Hello dear readers! This is Miss A. Misra here with another book review! ( that intro is getting too old..) This time, it’s quite a recent one. It’s “The Chalice of the Gods” by Rick Riordan, published in mid-September or October last year. I bought it at the airport along with the “Ordeal by Innocence” book I wrote about before. It is a smaller novel than the original Percy Jackson series but is connected to the series. The text print is bigger and easier to read (much to Mom’s approval). The book is left at a part where Percy STILL has a quest to finish, and it’s just my luck that the next book in the series has not even been published up to now! The release date is some three or four months away.
So, this time, Percy is going to another university, but it needs three recommendation letters from three different gods or goddesses. His councilor, a water nymph helps him search out a task. Ganymede, the cupbearer in Olympus, has lost his magical chalice ( If you didn’t know, it’s a type of fancy goblet with lots of designs and gold-rimmed edges and all those totally necessary jewels.) that grants anyone immortality. And of course, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover set off to investigate at once. According to Ganymede, everyone on Olympus, except for Zeus, hates him. Eventually, he points out that Hebe ( the Greek goddess of eternal youth, if I remember right. It’s pronounced like: “Hee-bee”, not “hey-bey” or anything else!) and Iris (the Greek goddess of the rainbow, and yeah, it’s pronounced as you see it, okay?) would be the most plausible suspects. Grover mentions that he THINKS he knows what Hebe’s secret lair is. And wouldn’t you be surprised? The name of the place was literally-
“Hebe Jeebies”
(insert “jungshook” face here)
How ironically obvious. But Hebe must have just taken one look at that word in the dictionary and been like: “Heebie” is pronounced like my name, so I’ll just go and (*steals*)Anyways, it was a sort of jumbo, massive, disco, karaoke, and arcade place rolled into one. There were candy types that existed AGES ago, arcade games no one remembered since their childhoods, and songs playing that were unheard of for years. So, it’s a place meant to cause nostalgia to be young again, which I guess does make sense since Hebe was the goddess of youth, anyway! Hebe was the manager and had taken her human form as a girl of around 14 or 15, with a paisley minidress and also some white boots along with them. Which, is not a very good style to go with, but from Percy’s POV, it looks okay. So, let’s let it pass the time.
When the trio reached, they met the manager of the place, Sparky, and she was nine years old. But do you know what? Well, she was 90-SOMETHING years old but after working in Hebe’s place she got her blessing and wished to be young again. Odd, but whatever. After some strolling around, they find Hebe in the karaoke bar and when they try to inquire about Ganymede’s cup, she gets angry and turns them all into eight years old again! When they try to go to Sparky, Sparky sets a flock of flesh-eating chickens on their trail!
( phew)
So now they are stuck as primary schoolers, need to find Ganymede’s chalice, not offend other goddesses, and get back to their original ages. That’s a whole load of work for a trio of teens. Did I mention that on the way Iris ( goddess of the rainbow) gives them ANOTHER quest that requires Percy to go to a river full of snakes? I did not. Now you know.
Will they be able to find the chalice? Not get killed by some snakes? And will they make it in time before Zeus finds out Ganymede lost the magic cup and blasts some people with his scary lightning bolts?
Well, this book was quite good and entertaining, but the plot just failed the point in my case. Why even? To get a college application he needs THREE QUESTS. I thought the mortal people didn’t even know of the gods-so how? I read that part so many times and it still did not make sense.
Otherwise, it’s really good. Though Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are all 17 now, the story is still written in the same sarcastic and humorous way I like. Some parts were so hilarious I almost fell off my chair. The humor is so spot on, it feels like it is Percy who is writing the book. Sometimes I have to remind myself that the narrator himself is fictional. The book ends without Percy getting his last quests, which is sad. But as it IS smaller than the rest of the original series that’s expected.
One thing to keep in mind is that to enjoy this book is to read some of the original series because there are so many inside jokes and lines that only fans of the series will get. If you haven’t yet read the original series, most of the jokes will make no sense to you!
