priyasdiary2020

Author : Divya Narain Upadhyaya Genre : Mythology, Fiction Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 We have all grown up listening to stories from puranas and epics, but in today's busy and modern life not many people are aware of these stories or rather not interested to read it, may be because of the modern lifestyle or due to the volume of these books.  I have always enjoyed reading these stories and it always gives an immense pleasure when you read it again and again and you never feel tired of it. This book gave me a chance to feel that excitement and fun and reminisce those stories again.  Our epics and puranas have a structure of frame tales i.e., story within a story and the author has very cleverly selected such parts of the stories which will keep the readers interested and excited till the end. And also it gives moral lessons to the readers and encourages them to dvelve more into the ocean of puranas and epics.  This book is a collection of 7 mythological short stories

Author : Neil D'Silva Genre : Mythology, Horror, Fiction Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 It's a story about a girl named Meenakshi, who is blessed with celestial beauty that even Godess could be jealous of and how she turns into Yakshini whenever any man would look at her with lustful eyes.  Meenakshi, a 15 year old, is the seventh girl child of her parents but she has grown more than her elder sisters which bothers her parents very much. Every man in the village and outside looks at her with lust and only at her body. She has a bloodthirsty demon living inside her named Yakshini. When a match came to her elder sister the groom-to-be Harikumar falls in love with Meenakshi. Is it love at first sight? Or is he just another man who has lust for her?  Whenever a man looks at her with evil or lustful eyes she turns into Yakshini and teach them a lesson. As Yakshini takes control of her life, Meenakshi is catapulted into violence and rage which even affects her husband.  But who is Yak

Author : Aanchal Jhamb Genre : Poetry Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 "Abstract emotions" is a debut book by author Aanchal Jhamb which contains beautiful collection of poems in Hindi and English.  The author in her poems expresses the abstract emotions that we feel in our daily lives. It's a reflection of various emotions that we as humans experience.  The poems contains lot of emotions like happy, sad, love, success, failure, heartbreak, fear, women, dream, death, confidence, social barriers etc. Every person can relate to these poems in one or the other way.  Few poems helps us to introspect on how we struggled and what we learnt from it and how we persist in our life. Some poems motivates us and helps us understand the importance of human relationships.  I really loved the way the author has explained the poems and the little illustrations in each page is just cherry on the cake. The language is simple and lucid and even a beginner at poetry can read and unde

Author : Cheryl Olsten Genre : Children's picture book Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 This is a story of a horse named Lafitte De Muze, who never stopped believing in himself.  Lafitte was born on a house farm called Bonneville in Belgium. His only wish was to become a prized show horse and meet the person who can love him and teach him. He loved running through the farm.  But he was shorter compared to his friends, who grew taller with longer legs. He was sad as nobody bought him at the sale just because he was shorter.  It did not affect his confidence for he believed in himself and hence with great determination he started practicing running and jumping at whatever he saw in front him. And gradually he could jump so high that it looked like he was flying along with stars.  On the other side Ella was a beautiful little girl, apple to her parents eyes was sent to her great Aunt Anastasia's house as her parents couldn't afford her education. She always wished to have a horse

Author : Himanshu Goel Genre : Poetry Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Such a beautiful way to express the feeling called Love.  And since Love is an emotion felt by everyone in the universe you can actually relate to these poems especially if you are in love.  52 laws of Love by Himanshu goel is a collection of beautiful and heart soothing poems. It contains 52 short poems all of which are about just one thing , Love.  The poems are divided into three sections each part is about different phase of love and explained with a different and unique approach.  From falling in love, being in love, honeymoon phase, bitterness, betrayal, separation this book has a poem for each season of love.  Every poem is different than the other but each of the poem has only one theme, love and commitment.  Author feels that if there can be laws of universe written in maths then why can't laws of love can be written in poetry. I am impressed with the writing style of the author. Each poem is b

