stories_of_the_soul27's reviews
309 reviews

Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

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lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I am on the fence about the rating. 
On one hand I enjoyed this book. It took me out of my head and I massively needed to do that. Any book which is able to get me out of my fucking mind automatically gets my love, no matter if it isn’t literature worthy. 
The enjoyable parts for me : I liked the setting (sports romance) and will be watching some diving videos on YouTube for a while. I liked Scarlett (great name choice) and Lukas’ relationship. 
But some things felt very cringy to me and I feel almost every contemporary romance (especially heterosexual romance) are including these as sub-plots. 
  1. Kink was promised but it wasn’t much kinky. But okay that isn’t an issue. 
  2. Convenient plot points: how the ML has been secretly pining for the FL and she basically gets served to him easily that too by his ex-girlfriend who goes onto become FL’s best friend (wow) - I don’t like this. Us women gets accused a lot on having no sister codes and while the conflict resolved smoothly I wonder if it couldn’t have happened any other way? 
  3. FL was in therapy but it’s the ML who heals her first. Yay! The saviour! 
  4. FL was unaware most guys had the hots for her BUT in comes the BEST GUY (ML) who gets to make her his girlfriend 💪🏼 
  5. FL is HILARIOUS. The ML’s guy friends are always crackling at her jokes 
  6. The mandatory blessing needed to be given by the former lover (otherwise the champion of female friendships aka our FL will never be able to run to her love of the life. Otherwise she’s just a bitch you know)

Anyway none of these are dealbreakers for me. I needed this book today and every moment I didn’t want to be in my head I could be with these characters doing their cringy shit and that’s enough for me. 
More: A Memoir of Open Marriage by Molly Roden Winter

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informative reflective medium-paced

2.5

Even before I started this book, I had decided that I will hate it. I was about to watch a rant video on YouTube about this book but decided to read it first and then watch the video. Open Marriage is a subject of curiosity to me and I wanted to know how do people navigate their feelings while being in it. 

I was quite surprised that as I read, I did not become the hater I thought I would be. Molly is messy af but she tries to understand her mess and works to sort it out (somewhat). Though most of the time she’s back to square one with her issues (she acknowledges that too). Don’t get me wrong though. I did scoff at multiple scenes in the book and frankly I don’t like Stewart. They may have a relationship that is based on understanding and love but a lot of their conflicts are written as Molly initiating them and Stewart always resolving by being oh-so-understanding. So I feel this memoir isn’t that truthful. Some fights and issues that had troubled Molly has been glossed over by her. Especially the main point of consternation for her has been how Stewart doesn’t help around the house. His reason for that was written in just a small paragraph and we don’t see him put any effort and just like that this topic gets closed without a proper closure. 

These are very real people so I am trying not to judge them based on a 300 page book but both of them have a LOT of issues!! Molly wants to be with other men and Stewart pounces on that and when he says he wants to be with other women, Molly is like NO!!!! She becomes so jealous of Stewart having a relationship with other women and cries and complains and throws a fit while she wants to be with other men. So infuriating!! The biggest issue was that every time Molly’s relationship ended she wanted to close the marriage and Stewart would not listen to her saying that the moment she finds a guy she will like, she will once again want to be in an open marriage and THAT IS SO TRUE!! How did they not want a divorce I wonder! 

Towards the end of the book I still feel that open marriage ain’t worth the trouble. But I am glad that Molly was able to find herself through all of this (hopefully). I do feel she (sometimes) hated being a wife and mother and wanted to feel her younger childless self. That’s a valid feeling I guess. So again I do feel this memoir isn’t truthful. 
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

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dark informative tense medium-paced

4.75

I pick up a true crime book to learn about psychopaths and as in most cases the victims are women I try to understand why these women got picked up by these monsters. 

The book was a lot about Bundy and what was Ann’s relationship with Bundy. The book chronologically describes the events and establishes a timeline for the readers. It is such a detailed study of Ted Bundy’s life that honestly it felt like reading a biography. This book was so long and covered so many events and yet I feel much was neglected. Maybe a little bit more on the victims and how the crimes committed by Ted Bundy affected the other criminals who might feel emboldened to venture in that route. But Ann Rule is just one person and she wrote to her best. 

