The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion (Book).

Book: 6/52
The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
My Rating: 5/5

So I continue to read 5/5 books this year, and this one was no exception on that front :). I landed on this book in our little library in Pune, as I had read quite a few glowing reviews on the same in the past. I must say that I loved this book big time, and the story was so amazing that I wished it never ended. I am definitely going to put Graeme somewhere between my love for PG Wodehouse and Frederik Backman, his main character Don Tillman, an Aussie, is no less than Jeeves, Wooster and much-loved and adored Ove for that matter. Don is 40ish, PhD in Genetics and is not only a scientist but also a Prof of repute in a notable university, and on top of all that, he is an Aspie, as he calls all Asperger’s syndrome people with love. So that makes him a superhuman of sorts with a very set and organised life, but the way Graeme has written the story and character, it is not only hilarious but also made me emotional too. Now that's another thing that Don doesn’t feel emotional at all, and how? I can’t explain, but one has to read to know. So the story goes forward when one fine day he decides that he needs to get a life partner, and he starts “The Wife Project” with his best friend Gene, who is not only his colleague but a father figure too, with his much-loved wife Claudia, who is a Psychologist, so you get the hang of the people he goes around with. Unfortunately, his wife's project doesn’t do much help, but Gene finds a woman called Rosie, who is a total misfit, but then with Rosie, Don starts another project called “The Father Project” with her to find her biological father. And with many twists and turns, after intercontinental travel in search of her father, will they get him, or will they cook up their own story? is the rest of the novel. 

The book is hardly 300+ pages, and I found it completely compulsively readable, totally unputdownable, thrilling, intruiguing and so mushy, so romantic. I wish and pray they never make a movie on this one, as Tom Hanks is too old and Jacob Elordi is too tall to play Don’s character and won't look like a PhD guy, either, and I could not imagine any other actor playing that amazing character as of now. I am amazed by the way Graeme has written such a beautiful story around Science and technical terms, yet it works wonders with the readers who do not know the field, especially the way it revolves around the University Campus with 50-odd doctors (PhDs included) being examined for the father project, most hilariously. And the way Don, who is an accomplished cocktail bartender and a licensed server of alcohol, goes through his days alone with such finesse is to die for. I am so much in love with him that it will be very hard for me not to get the rest of the two books in the series at the earliest, hoping and praying that our library has all the parts :). I loved the bookcover too, with a lobster in prime focus, I wish I could eat a lobster every Tuesday just like Don did all his life till he met Rosie. 

Do let me know if you have read the Rosie Project and loved it too. Also, let me know who you would love to see as Don and Rosie in the movie, if one ever gets made. I will pick Emily Blunt for sure as Rosie. 

 

Yellowface - Rebecca F Kuang (Book).

Book: 5/52
Yellowface - Rebecca F Kuang
My Rating: 2/5

I thought this year I was going to break my own record by picking books that I won’t be able to rate below 5/5. So far, it was going great till I landed on this highly reviewed book on Goodreads, Fable and our own reading group, and it derailed my plan in the very first month of the year, how sad it is. Surprisingly, it is written by a Chinese writer from the perspective of a white American woman whose motto in life is to prove that “White Lives Matter” too. And it shouldn’t always be the minority or downtrodden who should get all the privileges, as they so much deserve it. But the way it's all done through her story is so jumbled up and unreadable to an extent, but somehow kept ploughing on to finish it to a very predictable ending and not exciting at all. So the story goes like two college friends (Yale graduates), Athena, a Chinese-origin super successful writer, and Juniper, whose (American) first book bombs. Ofcourse Athena has a terrific life, super rich with another upcoming book in the very near future based on the Chinese Labour Corps who fought in the First World War in Europe, and Juniper has no clue what she will be writing next. One fine day, while eating pancakes at Athena’s place for the very first time, she chokes and dies right in front of June. Although she tries to save her and calls emergency services and all, while they come and take away her body, she does steal the draft copy of the book that Athena was writing. What happens next was totally predictable: she edits the story and makes it her own, and gets it published under her name with super success; even a movie deal was on the horizon when horror strikes in the form of a Twitter account to uncover the real story behind the book. 