Kids books
Murder in the Jungle:A Mystery Hounder Adventure by Sutapa Basu
Hello dear readers! It’s your one and only Miss A. Misra!! I am here to tell you my opinions about a book. I recently read it because my mom got it to review for Blogchatter s It’s called The Mystery Hounders: Murder in the Jungle, written by Sutapa Basu. The blurb at the back of the cover mentions FOUR children’s names, but almost immediately later says: “JOIN THE FIVE MYSTERY HOUNDERS”. And that made me go like Four kids, five mystery hound-OH WAIT WHAT?
But, actually, the fifth person is A MOUSE. A pet mouse that belongs to one of the kids, is called Vicky. The other kids are Tara, Kabir, and Ishi.
Basically, it’s about four children who work together to solve a mystery, about disappearing tigers from the Nargarhole forest reserve. Vicky and Tara’s father, the DFO Vinay Misra, and his team are confused, because there are OVER 100 cameras secured everywhere in the forest! And, none of them appear to have caught any sight of the mysterious activity. The story starts off with an author’s perspective from the jungle. No one about, the animals are in peace. Suddenly, the hyena senses something and cries out. All animals run away fearfully and hide, There is a great banging noise and the sounds of an animal thrashing about.
After a while the hyena creeps out of his hiding place and finds sticky blood on the grass and leaves. Scared, he dashes off lest he be killed too.
DFO and his team investigate, and are surprisingly encountered by the Nawab who lives nearby. He takes too much of an interest in the matter and even suggests they leave the case be. That’s enough to make the mystery hounders suspicious! While the DFO warns the kids not to interfere, they can not help but take an interest. Also, the manager of all the security tapes and hacking in Nagarhole reserve is strangely distant and avoids all questions by yelling in people’s faces.
A park ranger is turning up everywhere.
Their kitchen maid is nervous for some reason.
A young child comes up and claims he knows where the tigers are gone.
Will the mystery hounders be able to solve the case? Will they be in time? Will the tigers be saved?
Honestly? This book was interesting to read. The plotline is one such where I HAVE NEVER read or encountered before. Most “mystery” Y/A fiction stories are of-
1. Robbery.
2. Kidnapping.
3. Paranormal stuff.
4. Occasionally murder, which can be found in books like Agatha Chrisitie’s but not that of Enid Blyton’s.
This was the first book I read about animal poaching and awareness to that matter. As I said, it was interesting. I cannot say it was extremely exciting, ( except for some parts, like when Vicky disappears.), nor can I say it was boring, or humorous. There is 0% funny side of the story, except for just the common sibling bickering. The plotline and the hacking stuff made me hooked on to book. The Nawab’s character is an interesting one, but I liked Ruby’s ( The kitchen maid) better because it was well hidden and rather surprising.
Something that made me smile was when the children are invited to tea at the Nawab’s mansion and they get super bored because the tea is too strong, the Nawab too strange, and topic of discussion too boring! This seems so common to all children when you and your family members are invited to someone’s house for a “tea and chat”, the discussion generally ends up being about children and their studies, or politics.
Some places in the book are just- “meh” where nothing really happens, the children just argue and the adults keep telling them to not interfere in the mystery. One thing I did not understand was the illustrations. Considering it was a medium-sized book, there were probably ONLY 5 pictures. And in the most unnecessary places. Where we might WANT a picture to better visualize, there is none. But for example, a cup of tea is mentioned somewhere and a HUGE picture of a cup is given. Seriously?
Anyhow, my rating is a 4 out of 5. Because it was actually well written , I rather approved of it!
This is part of the Blogchatter Book Review Program.
Sharing is good Karma!
The Frost heart: Book 2, Escape from Aurora
Hello readers! It’s Little Miss- Oh wait. I’m twelve. I can’t go around saying “Little Miss A.Misra” anymore. I’m bigger now. Does that sound dumb? You can say so. Anyways, lets try that again-
Hello readers! It’s Miss A.Misra here with another book review for you to read! (much better)
During the summer vacation, I finally bought: FROST HEART 2! The trilogy I’d been meaning to buy for ages. And it didn’t disappoint. Lets start with the art.
Okay, whoever illustrated this book ( lemme just search that up-Oh yeah, Jamie Littler! So, he illustrated and wrote the whole book) needs some kind of award.
Illustrations nowadays, in any book is basically a stickman with some hair. The drawings in the book are some sort of a cross between anime and cartoon, but they are very cute and have proper structure which I like.