This book made me realise that just being intelligent is not enough. You need to have an acute sense of awareness and also be humble of yourself. ‘I am a psychology major so I know what psychopaths are like and will always be able to spot them’ - No. You may not be able to do that. Ted Bundy fooled so many people. Intelligent people with experiences in law enforcement, laws, life, politics, sociology, trauma, psychology etc. Was Ted Bundy that intelligent? In terms of IQ may be he is lower than all those people he managed to manipulate. But in other areas of intelligentsia like reading people, observing them, keeping a cool idea, being coy & cunning, mistrusting others, Ted Bundy ranked higher than many. 
He was a predator through and through. The fact that so many of his victims were at their lowest points of their life while getting kidnapped and Ted Bundy being able to perceive that and isolate and attack them at that right moment demonstrates his intelligence. 
Women are aware of the dangers they are prone to face. They are always cautious. But we don’t step out of our house thinking that today I might get picked up by a serial killer so I will be extra vigilant. But Ted Bundy, the monster, stepped out of his house with the sole purpose to kill. He gave his 200% to finding his prey & getting his kill. It is nigh impossible to fend attackers like him. Ann Rule also says ‘For every hapless young woman that he managed to force or charm into his car, Ted probably approached ten times as many who got away.’

Ted Bundy even escaped from jail twice. Second time he was so successful and went on a more brutal spree than his previous endeavours. It goes to show that the man was able to manipulate even the law enforcement. 

Coming to Ann Rule and her relationship with Ted Bundy : I am as ambivalent regarding my feelings about her as she was regarding her feelings towards Ted Bundy. She mourned his death, tried to save him and in all the reprinted editions of this book, not once she showed animosity towards Ted. She believed he was guilty and yet the news of his execution date shocked her into writing him “I wanted him to know that his death would not go unnoticed, or completely unmourned, by me. I had tried to say all that, without really saying it, not writing the words that seemed apparent, “Now that you are about to die—”. Before this they hadn’t communicated for 6 years and yet in her heart Ann continued to hold some kind of (good) feelings towards Ted. 
Ann Rule has been emphatic towards the victims. She wrote about them with care and compassion. Not once she blamed the victims and never had she said that Ted Bundy was not guilty. But she believed that there were two sides of Ted, one that killed and one that knew about the evil side and wanted to stop that side. She believed that some part of Ted wanted to kill himself so that he can be stopped. The fact that Ann Rule chooses to still believe that despite being anti social Ted Bundy had a part of him that wanted to destroy his evil persona, makes me mad at Ann Rule. “He was a shadow man, fighting to survive in a world that was never made for him. It must have taken incredible effort.” - Can you really write this for a serial killer unless some part of your heart still cares for him? I do not understand why Ann Rule still cared for him and if she did, why did she choose to put it in printed words? 
“I looked at the jury, and I knew. Never mind the odds. My God, they, are going to kill Ted.”/ “Ted was lost to me. He had been lost since I looked at the pictures of the dead girls and knew what I knew, knew what I had never wanted to believe. There was no need to remain for the penalty phase. Whatever was to come after was already foretold in my mind. They are going to kill him … and he knew it all along.” - These are such careful choice of words. Terribly dramatic and yet you’d say that a Jury is going to kill someone only when you deeply care for that certain someone. 
“I believed that the verdict had been the right verdict, but I wondered if it had been for the wrong reasons. It had been too swift, too vindictive. Was justice still justice when it manifested itself as it had in the less than six hours of jury deliberation? Was this the delayed justice that should have come before? Perhaps there was no way that it could have been done cleanly, concisely, in a textbook case. The people had spoken. And Ted was guilty.” - It is almost like she is indicating that the justice served was too easy. That Ted’s fate was decided callously. That people just wanted him dead and so the entire judicial system came together to do just that. Maybe that is true. But does a guilty person like him deserves any better? Ann Rule was at least honest. She knew she was tied to Ted and so she chose to talk about her feelings regarding Ted throughout the book.

For me, Ted Bundy is a monster who was born a monster and not one that was created despite what he later told his psychiatrist. I wish whoever knows of such monsters will stop showing them empathy after learning of their crimes. No good memories with them can justify the pain they have inflicted on others. 
To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

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lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I have a bone to pick with some characters in this book!  