I expected it to get better once the reality starts coming out, but then it becomes a story of justification from June about how she wasn’t wrong in doing what she did, so on, so forth. It wasn’t even gripping post 100 odd pages as she keeps on fighting with her own ghosts and how she tries to make it worth it to a very predictable finale, as I mentioned, rather I found it to be pretty hilarious. If this is the reality of the publishing world as of today, we would rather stick back to our good old classics, I must say. One thing I totally disliked in this novel is that RFK herself is a Chinese born Author, but the way she presents a white female’s perspective of Chinese people, their writing or for that matter, even their food, was totally in bad taste. I seriously couldn’t believe it to be true in today’s time, especially. I guess it's her own views that she has portrayed through her characters of their own insecurities by being in a country they can’t call it Home or where they feel they are being sidelined or betrayed, or face racism. I found it to be a totally one-sided account and was totally shocked by the treatment of it all. Another thing which didn’t work for me at all in this one is the use of Instagram, Twitter and too much of the internet in the story. I felt like I was watching the real life of aspiring authors rather than actually reading a novel by one of them. The last 50 pages were pretty challenging, and very easily this would have gone on to become my first DNF of the last 5 odd years, I must say. On other thoughts, I believe it's a rant from a Chinese author on the world being full of Chinese products so much that we cannot live without them, yet we still hate China and its people for no reason. 

Do let me know if you have read Yellowface and liked it somehow. I am for sure staying away from her other works in the future. 

 

First Blood – David Morrell (Book).

Book: 4/52
First Blood – David Morrell
My Rating: 5/5

Sometimes I really wonder about myself, why at times I don’t read the books based on my favourite characters from childhood, and this one was one of those characters much loved in the movie adaptation made in 1982, and Sylvester Stallone lived that lifetime role in such a way that even today the movie works for me big time. Long back, I came to know that it was, of course, based on a book, but unfortunately, it wasn’t available anywhere in our part of the world, and Uncle Bezos was too mean to keep it very expensive, finally black Friday sale plunged its price to my budget, and I jumped on it. Again, it will be a cliché to call the book way better than the movie, as it always is the case, but that takes nothing away from the action-packed movie. Let me tell you why. First, the little story behind Rambo’s name, as to why and how he was named Rambo, can only be found in the book. And then the movie doesn’t offer any in-depth about the three main characters, as is usually the case, especially of Rambo and his nemesis, played by the local cop Teasle, as to why they were hell-bent on killing each other. First thing was why Teasle, being a Sheriff wants Rambo, a nomad, to cross his town at the earliest, as he believes if Rambo remains in town, he might create chaos. But Teasle has no idea that he had been ousted by 15 other towns as well, right after he came back from Vietnam, a war veteran, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honour, a Green Beret, and he has no idea what he is going through mentally. Teasle, himself, was a war veteran (award-winning but lower than Rambo) from the 50’s Korean War, and even after they both knew about each other, they still kept on going hard and made it no easier for the other one. Rambo decides to burn the town down and kill Teasle, and as expected, Teasle wants to kill Rambo with his own hands. How it all is done is totally terrific, and I must say, I haven’t read a better thriller than this ever. David Morrell offers all the perspectives in this story, and both the main characters talk themselves out or into what they are doing and justify it to themselves, too, that they are totally right in doing what they are doing. The story has almost everything one can imagine in a thriller, a hero on a motorcycle chased by cop cars, a gorilla war in a mountain, sniffer dogs, helicopters, crashing cars, a burning town, explosions and a proper revenge with people being killed left, right and centre that I lost count of the same. 

Then comes Trautman as a respite in both their lives, the man who not only trained the killing machine called Rambo but also knows everything about the man, as to how to stop him from destroying his own life as he goes on a rampage. Right at the start of the book, the author states very clearly that if you have seen the movie and loved it, you should be ready for a shocking ending . Now that, got me thinking of all the alternate endings that I could imagine, of-course I am not going to tell you what it is, but I must say that he totally blew my mind by that ending and now I have to pick the second from the series which is even three times more expensive than the first , just to know if this is how it ends (or he offers a respite for the readers). What I loved big time about this book was that no matter how bad the cop was, he kept referring to Rambo as “Kid”, but then never gave up on his own elephantine ego till the very end. And I must say that the book is not only way better than the movie but equally thrilling, full of action with great details that the movie doesn’t offer due to its short runtime and the characters are so well developed that at times he made it so convincing for me the reader that there was no villain the story, just the circumstances to be blamed. I am sure that I am going to read this one again in the very near future for its racy narrative and almost too short length of mere 308 pages, but after I have read all three from the series. The first part was based on his book and since the movie was a blockbuster, they decided to make two more movies with Rambo in lead which David Morrell who wasn’t very happy with the script novelized the same with his own version, now I am so curious to know how it differed from the movies which was good if not great to watch, I will get the balance two too and read them asap. The knife shown on the book cover is a childhood dream, Dunno what I am going to do with it once I get it, but every time I come across it, the desire to get it becomes stronger . 

Have you read The First Blood? Or any other David Morrell novel, do let me know, as I am for sure going to read so much more from him at the earliest. 

First Blood: Rambo the movie: Just watched the movie too, as I simply couldn’t resist seeing those amazing characters on screen after I finished and loved the book. I must say, Oh My God! What an amazing movie this one turns out to be, even after ageing 45+ years, it remains one of my all-time favourites. Sylvester Stallone at his best, superb action, almost no dialogue, but a total visual delight right from the first scene to the very end, even loved that song with the end credits. Of course, they had taken huge cinematic liberties while adapting the book, and even Stallone was a part of the screenplay writing, which I am sure made it this good.

 

Man-Eaters of Kumaon – Jim Corbett (Book).

Book: 3/52.
Man-Eaters of Kumaon – Jim Corbett.
My Rating: 5/5.

I have read suspense and thriller novels, and then I got this one from our little library in Pune, which beats them all without any doubt. Unbelievable true stories from the world’s best wildlife sportsmen (when killing wild animals, especially man-eaters, was considered a sport), his own account of ten choicest tiger killings was totally terrific to read. Jim Corbett, a British-origin hunter-naturalist and colonel in the then British Indian Army, was born in Nainital, was known for tracking down and hunting man-eating tigers and leopards in the Garhwal and Kumaon region of the Indian Himalayas in the early twentieth century. All the instances of such killings in this book take place between year 1930-1938 because he called it quits and completely moved out of this sport and stopped taking Govt requests for such killings. Few of the tigers that he was forced to kill had not only killed but also eaten, at times more than 450+ people back then, let alone cattle and harmed so many more during their crossing into human colonies. My timing of reading this book couldn’t be perfect, as a few weeks ago, a wild Leopard was recorded in our neighbouring society’s CCTV, and people from nearby National Forests were on the lookout in the surrounding areas to capture and rehabilitate him/her to the right place. We were indeed forced to remain indoors for almost a weekend while it was on a wild hunt in the area, which gave me a glimpse of the real-life accounts from the book, how those people back then remained terror-stricken for days, weeks and months at a time to wait for the Shikaris to kill the wild animals. No doubt why they have named one of the best wildlife sanctuaries in our part of the world aptly as “Jim Corbett National Park” (I’m yet to visit it though). 

