Bookish Indulgences: Bee Books

Showing posts with label Bee Books. Show all posts

11 September, 2017

Debdatta Dasgupta September 11, 2017 1

#BookReview :: White Noise by Shruti Upadhaya

“There is another city right under our city and it comes up only when you and I are together. Only you and I know about it and only you and I get to experience it. It keeps itself hidden from the rest of the world. And that is where I live.” He said
“And what happens when you’re not with me?” She asked.
“I evaporate.” He smiled.

Goodreads I Amazon

This is a very unique book. I am going to try and not give away spoilers while trying to tell you about the book.

First off, the book is narrated from three points of view – Me, Her and Him. Yes, let’s keep it that cryptic. The core of the plot deals with a girl meeting a man and falling in love with him while doing the simplest of things together. Now, you must be wondering what is new in that – such stories have been told over and over again. But you are wrong… The book is so much more than that baseline of the story. There’s a lot happening in the plot and it has an air of mystery around it.

The book’s USP is its narrative simply because of the way the author has handled it. From the very beginning the book takes a hold on the reader and as the pages fly by, it feels more and more intriguing and entertaining and the climax just sneaks up on you. It is quite a short book and so can be read in one sitting. Infact, I recommend that anybody picking up this book should make sure they have enough time to finish it in one sitting as it is simply unputdownable.

I cannot believe that this is the debut novel of the author. The way the book has been handled and delivered show maturity. Shruti Upadhaya has instantly become an author I will watch out for.

Review Copy received from Bee Books

27 December, 2016

Debdatta Dasgupta December 27, 2016 0

#BookReview :: Eye of the Eagle by Shirsendu Mukhopadhyay, Uttora Ganguly (Translator)

The Characters.... Three Women and Bishan Wife Shivangi, wife's friend Nandini and Jahnavi

The turn of events... Nandini is brutally murdered! Shivangi is found in the bedroom, lying half naked and fatally injured. All evidences are pointing at Bishan.

But, is it that simple?

And the truth...

Eye of the Eagle delves into the complications of relationships and world of complicated characters where mystery unfolds only through the eyes of Detective Shobor!

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This is one of those very rare cases where I watched the movie before reading the book. In my defense, when I went to watch the movie, I had no idea that I would be able to get my hands on the book so soon, even if it is the translated version.

A girl, Nandini, is found murdered and in the same house another girl, Shivangi, is found fatally injured. Nandini is Shivangi’s friend who lives in the same house along with Janhavi and Shivangi’s husband, Bishan. In a house full of entangled relationships where nothing seems to be simple, Inspector Shobor Dasgupta has the job to look beyond all the red herrings to capture the real perpetrator.

The plot revolves around human complexities and the various relationships in Shivangi’s household. Bishan is portrayed as a character that has a magnetic personality and women fall over each other to get to him. His relationships with Shivangi, Nandini and Janhavi have various aspects to it. And there’s a lot of sex involved. So it is needless to say that the tangled web of relationships within this household is really complex. Shobor Dasgupta comes to the scene of crime and instead of following the apparent thread of evidence decides to investigate the case from each and every possible angle.

The characters are mostly well developed, though I wouldn’t have minded a bit more details about Janhavi and her experience over the years in the household. With a limited number of suspects, it wasn’t difficult to deduce who the mastermind was. But it was interesting to watch Shobor Dasgupta investigate and follow his each step to understand his line of thinking.

This is an entertaining mystery that will take only a couple of hours to finish. Mystery lovers, give this a try.

Review Copy received from Bee Books

04 November, 2016

Debdatta Dasgupta November 04, 2016 0

#BookReview :: Tales to Tell Anthology

While one story explores the love between an elderly couple, the other talks about how obsessive love can get. From a mother child relationship, to falling in love after years, from separation to reunions, Tales to Tell speaks from the heart of not humans alone.
Tales to tell brings together ideas of romance from different perspectives, all bound by the common strand of love.

25 authors and 25 illustrators come together to explore #IdeaofRomance and challenge the cliché in just 1200 words.
Hope you enjoy reading the book as much as we did compiling them!

Goodreads I Amazon

I had picked up this book with great expectations even though romance is not my top favourite genre. But I am a person who does enjoy a well plotted love story with something ‘real’ to offer. This book being an initiative taken by a group of bloggers looked promising since most bloggers these days have very original line of thoughts – some daring, some insightful – and often have something new to offer. The added bonus was the fact that the idea was to challenge the clichéd idea of romance with the stories. So you can understand my excitement. My original expectation was well met by a verse by Somak Ghosh at the very beginning of the book.

“An Ordinary Life” by Indira Kanjilal has to be my favourite in the collection. It is indeed an ordinary story that could be the reality for so many women. Yet as Molina reflects back upon her life, the simplicity of it stood out. Her struggles were not expanded upon, but a reader could feel it anyway. Though it did leave me wondering what happened to the zamindar’s son! Aritkik Dutta Chowdhury has spun a story called “Rolling in the Bed” that had me feeling confused about where the storyline was going till the very end and delivered a blow with the last line that left me shocked. “Beyond Borders of Sanctity” by Ankita Ghosh left me with conflicting emotions. “The Beginning” by Proiti Seal Acharya was heartwarming.

“Presents” by Architta Mitra and “The one armed boy & Julia” by Shaoni Sarkar were the two stories that had good potential but missed the mark a bit in the narrative. Also, I really did not like the first story in the book - “Unfinished Business” because for me, personally, there can be no justification to extra-marital affairs. Actually reading the very first story did make me put down the book, but I am glad that I did pick it back up. There are clearly quite a few gems hidden in there. In an anthology, I don’t expect to like every story equally and in this case one of the stories just clashed with my principles. But those things do happen everywhere and so ‘Unfinished Business’ could be someone’s reality too.

The part of the book that stood out to me was its art. Every story has a different two page art dedicated to it. While some of them were pretty average, some of them were really good. I went back to the book later on just to look at the art. My favourites are Arjun Singh’s piece for ‘In the event of death’; Snehadeep Das’s piece for ‘Presents’ and Pracheta Banerjee’s piece for 'Spring Fever'.

Overall, I am glad to have had a chance to experience this book. While it is not an outstanding book, it does dare to tell different kind of stories. You may love them or you may not like some of them – yet you cannot deny that none of them are typical, clichéd and commercialized stories. It is refreshing.

Review Copy received from Bee Books