Author : Adam Gaffen Genre : Sci-fi / LGBT Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 This story is set in not-so-distant future. The United States has been broken up through various events and the main protagonists of the story Cassidy and Kendra navigate their way through the various nation-states that have come to replace it.  During her wedding Aiyana Cassidy called as Cass by her friends was attacked by the pastor . She is on the run with her boyfriend Derek and her best friend. Leaving her boyfriend behind, Cass and Kendra (Ken) go on a quest to stay alive.  Both Cass and Ken are brilliant and intelligent ladies with Ken having secrets of her own. The story revolves around these two characters as they run for their life from place to place trying to find out the mystery of the person who is tying to kill Cass and why.  Will they find out who is behind all this?  Will their friendship survive through this journey?  This is a 3 part series and it has everything that a reader wants fr

Author : Nidhi Kamra Genre : Children's picture book Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Sammy Jo is a toddler who has a habit of counting sheep in the air, until she drowses off. But this time something's not right. Sammy Jo's imaginery sheep have surrounded her bed and they are 20 in number. But she need only 10 to go to sleep.  The 10 pink striped sheep are accompanied by another 10 polka dotted sheep and overcrowd her bedside. They introduce themselves as her  neighbor Mary's sheep who has abandoned them. They are very upset as they have no where to go. Sammy decides to help them but her brother and parents don't need them as they count different things to go to sleep.  The sheep are creating havoc in her room jumping on her bed, tearing her books. She need to find a solution fast. Then an idea struck her. Sammy very cleverly asks the sheep to stand in pairs so that she can count them by two's and that would make 10 pairs of sheep which is the exact number Sammy n

Author : Khayaal Patel Genre : Historical fiction/ mythology Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 This book is a unique and rare combo of history, mythology, suspense, thriller, mystery and fantasy. The story starts with the monkey warrior Valikesh entering Ravan's castle after the war between Ram and Ravan where he finds a gem that unleashes the evil.  Then the story shifts to early British rule where the Britishers want to make everyone as their slaves. Britishers want to conquer the Kingdom of Devangarh in Rajasthan ruled by Raja Ravindra Pratap Chauhan and try to negotiate with the King to maintain peace.  Raja Ravindra did not budge to their offers and decides to fight with the Britishers for the sake of retaining peace and freedom of his kingdom. But his sudden demise forces his son Rudra Pratap Chauhan to take over the responsibility of the Kingdom.  Rudra, suspecting his father's sudden death to be a murder starts investigating and through this he gets to know a lot of secrets

Author : Jane H Wood Genre : Adventure / Fantasy Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 The grey wolves Mira and her mate Joel are awaiting the birth of their new pups, males Tke, Glyth and Kegg and female Skeena. Both Glyth and Kegg have different and unusual ears - which tilt and droop towards their eyes and has golden hairs. Joel was an alpha male who leads the wolf pack.  The wolf family goes through a lot if trouble including the life-threatening weather, illegal hunters and their own wolf pack who expel them when they refuse to allow both Kegg and Glyth to be killed because of their golden ears which they thought was the reason for the failure of spring return of their prey.  When their family is attacked by their own pack, Glyth is injured at his hop joint. Expelled by the pack, the homeless wolf family find themselves in a much dangerous situations and could only move slowly due to injured Glyth.  Edmund Rainer, a 15 year old boy, develops an extraordinary bonding with Kegg, a 6 month o

Author : A H Butt Genre : Young Adult Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 It repeats is a story of Andrea and Heath. Andrea is an introvert girl facing the bitter quarrel of her parents which leaves her worried all the time. At this point she meets her new neighbour Heath who is also on the same page as Andrea with his parents separation.  Eventually they both become best friends and lovers and Heath's mother and sister are accept Andrea with love. With her parents separation Andrea moves into Heath's house.  Later Heath got selected in an university and asks Andrea to shift with him which she wholeheartedly accepts. But the warning or advice that his mother gave her while leaving and is always on her mind.  While staying together away from their family their relationship starts to fall apart. One day something happened that changed their fate.  What actually happened?  How's their lives going to change after the incident?  The author very clearly shows the ill effects of adults f

