Book Review: The Rakshasa's Bride by Suzannah Rowntree

Summary (from Goodreads):
Preeti Kamla has the evil eye. It’s the only explanation for the tragedy and disgrace besetting her once wealthy family. But when a handsome stranger in the village square tells her he has broken her curse, Preeti almost believes him.

Until a twist of fate whisks her away from everything she knows, and the gruesome Demon Rajah claims her as his bride.

A rich and romantic retelling of Beauty and the Beast in the style of a Bollywood epic. Novella, approximately 18,000 words.


So, I knew basically nothing about this book going in, other than that it was a fairytale retelling. I realised maybe halfway through that it was supposed to be Beauty and the Beast. It's also a Christian allegory, although this is fairly subtle, and I didn't realise this either until a fair way in. Of course after I realised these things I knew roughly what was going to happen, but I still wasn't sure what route the author was going to take and so the ending wasn't that predictable, and I felt there was an interesting twist. I thought it was an interesting, although very quick read; I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it, but it certainly made me think, even a while after I finished it, and the story was well written and engaging. Overall I'm glad I decided to take a chance and read it, despite not knowing much about it.

This book counts towards the Once Upon a Time challenge, in the Fairytale category.

Mini-Reviews #1: May 2016

I haven't posted in a while, because I've been too busy with uni work, but I've now finished so hopefully I can get back to posting fairly regularly. I have been reading a fair amount, so I have a couple of book reviews in the works, and I have a few other ideas for posts, but I thought that for now I'd post some mini-reviews of some of the other books that I've read.

 

The Battle of Castle Nebula by Stephanie Ricker

This is the prequel to A Cinder's Tale, which was published in the Five Glass Slippers anthology, and which I loved. This book was great too; I think I enjoyed A Cinder's Tale slightly more, but it certainly didn't disappoint me. I would probably recommend reading A Cinder's Tale first, because as this is a prequel I don't think it would be fully satisfying as a story in its own right, but it isn't necessary. The third book in the series is out soon, so I hope to read that one soon too, because now I really want to know what happens next.

 

Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner

This book I didn't enjoy so much. It was alright, and there were some parts I enjoyed but overall I didn't find it that interesting. It is apparently however the first book to feature a child detective, so from that viewpoint it is interesting.

 

Alice-Miranda at School by Jacqueline Harvey

I picked this up recently expecting it to be an easy and hopefully fairly entertaining read but I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting; I definitely would have loved this if I'd read it when I was younger (it has a sort of nostalgia value, even though I hadn't read it before). Alice-Miranda is a (very) precocious seven-year-old who goes to boarding-school a year early, but when she gets there, although she loves it she finds that there are some things that are a little odd - such as that the headmistress never comes out of her office and there are no flowers anywhere in the grounds, which she finds very sad. She sets about trying to get to the bottom of the mystery and to sort out everyone's problems along the way. Of course everything gets sorted out pretty quickly and everyone (bar one or two not very nice characters) is happy by the end of the book.  Overall it was a nice, sweet read.

Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice by Paula Byrne

This was quite an interesting book, telling the true story behind the recent film Belle (I'm not sure which came first). It is not quite what the title claims since there isn't actually very much about Dido Belle herself in it - as not much is known about her - but it is still an interesting look at slavery and attitudes to black people in England at the time, and about Lord Mansfield and the significance of the court case (and various other ones). If you want to know the true story behind the film (which took rather a lot of liberties even with what is known) then it is worth a read.

Book Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

 

This was my Classics Club Spin book, which I was a few days late in finishing.

I’m not quite sure what to say about this book. I didn’t have very strong feelings about it either way – I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it, and it’s such a well-known story that I’m sure everything I could say about it has been said before many times.

I found the story itself to be very compelling; there were certainly enough twists and turns to keep the story interesting. I didn’t guess the solution until fairly near the end (and then only partially). The writing style was very straightforward, conveying just enough information to tell the story and build atmosphere, without giving any unnecessary details; which is in keeping with Watson’s character who is the narrator of the story. This is different to many other books that I have read, which I found quite refreshing. It’s pretty short too (despite the amount of time it took me to read it).

I don’t think there was anything in particular that I disliked about it, I think it just wasn’t as much to my taste as some other books. I definitely enjoyed it more than The Sign of Four, which is the only other Sherlock Holmes book that I’ve read to date, although I plan to read the rest of them sometime, maybe soon (I have an edition of the complete short stories sitting on my shelf).

So overall, I thought this was good and I would probably recommend it, especially if you are a fan of mystery/detective novels.

Ten Non-Fiction Books More People Should Read

This week's Top Ten Tuesday theme is Ten Books Every X Should Read. I've decided to go with the theme of non-fiction, which is something I've been reading quite a lot of recently, and I've divided it into three different categories, so you can look at the ones that you're interested in.

 

Biography

 

The Small Woman by Alan Burgess

I've already talked about this in a recent Top Ten Tuesday post (here) but I really did enjoy it and think it should be more widely known.

 

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis' story of his early life and his conversion to Christianity. I read this fairly recently and am really glad I did. It's interesting and thought-provoking and I would definitely recommend it.

 

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank and Ernestine Gilbreth

The (mostly) true story of a family of twelve children growing up in America in the 1910s and 20s. This is a really funny book, and again a great read.

