way she sets out in an adventure with Balthasar, Kiro and Linnea. 3) The author has crafted ...

  BOOK: Awakening the Rainmaker: A Guide to Gender Equality AUTHOR: Nishtha Anand  GENRE: Non Fiction THEME: Gender Inequality Have you ever wondered why there are comparatively few women in workplaces and even fewer women in power of position despite girls and boys starting from the same grade, with same resources with both genders performing well in school? The author did a very thorough and factual research regarding the gender gap that is predominant in different sphere. Though we know the reality, some of the reasoning and facts mentioned by the author hits us hard. The author has collated a string of achievements of various women who have been highly successful professionally and then went on to break down the challenges that is stopping us from making sky our limit. ✒VERDICT  🥇Pros: 1) I would like to commend the author on projecting various hard-hitting facts regarding gender inequality. Though we are aware of the situation but facts speak louder than thoughts. K...

                                                BOOK: The Lulu Duologues AUTHOR: Vivek S Patwardhan GENRE: Short Stories, Conversation THEME: Current Affairs, Psychological Equations Parrots are known to be verbose birds and can hold conversations when trained well. The author Vivek Patwardhan used this concept well to show an intellectual dialogue between his parrot, Lulu and himself regarding various incidents that happen around us in the society. This book consists of 70 different types of conversation wherein Lulu questions or sheds light on various social issues and prejudices which makes the author reconsider his stance. The topics of conversation are as wide ranging as discussing abstract and emotional topic to discussing politicians, sportspersons and criminals. Some of the abstract and emotional topics include 'The Bystander Effect', the reason which compels p...