Author : Aditya Chowdhury Genre : Dystopian Alternate Fiction Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐. 5/5 This is a different kind of story I have read in recent times. Here a person can see only one color throughout his life and every other color as shades of black and white. Wearing clothes or accessories of other colors is a disrespect to their own community. The Job they do also depends on what color they are.  Seeing more than one color is considered a dangerous disease that can be cured only through eye surgery which assures only 70  percent chances of survival.  Lohit is a red person living happily with his family and working in a factory segregating red packages from other colors. Everything was going fine until he meets Anjum, a green girl who enjoys every color.  She works in a shop which sells eyeglasses and she sold a special kind of sunglasses to Lohit which turned his life upside down and then disappears. His life became more difficult when the government agents came to know about hi

Author : Mamta Chandani Genre : Biography Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Every woman has a queen inside her but are unaware of it until you have the courage to overcome the inhibitions that are stopping you from attaining your passion.  Mamta Chandani in her biography puts her heart out and shares her journey with the readers. She shares her feelings, her problems, her failures and successes and how she had overcome her fear and inhibitions that changed her life.  Mamta joined engineering as per her father's suggestion but she never had a liking for it. During her final year of engineering she meets Juggy, a mutual friend of Mamta and her friend from Diploma times Rajiv. Juggy was a commissioned officer in Army currently posted in Punjab. Later they fell in love and decide on get married with the blessings of their elders.  Mamta just don't want to be called as an Army man's wife and is determined to bring her life back and be herself again. Her determination led her to achi

Author : Manisha Gaikwad Genre : Self-help Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Author Manisha having suffered depression herself gives out few practical tips and guidance to overcome depression. The book explains how human mind affects one's body physically and mentally.  This book talks  about human mind, psychology and a lot more topics like, depression, mindfulness, stress and finally how positive thinking is the key to success.  With various quotes and examples the author explains how stress and depression affects mental health. The difference between sadness and depression, consciousness and sub-consciousness and how the human brain works everything is explained in an in-depth manner.  It explains why we behave in a particular way to a situation, what is causing us to be stressed or depressed how to approach it in a practical way. It explains how Mind is the central point of our thinking and how Mind is an ocean ,with different and various thoughts. It explains how we can control our

Author : Krista Nerestant Genre : Memoir Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Krista Nerestant shares the painful journey of her life through her memoir. Her father was an abusive and alcoholic person who used to beat his wife and children to teach them a lesson. This led her mother to flee to USA to earn money for their living. But the assult of her father to her siblings never stopped. They all developed a different way of coping with this pain and it reflected on their actions. Krista was her father's doll as she was always submissive towards his actions. This caused envy between her and her siblings which created a barrier among them.  Krista relocated to USA with her four siblings John, Toni, PJ and Rex to be with their mother. Born in Philippines they found it difficult to cope up in USA. She played the role of mother, sister and took a great care of her siblings in every way possible and through this she attracts a lot of negative energy. To overcome this negative

Author : Subrat Saurabh Genre : Fiction Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5/5 Abhimanyu a successful author returns to his college after a decade and reminisces his memories of his college time, his friends, love, everything that happened in this college. The story focuses on friendship of three friends in the college with their love story.  Abhimanyu joins one of the reputed engineering colleges in Bangalore. On the very first day of his college he falls in love with Naina who is a reserved kind of a girl who he thinks is the perfect life partner. He made best friends with Aarush and Dev. With his friends support after gathering a lot of courage he expresses his heart out in front of Naina but she rejects his proposal as she doesn't believe in love.  Disheartened yet considering the most important life lessons of his grandfather and advices from his friends he persisted with every possible effort and left no stone unturned to try and win her heart. But this didn't affect Naina in any