 

How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

This is basically a memoir where the author talks about the her favourite books and the books that have influenced her, at various stages in her life. There's also a lot of information about her life and her Iraqi-Jewish culture interwoven with it, which I found really interesting.

 

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

This is one of the books that pretty much everyone has heard of, so I don't feel I need to say much about it, but I think that it is a very important book and one that should be widely read.

 

 

History

 

Foundation by Peter Ackroyd

This book tells the history of England from prehistoric times up to the beginning of the Tudors. It's very readable, with lots of interesting parts although it does feel that the narrative gets slightly repetitive at times (such is the nature of history). I'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in history.

 

Great Tales from English History by Robert Lacey

This is a three-volume series and I've actually only read the first one, but plan to read the others. (I think there is also an abridged one-volume version.) The first book covers a similar time period to Foundation, but is in the form of short chapters focusing usually on a specific person or event. Although it's quite short and doesn't go into much detail about the things it covers, it left me with quite a few interesting people I hadn't come across before and wanted to find out more about, and there is a quite extensive bibliography if you do want to find out more.

 

A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

 I liked the concept of this book: it's written as a travel guide for visitors to fourteenth-century England. It's very interesting and informative, and focuses mainly on what life was like in the Middle Ages, covering various different topics such as food and drink, travel, entertainment, and literature, rather than just being a history of important people and events (such as the first two books on this list really are). There is also an Elizabethan version of this, which I haven't read, but it's probably worth checking out if you're interested in that period of history.

 

 

Maths

 

 

How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff 

This is a very short book which explains some basic concept of statistics and the ways that it is often misused or misinterpreted, especially by the media. I definitely think this is a book that more people should read, as it helps you to think critically about figures reported in the media and whether they are actually saying what people claim they are. (Another more recent, but more in-depth book along similar lines is The Tiger That Isn't, by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot.)

 

1089 and All That by David Acheson

This is another pretty short book, which explains various topics in maths up to around an upper high school level in a way that is easy to understand, including some core topics like algebra and calculus as well as other topics which are just interesting. I would recommend this book if you are in school and struggling with some aspects of maths, or if you just want a good explanation of things you might have forgotten or not fully understood.

 

Jane Austen Spin-offs and Sequels

There are a lot of them out there: continuations, sequels, spin-off, retellings, books inspired by Jane Austen's novels. Even though they are often not that great, for some reason I still end up wanting to read more. However, there are some good ones that I've discovered too. So I've decided to put together a list of the Jane-Austen-related books that I've read - the good and the not-so-good.

 

Sequels

  

Lady Catherine's Necklace by Joan Aiken

This was OK. It wasn't quite believable as a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, but if you ignore that it is a sequel it isn't a bad story in its own right.

Georgiana Darcy's Diary by Anne Elliott

This was a fairly enjoyable sequel to Pride and Prejudice, focusing on Georgiana (obviously) and her search for romance. It wasn't anything special but I did enjoy it. (I got it as a free Kindle download; you can still get it for free now at Amazon (UK or US).

 

The Matters at Mansfield, or, The Crawford Affair by Carrie Bebris

I actually did really enjoy this book. It's part of a series which involves Elizabeth and Darcy solving mysteries, which involves them meeting characters from each of Jane Austen's novels (in this case, the characters of Mansfield Park, although most of these characters play a fairly minor part in the novel). The mystery was intriguing, the dialogue felt fairly authentically Regency and the characters were pretty close to their original representations, so overall, this was a very enjoyable read. (There is a slightly gruesome description of a murder, but it's not that bad.) I intend to read the rest of the series, sometime.

 

Retellings

 

Mr. Darcy's Diary and Mr. Knightley's Diary by Amanda Grange

Both of these books were quite good, an entertaining look at Pride and Prejudice and Emma, respectively, from the hero's perspective. I have to admit that I don't remember that much about either of them, so they didn't leave a very lasting impression, but I did enjoy them, although I preferred the former.

 

Longbourn by Jo Baker

This was one that I didn't enjoy. I liked the concept of it and it started out fairly well, but then it kind of went downhill and the middle section was just ... not good. I kept reading in the hope that it would get better, which it did, a bit, but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Jane Austen: Her Complete Novels in One Sitting by Jennifer Kasius

This book provides a brief summary of the characters and plot of each of Jane Austen's novels. It's a useful reminder if you can't exactly remember the plot of each novel or have trouble keeping track of the characters (I know I used to).

 

Modern-Day

 

Mr. Darcy Goes Overboard: A Tale of Tide and Prejudice by Belinda Roberts

This was another book that started off fairly well but I got bored of it towards the end. It is quite funny, but I think the jokes get tiresome after a bit and it gets a bit ridiculous towards the end. So overall it wasn't that great.

Other

 

Dear Mr. Knightley and Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay

These books are not so much spin-offs from Jane Austen's works as just books that are inspired by them. In both cases the main characters have a strong interest in classic literature, especially Jane Austen, and this influences their perceptions and how they think about things, and there are a lot of references to Jane Austen and other classic authors in them. I enjoyed them both, perhaps not quite as much as I'd hoped to, but they are both good stories in their own right, and definitely worth reading if you like classic books or a good story. (You can read my review of Dear Mr. Knightley here.)

Quote of the Week

 

"After all, I believe the nicest and sweetest days are those on which nothing very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."

 

Anne of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery