Review #1: The Girl In The Ice by Robert Bryndza

Let me start off by saying that writing a novel is a very difficult task and I applaud the author's writing skills which are really good.

Read blurb here

Erika Foster is returning from a traumatic experience of seeing her husband die in the line of duty. Her first case is a murder of a girl who is found in the ice.

The protagonist is very impulsive and overconfident most of the times. It was very difficult to like her in the first few chapters. Then again, maybe I am too obsessed with reading a set of patterned flaws in protagonists that anything slightly out of line seems like a weak character. The other characters seem very distant and terse. Everyone seems to like the protagonist instantly without any effort from her side. And hate another character (a DCI Sparks) without him doing anything hateful or anything a normal person in his position would not do. Throughout the story, a lot of things were done abruptly without much explanation.
The story was unappealing. The whole plot was trying to better itself with each line and failing most of the times. Suppose the whole story was a tent, the pegs were all in the wrong places and too many and the tent seemed to be falling all over the place. A lot of work was put into trying to frame another person for the crimes being investigated when it was blatantly obvious (to me at least) that he did not commit any of the crimes.

Rating: 3/5

That said, the author seems very promising. Will definitely read the next novel.

The Walking Dead

I have been following "The Walking Dead" from a year now. It is a graphic novel / comic series, post apocalyptic and has zombies. A very well illustrated series by Robert Kirkman.

The world we knew is gone.
The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility.
An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living.
In a matter of months society has crumbled.
No government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV.
In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living.

The characters are very interesting and with all the killings it reminds me of Game of Thrones a bit. Rick Grimes is a survivor and one of the main character. His character kind of induces a mixed feeling towards him. Sometimes he is the brave samaritan and sometimes a total jerk. He loves his son Carl and can go to great lengths to protect him. Don't even get me started on Carl Grimes. He might be the most hated character. I know I hate him. My favorite is a character called Michonne and maybe the only person in the series whom I would like to be with if something like a zombie apocalypse happens. She is one of the strongest characters. And then there is Negan, a person with a flowery language or as some people refer to as the language of a truck driver. You have to like him at least for the way he swears. Two of my previously favorite characters are dead now. I don't want to reveal them and spoil it for any future readers, because I know you cant help loving at least one of them. There are a lot of links online if you are interested to read this series.
The Walking Dead has also come out a TV series. The story line is a bit different from the comic series. So, both of them can be read/watched without any conflicts. My favorite characters in the TV series is Glen, Daryl Dixon and of course Michonne. Daryl is not present in the comic series.
Both the comic series and TV series are still going on. My guess is they will be going on for a really long time.

Reading and watching this has got me thinking if something like this epidemic starts would I like to be among the ones who have survived or the ones who got killed first. I am still thinking.
What about you ? Would you like to be among the ones who survived ? If so, why ?

Introduction

I started reading when I was 6 years old. Not exactly read, but I used to go over the pictures in the comic books and make up my own stories. Slowly I started reading those comic books and my dad used to buy Archies and Tinkle for us. I read only comics till I was 11. My first proper novel was Agatha Christie's "Murder in Mesopotamia". I read it twice. The English was difficult and so were some never heard before words. I kept referring to a dictionary for the first few chapters, and then my dad saw my struggle and told me to just go on reading and to understand the context in which it has been used to understand what the word meant. I loved it. I loved the book, the author and promised myself that I would read all her books. I started reading Enid Blyton's "Secret Seven" and "Famous Five" also. I still remember pestering my dad to buy me more books written by Enid Blyton. That is when I chanced upon Harry Potter. I found this book in my cousin's car, my dad was busy speaking with him and I saw this book peeping out of the seat pouch and I started reading it and asked if I can borrow it and he told that he might never read it and asked me to to keep it for myself. I still have this book. I read the second book first and liked it so much that I made my dad buy me the first book and I was hooked. Harry Potter is my first love and will forever be my favorite book. My dad likes legal thriller, medical thriller and thriller in general, so we had a lot of books by John Grisham, Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, David Baldacci, Ken Follet, and I read through them all. I had a 5 month gap after I finished my PUC, before joining engineering, I made full use of this by archiving my dad's entire collection of books. There were over 600 books. Now you know where I get my love for books from. After this it has been a long reading journey which has made me want to start this blog.

I have never been able to give a proper review of any book I have read. Some times I give a book a 5 star rating on Goodreads and read some of the reviews and realize that some parts of the book were really a drag and in some there were loopholes which everyone was pointing out. I then realized that for me a good book is all about the way it ended. If the ending was something which I liked then it is an awesome book. So this is me.

But in this blog, I am going to write down everything that was good and bad in each and every book I read.

I don't think I love anything more than books. Books have taught me and made me what I am today and I love them all, the good ones and the bad ones.

I mainly like fantasy, fiction, science fiction, all kinds of thrillers, mystery, horror. I read comics too.

I read to learn, I read for joy and I just want to keep reading forever.