Author : Deepesh Junwal  Genre : Fiction, Thriller Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Ankit Biswas, an introvert by nature, joins Hansraj College a renowned college in Delhi. On the first day of college he falls hopelessly in love with a girl named Bhoomi Tripati. Lacking courage to directly talk to her, he secretly starts stalking her. His day starts and ends by seeing her.  Later he found out she was a fan of an online game Indian Folklore so he too joins the game and befriend her. They keep chatting online for many months while playing the online game.  Bhoomi was too shy and introvert and never spoke to any boy in the college. She finds a friend in her roommate Kanishka until one day their relationship turns bitter. Kanishka betrays her in a most demeaning way.  Bhoomi gets brutally raped and is in a life and death situation in a hospital and Ankit is suspected of this heinous crime and is under radar of the Delhi Police.  Who did this heinous crime?  Is Ankit really the culprit?  Will

Author : Raghunath Vagle Genre : Fiction / motivational fiction Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 The story revolves around Karan Singhania son of millionaire Rahul Singhania and grandson of Yash Singhania, who has built a huge automobile industry with great struggles.  Karan Singhania is all set to become the heir of Singhania's after his graduation. He is against the compassionate behavior of his father towards his employees but he doesn't object to it as he respects his father very much. Soon he learns about a test that his father underwent before he took over the Singhania industry. Out of curiosity and to prove himself worthy of the position of the heir, he asks his father to put him under similar test.  Although Rahul Singhania felt it wasn't necessary for him to undergo a test because of his technical ability and educational qualification, he gave into his son's request and agreed to give him the test and set forth the rules that he needs to follow.  Karan Singhania

Author : Jenna Rose Genre : Romance Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Samantha ran away from her home and now stays with her friend Tressa. In order to make money she thought of joining a strip club where Tressa works. When she goes to the club she meets Maximus, a boxing champion who offers her 10000 $ which is his entire savings to move out of the club with him.  Tressa being suspicious goes along with her friend and the 3 of them go to his place. Maximus has fallen in love with Sam from the time he saw her. He wants to claim her but not before the final boxing match. He asks her to come to the match but she is reluctant and leaves from there.  Why did he ask her to leave the club with him?  Will she come to the match?  Will they ever meet?  Will he claim her ?  What does destiny has in store for them?  This is a very simple story explained in very simple and lucid manner. It's a very short book of only 30 pages and you can finish it in one go.  I liked the story very much

Author : Nidhi Kamra Genre : Children's picture book Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 We all at some point want to be like others and try to behave like others. We think they are better than us and so we blindly follow them. But we forget that everybody is unique and different in their own way. And just by behaving like them we don't become like them and it never brings happiness to be someone else.  Simon's skin is beautifully written by Nidhi Kamra and whimsically illustrated by Diane Brown. The protagonist of this book Simon thinks his skin is boring so he tries on different skins like snake, salamander, porcupine, chameleon etc., but each skin came with its own problems and challenges.  At last Simon finds his own skin is better suitable, comfortable, fits him perfectly and finally it's not boring at all.  In this beautifully illustrated book the author Nidhi  Kamra tries to make us understand the importance on being ourself, shows how acting like others br

Author : Himanshu Goel Genre : Poetry Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 A lonely world is a wonderful collection of poems by Himanshu Goel.  The main theme of the book is solitude and loneliness and one can actually relate to each and every poem in this book.   There are times when we feel so lonely that we can't share our feelings with anyone. No one to talk , no one to help. The author has very well described the emotions of a lonely person. This book is a very short read and contains only 48 poems which you can finish reading in just one sitting. All of the poems are just one or two lines length which makes it more interesting and easy to grasp.  This book starts with introduction which says read these poems when you feel lonely, anxious or vulnerable. And reading this book does give you some kind of comfort and a feeling that you are not alone in this world. There are people like you everywhere who shares your feelings.  The poems are written in a very thoughtful manner