1. Daddy - I get that being a single parent isn’t easy and he has his own struggles with a demanding job to top it up. But he basically does NOTHING! He had let Margo be the mom and when she leaves it’s Lara Jean’s turn. The emotional burden of being the perfect example to your sisters is TOO MUCH. Margo had been doing it since she was 14 years old. Obviously that is why towards the end of the book she isn’t behaving like their old sister anymore. And so much of the conflict between LJ and Margo is because the sister-sister relationship has changed to mom-sister relationship. And not once the DADDY acknowledges this or tries to understand this. He doesn’t even intervene in their fight. 

2. Lara Jean - To keep continuing to like your sister’s crush is pathetic. And to keep it a secret even when it has led to such a HUGE MESS is even more pathetic. I get she’s 16. But only her stupid actions let us know she’s 16. Otherwise she prances around letting everyone know how much she has matured. 

3. Peter Kavinsky - I was tired to reading how beautiful and handsome he is and how every girl wants to throw themselves at him. TOO MUCH! 17 year old boys are rarely that beautiful. Also him being a 17 year old telling a 16 year old girl to ‘GROW UP’ is laughable. 

4. Kitty - How this feisty, no-nonsense girl grew up to be the Kitty we are seeing in XOXO Kitty!!!????
The Exorcist's House by Nick Roberts

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

I quite enjoyed this book. A lot of the scenes in the book made me cry out ‘Don’t go there’ / ‘You are hallucinating’ / ‘ Wake up!!!!!!’ So it was quite fun. There was good climax build up, teary moments, grief over losing loved ones, last moments twists etc etc. Overall a good fun read. 
Mafia Queens of Mumbai by S. Hussain Zaidi, Jane Borges

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challenging dark informative medium-paced

3.5

It was quite interesting to read about the humble beginnings of such notorious female criminal masterminds. I am not going to worship them because at the end of the day, irrespective of their genders, they are criminals and their actions have harmed countless people. But kudos to these women for paving ways for themselves making use of whatever hands they were dealt with by fate. For some the drive was to make the best of their circumstances, some did it for their kids & their husbands, others were simply foolish and few particularly purposefully chose their paths. They were bold, fierce, street smart, intelligent, protective and selectively kind. Whether you are on the right or wrong side of the law doesn’t matter because it’s extra hard for a woman to make her mark. But they did it. 
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love by

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adventurous funny lighthearted slow-paced

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Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I didn’t know what this book was about. I thought it was about giving yourself a second chance at life. Halfway through the book, I still didn’t know what was waiting for me at the end. Everything made sense only when I reached the last line, in a way we hope that life will make sense at the end. 

This book was about a lot of things. But for me it was about a woman’s journey trying to understand herself throughout her whole adult life. It was about her family who sometimes made sense to her and sometimes didn’t. It was about love, a deep heart wrenching gut twisting kind of love, she was lucky to receive throughout her adult life. We spend so much of our lives trying to understand our parents, siblings & partners. Why they choose to stay together? Why did they have kids? Why does my partner love me? So many whys and buts and ifs. We spend our whole lifetime questioning ourselves and others. And in between it all we try to understand what life is. 
The story of Martha made me understand that it is possible to have a second go at life. And that means not just giving yourself a chance but others too. With time wounds can heal and relationships can mend. But only if we allow ourselves to do that. And only if we have the love, patience and kindness for ourselves and our loved ones. 

I do not have enough words to describe this book. It simultaneously ripped me apart but made me hopeful too. 
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

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adventurous funny hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

I loved this A LOT! I don’t pick up science fiction because even though I have a science background I still feel I will feel dumb reading sci-fi books. Also because aliens don’t interest me that much. 🫥
Anyway, I am glad I picked up this book. I listened to the audiobook and Ray Porter did a phenomenal job at narrating the story, especially Rocky’s exciting and happy voices. In between I did get lost among all the science stuffs so definitely in future I am going to buy and re-read the physical book. I want to totally understand this book front and back. 
See, I do feel one person knowing so much science stuff is a bit much but I do not care. I was invested, I loved that humanity came together for saving the earth and we got such amusing heartwarming human alien friendship. What more does one need in a book? If sci-fi becomes one of my most read genres this year then it will be solely because of this book!