BOOK REVIEW : GOOD ME BAD ME by ALI LAND

This is my first book review after almost one year - my first proper good book after almost a year. Now I am sure you must be wondering what the whole fuss about a "good book" is for!!!!!!!

In my simple terms, a good book is one which is not a mushy romance story and most importantly, one that is not free on Kindle..:)

What attracted me to this book was this intriguing title: GOOD ME BAD ME I feel that this phrase is a sum definition of all of us. We are a blend of good and bad. No one can claim to be perfect. It is not always about black or white.  It is the grey shade which holds the mystery and the answers too.

This book is a thriller written by first-time author Ali Land. She has spent a decade working as a Child and Adolescent Mental Nurse in the UK and Australia.

This story is about a mother-daughter duo. The daughter is the only witness to her mother's gruesome crimes and she takes a life-altering decision by going to the authorities against her mother.
Now the real story begins...Is it all as simple as it seems? Is the girl really a victim of her own mother's crimes or is she an accomplice who was an equal partner in all the wrongdoings or worse still, is she a gifted student who has learned it all from her teacher/ mother and is now ready to fly on her own leaving her roots behind!!!!

There is a line in the synopsis of the book which holds the key to the whole story
It goes like this :

                                "But her mother is a serial killer.
                                  And blood is thicker than water......."

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and finished it in flat 2 days...although this is nothing special as I do this with all my books....hahaha!

On an honest note, what hit me most was how the story ended. I literally had goosebumps !!!!
I would strongly recommend this book- not for its language or the depth of the story but for its pace and characterization and of course for its end!!  You can get hold of one right away by simply clicking on this link: https://amzn.to/2U7ZtgN

Happy reading till the next time!!

BOOK REVIEW : GONE GIRL by GILLIAN FLYNN

A New York girl, Amy meets a Missouri boy, Nick-both writers( one compiles quizzes in women's magazine and the other is a journalist) -they fall in love- get married- recession hits and they both lose their jobs- they decide and return to Missouri- marriage takes a bad turn- fights, and tantrums and blame games and silent treatment- fifth anniversary day- wife disappears under mysterious circumstances- husband looks pretty indifferent, relaxed and calm for someone whose wife is missing- obviously, fingers point in his direction with pieces of evidence being found out proving him to be the prime suspect- Nick, as expected denies all charges-says he is being framed.

But the big question is whether this is the true and full story...

A BIG NOO!!

We all know that just like every coin has two sides, so does a story, even if it is what the crime shows call an "open and shut" case.

Is Amy really missing or is she hiding somewhere or if she has been kidnapped??
Or is there something much more sinister?? Is there someone trying to frame Nick in his wife's disappearance??

This is the plot of the latest thriller by Gillian Flynn.

I started the book with an inherent skepticism of one, who has read many many books, thinking that I will be able to nail the story within 100pages and yes, I even assumed to have unearthed the real story by the time I hit the 49th page. But as I reached the 100th page I realized I was very very wrong and that I could never become a good sleuth aka Sherlock Homes or closer home, a Byomkesh Bakshi or a Karamchand:-):-):-)

This thriller is addictive and makes you want to finish the story fast so you can find the ultimate end( although not an easy task as its a 400+ pages book with a small font). But it is never boring or dull. Flynn has made it interesting with lots of monologues, dialogues, witty one-liners, lots of twists and turns, lots of interesting anecdotes, and detailed character analysis.

There are all the characters, typical in a thriller, present here too :
A missing sweet wife, a husband who is a prime suspect, a very supportive sister Go, supportive but slightly wary in-laws, neighbours who do not trust Nick at all, cops who play the good cop/bad cop, media trying to mileage the maximum TRP out of it, a couple of ex's and an omnipresent social media!!

At times I felt that Flynn was dragging the story and could have made it more crisp with a few more edits but the last 50-60 odd pages make it all up leaving me with just one expression, "Neat!! "

A good thriller that makes for an interesting read and at least to me was unputdownable. So I finished it really fast ignoring my precious sleep and my favorite Pakistani dramas!!

MY TOP TEN FAVOURITE BOOKS : THE PARTNER by JOHN GRISHAM

 

This is my tenth entry in the list of my favourite top ten books. 

I love John Grisham, firstly because he writes the most amazing legal stories in a very simple and understandable format and secondly because I personally find him very good looking.

In my higher secondary school days, I would first check out his photograph on the last page of his every novel, before even reading the synopsis of the story.

The first book of his which I read was The Pelican Brief, when I was 16 years old, but at that time I did not understand the story at all and felt that it was written in some alien language. But in those days since all my cousins were reading John Grisham, in order to save my face, I continued reading his books. Slowly I got a hang of Grisham's style of writing and have become an ardent fan of his, since then.

Though I enjoyed reading all his books, my favourite is The Partner.

This is a story about a lawyer named Patrick Lanigan who masterminds his own death, steals $90 million from the law firm where he works, changes his name and goes off into hiding. The best part of the book is that even after getting caught, how he wiggles himself from the clutches of the law system to be a free man once again. The story has an interesting twist in the end but I cannot be a spoiler for all of you, who have not read the book.

What I love about this story, particularly, is the way  Patrick does all the meticulous planning, strategizing and how everything works out so smoothly in his favour in the end.

I found the story to be gripping, fast paced and clever.

MY TOP TEN FAVOURITE BOOKS : NOT A PENNY MORE NOT A PENNY LESS by JEFFREY ARCHER

This is the fourth book in my top ten list. Neither does this book nor does this author need any introduction. Jeffrey Archer is an institution in himself and his books are flawless and a sheer delight to be read. He is one of my favourite authors and I still enjoy reading his books. Of all his books, this one is very dear to me as this was my fisrt Archer novel and incidentally, this was his first novel too.

Harvey Metcalfe, over 40 years,is a corporate mogul who is an expert in shady deals. But this time by selling inflated oil stock, he has cheated the wrong men - Stephen Bradley, an American professor at University of Oxford, Dr Robin Oakley, a Harley Street physician, Jean-Pierre Lamanns, a French art dealer with a gallery in London, and James Brigsley, heir to an earldom. Each had invested their hard earned money to buy the stock of Matcalfe's company and suffered when it failed. Bradley learns of Metcalfe's participation in the fraud and organizes the other three to get their money back. They are to each come up with a plan to steal the money, which is rightly theirs, using Metcalfe's inetrests and weaknesses. The story ends very dramatically with these four men not only being able to get their money back but the price of their shares in Metcalfe's company also goes up, making their shares worth over a million. 

I must have read this book atleast a dozen odd times but the thrill, the excitement and the nerves is still the same while reading the book and thinking, "Will they or won't they?"

It is truly a page turner and a book which I had yet again read it in December, last year, when I had gone to Guwahati.