Author : Akanksha Shukla Genre : Short stories, fiction Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 First of all I need to appreciate the author Akanksha Shukla for writing this book. You can never believe this is her debut book. Her way of writing is amazing. And I loved the cover of the book so much.  Tinted Tales is a collection of 10 short stories that take you back to your childhood memories and make you relive that wonderful memories. It shows how a child's mind thinks about each situation. Each story is different in its own way and i loved all the stories.  If I had to pick my favorite, I would go with ‘Wounded Wings’ and ‘The Pink Dream’. Wounded Wings is about an incident that any child would want to forget but will remain forever in their subconscious. You will be surprised with the sudden twist and can't stop thinking about experiencing such a horrific situation at an young age.  ‘The Pink Dream’ on the other hand is a cute and adorable tale about a little girl’s dream to own a pai

Author : Reed Blitzerman Genre : Dark Fantasy Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐. 5/5 When I took this book to read and saw the cover photo first thing I thought was that this book is all about rats and their revolt about something.  Well I was wrong. Yes it talks about rats but not the kind of rats that is on the cover. The author has used a metaphor here. It talks about factory rats who work for hard in factories with little to no satisfaction and also about war in the horizon, not in the same timelines.  This is the first part of the four-part dark fantasy series, so this book is just the setup or like an trailer for the rest of the series. We are introduced to so many characters and introductions but not all of them have part in this book. I suppose we get to read more of them in the upcoming series. This book takes us to two different timelines, pre World War II and the late 90's. The pre- world war is about Steiner family whose main work is on the farm and how troubles bound them.  La

Author : Namasvi Bandarupalli Genre : Short stories Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 We all have what it takes to be a shining star in our lives. But we often underestimate our strengths and abilities due to ignorance or the fear of what others think. We often sacrifice our dreams for the sake of other's happiness.  Everybody is different and has a unique story, but we always compare ourselves to people who have achieved more success and try to imitate them which neither gives you happiness nor satisfaction that you are looking for.  And with advance of technology, we did improve our lives a lot, also our careers but at the same time we made ourselves so busy that we lost the companionship of the ones that we love.  Author Namasvi in her beautiful collection of 7 short stories shows us how we can become a true shining star if we show the courage to choose what we want to do and venture in the path of success. This book has 7 short stories which shows us the lives of differe

Author : Sabarna Roy Genre : novella, poetry Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5 First of all I got this book because I heard so many positive reviews about it and it comprises of poems, letters, opinions, thoughts, ideas, conversation and covers multiple topics. I thought this book is of an entertainment genre and talks about father and daughter love but it's not. It has so many variety of topics which is an eye opener for the readers. The book has two parts, first one dedicated to duality, which has two letters and a conversation between step-dad and step-daughter and the second part contains winter poems. In the first letter the author invites his step-daughter to join him for dinner and to a nocturnal discussion. This letter is very simple and shows the authors love and care for his step-daughter. In the second letter the author explains about molesters, pedophiles etc using the story of Lolita. Then there is a nocturnal conversation in which the author discusses various topic

Author : Amelia Danver Genre : Romance Ratings : ⭐⭐⭐⭐/ 5 This is the first book of the Brotherhood series.  This is a story of Cathryn, a 19 year old girl who just started with her university life. She goes to a sorority party on invitation from her friend to take a break from her busy schedule. Things take a drastic turn when after the party Cathryn along with her friends are abducted by Brotherhood,  a group of criminal gang who are involved in human trafficking and other criminal activities. She was kept captive under Alec, one of the henchman who has developed a liking for her since the time he saw her at the sorority party. He tries his best to save her from the gang and tries to help her handle depression. While staying together they both fall in love with each other exploring each other's sexual limits. Everything is going fine until the gang decided to sell all the girls including Cathryn.  Will Alec save Cathryn?  Who is Alec and why is he saving her?  Will Cat