 

What I loved about this book is that it is written with great detail, every step of his journey, personal thoughts while he killed those much-loved tigers to save humanity, and reasons why they turned man-eating in the first place. His theories were always so unbelievably correct, even his predictions that the animal he was chasing has his own flaws, which all turned out to be correct by the time he hunted them. And it’s always not the tigers or lions that he came across, there was no dearth of Snakes, Bears and even Leopards on the prowl while he kept hunting with or without any support from anyone. Another thing I loved about his narration was that he always called India as our country and our people and never like he was a visitor. The way he was hosted by poor villagers and always loved what he was offered was heartening to read; such a gentleman he was. He himself was not a very religious man, going by his texts, and he didn’t believe in many superstitions, but still, he respected all that whenever he came across such beliefs by people of the Garhwal or Kumaon region. The entire book was so thrilling at times that it made me hold my breath to read further while he was chasing a ten-foot tiger or being chased by the same animal without his knowledge, and at times, he was as close as a few feet before saving himself from a tragedy. Hilarious was the account of villager’s accounts when they exaggerated his stories in narrating the same in front of other people, much to his amusement in front of him, but being a gentleman, he would let them enjoy their moments of glory, totally amazing to read. There are two dedicated chapters to other than his love of Tigers and Leopards in the book. One dedicated to his much-loved dog, a spaniel – Robin, who saved his life multiple times and another one to his favourite hobby of fishing, which he was able to do on and off while hunting. 

 

Have you read the Man-Eaters of Kumaon or any other book by Jim Corbett? Do let me know, as I will certainly be looking forward to his other works at the earliest.

 

Joy in the Morning – P G Wodehouse (Book).

Book: 2/52.
Joy in the Morning – P G Wodehouse
My Rating: 5/5

PGW is my all-time favorite Author whenever I am looking to laugh out loud while reading a book . Last time I remember I read one of his right after I finished Mr King’s “The Shining” and couldn’t sleep out of sheer terror that it gave me. I was reading it in the dead of the night to forget the horror I had gone through earlier in the day, and PGW had me in splits with Bertie Wooster and his man Jeeves’ histrionics whenever he gets in trouble with his love life or his terrific aunt Agatha (not Christie though) and his friends in need of good advice. I laughed out so loud that my mother, who was then visiting me, threated me to throw me out of the house as if I had gone crazy. She only let go of it when I showed her the book cover, and then she warned me to read a PGW only when I am alone and its proper day light so as not to bother anyone around . Of course, this one was no different, with Wooster and Jeeves game on again, but this time in a totally different fix. So, the story goes that Bertie’s Ex is now engaged with one of his friends, and there is a threat that she might bounce back on him, much to his distaste, but he always has Jeeves to his rescue, and how they solve it again had me in splits by simply kicking someone’s backside, how you ask me or rather whose? You’ve got to read the book to find out. In between, there were so many parallel tracks, one with one of his close buddies who became a constable and that too a very serious and law-abiding and implementing one, how he bothers Bertie is another story. The less said about his much-loved (or hated) uncle, who has his own secret challenge to go through, and then there is this fancy dress party where all of them come together and are saved by none other than our own genius Jeeves, who, if served fish for breakfast, can have his mind work in full speed on solutions for all. 

 

The best part of any PGW book is the interactions between two souls, which always start with a Ho! And go on Twiddle Doon for the reader, or can go to have a concatenation in between. I laughed at this love for Shakespeare, whom he still doesn’t credit for any of his writings, but his ghostwriter gets all the credit. Also, I totally agree when his friends compare him to no one else but Earnest Hemingway,  self-praise is best, but one that leaves a huge smile on my face always. So, in this little gem of a book, which lasted only 3 days, all Bertie’s forebodings are fully justified. In his efforts to oil the wheels of commerce for his uncle, promote the course of true love for himself and a dear friend and to avoid the consequences of a vendetta coming his way to send him out of the country, he becomes prey of all and sundry; in fact, only Jeeves can save him and how. 

 

Do let me know if you have read this one and loved it, or if you have a personal favourite from PGW. I so much wish one of his books was adapted as a movie or a TV series so I could give faces to so many much-loved characters. I am looking forward to reading at least half a dozen of his books this year to make him my most-read author of the year .