Now here’s a short blurb of the story:
We catch up with Ash where he left off. He was on the frostheart, travelling to Aurora, the greatest stronghold in the history of strongholds. There was also a pretty good chance that his parents could be harboured there since they had been pathfinders and alot of pathfinders deck out and stay in aurora to stay safe from leviathans. When they reach Ash, Lunah and Tobu explore and try to find out more clues about Ash’s parents. However, Captain Stormbreaker, another pathfinder, has plans to turn the song weavers into a trained army, and use them to defeat leviathans once and for all. This is a plan highly complimented by the other pathfinder crews, but some, including the frostheart, rebel against it. Now, new army guards are rounding up songweavers from all parts of Aurora against their will. The frostheart crew are eager to escape in some way, just to save Ash from this idea. Because, a war with the leviathans could mean death. For everything and everyone in the whole of the icy snow sea they live in.
Stormbreaker seems to think it’s possible with the new archeomek weapons they have created that can destroy things quicker than you can say “a-b-c”
Well, firstly, they have to stop this plan about the war. Then they have to stop the wicked wraiths, supposed spirits of the dead, from killing the pathfinders. AND they have to find Ash’s parents.
So much work.
I did mention the leviathans, right?
I did, I think.
Anyways, the leviathans are apparently NOT evil, but kind creatures who just hated it when humans turned evil. There is only ONE bad leviathan. The devourer, who is just full of pure malice and violence. That kind of twists everything up. So, it’s up to Ash and Lunah to prove that to other people so that they can live in peace again, and stop the Wraiths from unleashing the devourer into the world again.
Meanwhile, Ash’s REAL mother is actually very close by, and someone he actually knows in person.He just does not know that yet. According to the book, Ash’s mother and father were BOTH pathfinders, but his father was a songweaver, like he was, and his mother was a regular human being.So, his father had fled somewhere and was hiding because the wraiths and the devourer was after him, and his mother changed her name to become a pathfinder.
The original pathfinder sleigh they had gone off on was never heard of after some time, so they lost all contact with the Fira stronghold and their child, who they did not even get to name!
So, Will Ash find his parents? Will they be able to stop the war? And most importantly will the frostheart crew survive the treacherous path ahead and not get killed in doing so?
Basically, it was a great book. Even better than the first one , in fact. This book has more constructive ironic jokes and the plot is even denser than the last one.
I had actually ordered BOTH of the trilogies to read over the holidays, but the third one was out of stock. ( insert annoyed face in here. My keyboard is not allowing me to, so lets just go with the classic “-_-“) So, I will see when I can get my hands on it. Worse still, the second book ended JUST when Ash was getting to know who his mother was. And right when he asked the question- the book ends. How unfair life is! I don’t think I have anything to do about it, though. I just hope amazon gets some more copies of the book sooner or later (I prefer sooner, thank you very much.) This book was very interesting and had more plot twists than the last one. I also liked the fact that Ash is trying to make friends with the leviathans rather than shy away from them, like he had done previously so much in the other book, frost heart 1. Lunah’s backstory is revealed in this one, but we still don’t know what happened to Tobu’s family, though. I hope the next book contains more detail on that.
One of the funniest parts in this book was when Ash asked Luna what type of a device the statue he was looking at, holding. ( It was an archeromek device) and Luna claimed it was a fancy water bottle. When Ash asks her about the numerous buttons present on its surface, she says they are special buttons that help grip the water bottle better.
Yeah, right. How believable that is, It’s almost too simple to be true.
Imagine, though,if a water bottle like that WAS invented. That would be so cool. But, anyway, I’m veering off the point. ( again!) Back to the point now!
This is a book I would highly recommend. But it won’t make sense to you if you don’t read the first one.
Well, Goodbye!
See you in another post.
Cheerio!:)
Sharing is good Karma!
Agatha Christie: The Spider’s web Book Review
Hello dear readers! This is Miss A.Misra logging in to tell you about another book I read recently. Today’s book is “The Spider’s web” by Agatha Christie.
This book was pretty dense and had a dark plot with some sharp turns in the way. It was a bit sad in the middle but somehow quite hilarious.
