Overview: The book is based on two young women, Chrissie and Tina, who live decades apart (the former in World War 2 and the other in the 1970s). Although both troubled in their own ways, their lives appear to be completely unconnected until Tina finds a letter in the pocket of an old suit jacket. This letter is the key piece in a complex puzzle that eventually intertwines the lives of the two women forever. The underpinning themes are illegitimate pregnancy, domestic abuse and the 'butterfly effect'. 

My thoughts: The story is fast paced - the writer generally spares the readers any unnecessary details and has a habit of jumping days, weeks or even months ahead in time from one paragraph to the next. I liked the plot, the twists and turns of the story but the ending was fairly predictable around halfway though the book, a satisfying ending but predictable nonetheless. 

Most of the characters in the book were pretty well developed, to the point where I hated some of them (ahem, Tina) and felt sorry for others. For me, it is a sign of a good author if he or she can write about a fictional person in such a way that it evokes any sort of strong emotional response from the reader towards that character. 

There were a few grammatical errors - a real pet peeve of mine when I see them in a published book. Apart from that the author's writing style was quite simple and enjoyable to read. 

Rating: 3.5/5 - Interesting plot, it'd make a great film!

I recently finished reading the Apocalypsis 4 book series by Elle Casey and wanted to give it a quick review.

The books are about an apocalyptic world where a deadly, unknown virus wipes out all the adults and children leaving just adolescents on Earth. It is set in America and is written from the point of view of the main character, Bryn, a 17 year old girl and talented fighter.

As they use up the food and resources, some resort to stealing, violence and cannibalism to survive as they do not know how to sustain themselves by growing crops or raising livestock. Bryn then sets out with her neighbour, Peter, and Bodo, a German boy they meet on the road, to escape from the cannibals and start a new life somewhere else - the books follow them on their journey. 

Things I liked about the series -

- Good storyline idea

- Fairly fast-paced 

- Some very well developed characters, I was especially impressed by the way she portrayed Coli and Brittany - both girls with mental illnesses. 

- Some excellently described scenes in the book, especially books 2 and 3

Things I didn't like -

- Written in first person, I much prefer more descriptive 3rd person writing as I feel it sets the scene much better; 3rd person would have suited this storyline a lot better. 

- In some parts the writing was sloppy and rushed, I spotted a handful of grammatical errors in the 4th book.

- The author would drag out some scenes, over-describing the most mundane interactions.

- Extreme feminist undertones. 

- Perhaps the thing I disliked the most about this series was how the author developed the character Bodo over the entire 4 books, he was one of the major characters and yet she didn't tell the reader what happens to him in the end. I'm all for a good cliff-hanger but I wouldn't even call it that. She does a little '5 year later' epilogue at the end and he isn't even mentioned in it whereas the other two protagonists are, as well as some less important characters. It looks like she was in a rush to get the book out, if she'd just put a little more effort into the ending to tie everything together nicely it would have given a lot more reader satisfaction.

Overall, if you're into dystopian novels I would recommend it for the interesting storyline, but if you're expecting something beautifully written with an intricately structured storyline I wouldn't bother.

Rating 3/5

I just finished this book and am in love. It's just as good as - or perhaps better than - the Kite Runner, a story I did not at all expect the author to top. If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it!

The story covers a period of time from the 1960s all the way to post 9/11 Afghanistan and follows the lives of two very different Afghani females whose lives suddenly become intertwined in the most tragic of circumstances. Together they endure relentless suffering and experience the most acute kinds of pain, loss and sacrifice. Despite it's heart-wrenching storyline, I think that the underpinning themes of the book are of human-resilience, both physical and mental, the ability to display love in the harshest of environments, and most importantly, the power of hope.

I couldn't rate this book any less than 10/10. 

P.S. Eid Mubarek! :D

Now that my mid-year exams are over (alhaaaaaaaamduli'Allah) I have had a few days off before I start my next semester. I have spent my time being as lazy as I jolly well want to be :) I have also been engrossed in the book 'Girls of Riyadh' by Rajaa Alsanea which I just finished and decided to review considering someone on the blog actually recommended it to me a few days ago.

The book itself is a true story originally in Arabic and written in the form of emails recounting the personal lives of four of the author's close friends living in Riyadh (capital of Saudi Arabia). The emails were complied into a book in 2005 and (of course) instantly banned in the country, although that has since been lifted.

The book starts off with the first email describing the wedding of the author's friend Gamrah and introduces the other girls. Each new chapter is a new email and each email is about a different friend (Lamees, Michelle, Gamrah and Sadeem). She mostly talks about the love lives of the girls and their various heartbreaks throughout.

I have to admit, I found the first half of the book un-put-downable and was particularly touched by the tragic story of Gamrah, who marries a man who not only despises her very presence in his life but has been in love with a Chinese woman for 7 years (before being made to marry a Saudi girl to keep up appearances). As the book progressed, however, I found the continual stories of love and heartbreak of the girls with different men to be off-putting. I got bored of their lives that seemed to centre only around the pursuit of  'love' of a man, I felt sorry for them that their happiness - or lack of - revolved heavily around having a relationship.

When the book comes to an end, the author writes the final chapter regarding the reactions of her four friends to the emails she wrote exposing intimate parts of their lives. Three of them are surprisingly  fine with it, except one who realises that she was the character 'Gamrah' and demands that her friend stop writing about her. It sort of sickened me that despite 'Gamrah's' pleas Rajaa Alsanea continues to write about her friend's life and goes on to publish the book, all the while refusing to write about her own personal life.

I enjoyed the book but reading the final chapter left a bitter taste in my mouth. I deem it extremely disrespectful to her friends that she revealed their personal lives without consenting them first, while maintaining that her own life remains unexposed to the world.

I give the story itself 3 stars out of 5. For her deception, I give the author zero and regret that she makes money out of this book.