Here’s a short description of the story written by me:
Clarissa is the wife of a Foreign office diplomat. She is prone to daydreaming. Literally. She muses about different scenarios that may happen and what she was to do if the DID happen. For example: Supposing I were to become an actress? Supposing Henry( her husband) dies? Or even “Supposing my ice cream melts?”. ( Ok, the last one is not technically mentioned, but it CAN happen!)
The story starts out so innocently you will never believe it takes such a horrifying turn. It begins when Clarrisa brings own three glasses of beer and wine, and asks three of her friends to guess which is of which company. Two of them confidently say three different things. Jeremy, the last one, blandly says they taste the same. To which the other two men say young people have no knowledge on such matters. Later Clarissa reveals they all were of the very same bottle of beer!
Clarissa had an adopted daughter called Pippa, and unlike other stories where the stepparents are mean, Henry and Clarissa are loving and supporting. Pippa absolutely adores them. Her real parents had been abusive so she was taken away. Then things become rather interesting. Clarissa confides in Jeremy what she does when she is bored. Daydreaming random scenarios. It’s entertaining, I must say. I myself sometimes think: What should I do if a fire catches? Supposing the ceiling fan falls right now? And stuff and nonsense like that. Moving on, she just happened to mention to Jeremy that ” Supposing that I find a dead body in the library one day?”
She didn’t have to wonder much longer.
Some time later, when her child Pippa was asleep. and the maids took a day off, Clarissa finds a dead body in the library! Pippa appears suddenly, and starts crying at the sight of it, saying ” Oh no I didn’t mean to- Did I do that?”. Now, obviously Clarissa thinks her daughter somehow killed the man after this small exchange, and decides to make an alibi for herself and her daughter . What’s more, the man who was killed was Pippa’s real father. Obviously, she did the most sensible thing. She panicked.She quickly calls her friends and explains to them the case. Together, they create alibis for themselves in case the police come. They do come, and Clarissa is smart enough to pretend to know nothing about it. Pippa is upstairs, sleeping again ( FYI though, Clarissa gave her a sleeping pill so she falls asleep and does not worry herself, because you might be wondering how someone can sleep so much for one day), so the police don’t take notice of her. But, she’s not the real murderer. Infact, someone among her friends was present there! But who is that person? Will Clarissa be able to convince everyone Pippa is actually innocent? And will the real murderer get caught in time?
The Spider’s Web by Agatha Christie was an amazing novel. It was originally a short story, like she generally writes, and it was novelised by Charles Osborne. It is very dense, as I mentioned before, like three times. Just felt like I needed to throw that in again.
Clarissa is a very important person in the story, as is their gardener, who is actually someone using an alias (:O) Henry, Clarissa’s husband is rather a minor figu Anyways, for thriller and mystery lovers, this book is perfect. However, if you are those sentimental people (no offence) who can’t bear a book character to have a bad past or face death, you might want to skip it. Pippa’s backstory is rather tragic, and (surprise, surprise) my mother cried while reading it. I have to admit, when we learnt who the real murderer was, I was completely thrown off track. It seemed so sudden yet so logically correct. So I won’t disclose who murdered the man yet, because that would pretty much ruin everything for you.
What would be the use of reading it when you know what’s going to happen, anyways? I did not find many complaints about this book even after reading it quite a few times, so it was pretty much ideal for me.
Other short stories you could read, which are related to such genres by Agatha Christie are: The Lamp (it’s related to paranormal stuff, but it was pretty cool), Philomel cottage ( one of my favourites) and ” The strange case of Arthur CarMicheal” ( extremely creepy sci-fi thriller which is, I repeat, very creepy. If you’re scared of ghosts going into animals and inanimate objects, don’t even touch the stuff).
So basically it’s a pretty good book and though I like to read more science-fiction and stuff, I rather liked this one. Well, again, I like ALL sorts of Agatha Christie books, and by saying that I’m basically opposing against what I just said. But whatever.
Anyways, dear readers. goodbye now! See you in another post
Sharing is good Karma!
GO GREEN, PLASTIC IS OBSCENE
Subscribe to continue reading
Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.
Sharing is good Karma!
The Girl Who Drank The Moon Book review
Hello, dear readers! This is Miss A.Misra signing in to recommend you yet another book: The Girl who drank the moon, written by Kelly Barnhill.
Lets delight first of all in the cover art. It’s absolutely gorgeous! The tiny dragon ( Fyrian) is looking adorable and Luna looks totally fitting in the character. I love her posture drawn so efficiently! The moon is glowing and so shiny it’s clear why Luna drank the moonlight. ( Okay, that sounds confusing now, but you will understand later. Moving on!)
Here’s a summary of the story. I have not really given anything away here. If you don’t really want to know much, feel free to skip the last paragraph.
The people of Protectorate place a baby in a ring of Sycamore trees, at the entrance of the forbidding forest where an evil witch resides, and leave, presuming that the baby would be killed by the witch. This is their baby sacrifice, and their belief is that if they don’t do it, the witch would kill everyone! However, the witch, Xan, is totally kind, and gentle. A good witch. She has no idea why the children are sacrificed to her, as she never required or wanted anything, and she never even hurt any of the children she was given. She took them lovingly and brought them to the Free Cities, where they were adopted into nice families who did not sacrifice random kids. On the way, she gathered starlight on her fingers to feed the babies with ( Look, I tried to do that too. I tried to reach my hand up and touch the stars, and gather the starlight to eat. It didn’t work. You’re free to try though, and if you succeed send me some), which makes them content and full. They grow up to be called Star-children, and they exude a faint sort of glow.
Once upon a time, Xan accidentally fed a child moonlight, instead of starlight. Once the baby girl had drunk it, she was enmagicked, ( Yes, that’s a real word, according to the book, anyways.) and was bursting to the brim with magical powers. When Xan understands what she has done, she realised that it was too dangerous to just leave the child in an unknowing family. She names her Luna, partly because she has a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon on her forehead, and partly because she had drunk moonlight. Get it? Lunar-Luna? Right? ( I don’t know if you understood but I think you must have, If you haven’t, too bad!)
Luna grows up in her grandmother’s cottage, along with the bog monster glerk, and a simply tiny dragon, called Fyrian. In her toddler years, she continues to use magic all the time, unaware of it herself. To protect her from becoming a danger to both herself and her surroundings, Xan locks away her magic inside of her for a few years till she turns 13, and then she would learn to control it and utilise it safely ( or so we think ). But the time keeps ticking, and it seems that Luna’s magic is spilling out of her now. Even worse, Xan is withered, and old. She will die once the young girl turns thirteen. Meanwhile, there is a real witch, in the town of Protectorate itself, who feeds herself on the sorrow of the people ( that’s dark, like really dark ). But who is she? Will she be stopped? Will Xan survive? Will Luna learn how to use her magic and will they survive the process?
My opinion: This book was awesomely amazing! It’s a sort of story that sticks to your mind and makes you think about it and wish the book never ended. ( Okay, but if that wish comes true we won’t be needing any more novels. One book would be enough. ) It’s got a very nicely imagined storyline, and the message given through it is ” Sorrow is a scary thing. It can make people angry, make them sad, or make them insanely depressed. Look towards hope. Think positively.” Or it might be “Don’t accidentally drink Moonlight if you want a normal life.” Or perhaps “Try not to be born in the city named Protectorate,where people sacrifice children to witches when there aren’t any.” You choose.
Also, it has a kind of deep storyline which might take some time to understand. One thing the book lacks is humour. It would have been the prize novel had it got jokes in it. There are some instances where humour is indicated ( very subtly). Like the part where the tiny dragon Fyrian tries to hug the big monster glerk, and he does not really succeed much. Or the parts where a story is told by some mother to her child, in some other part of the world. There are such typical phrases like “Wait till your father gets home.” or ” Okay, one story only, then do your chores!” it makes you smile.
Overall I rate this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars, for ages above 10 years old. It’s a nicely imagined story, and the fact that someone took the childish idea of wanting to drink the moon or eat it, and created that into such a glorious novel is absolutely fantastic! I have not yet read such a lovely story as this one was. Of course, I like Agatha Christie. Her writing style is really good. But there are very few of such books that have magical instances. I especially like the word ” enmagicked.” It’s a lovely word. “Magicked” is used sometimes, for instances like ” He magicked it away” informally, but enmagicked. Ah. That’s totally different. Two letters can make all the difference in the world. Fact proven!
Well goodbye now! See you later in my next post!
This is a W post for BlogchatterA2Z
