The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

 Hello Loves! Life’s been busy in the last few days, so I haven’t been reading all that much. This morning I picked up two adorable books and smiled my way through them.  Both have a common theme, they are about life lessons from our furry friends!  One from cats and the other from dogs!  🐶🐾🐈🐕🐈‍⬛🐩🐱🐾🐶 Here’s a look at some of my favourite pages from both books.  Eat. Play. Love. Life Lessons from my Dog by Emma Block: This book is pure love. Adorable, wise and so so beautiful. I read this with a big smile on my face and my heart full of joy, I gave this 5/5 stars and I highly recommend reading it. Now on to the book about cats.  This one has more sass (because cats) and is just as adorable!  Life Lessons from my Cat by Jamie Shelman: This one was sassy and funny and cute as hell. If you love cats, pick this book up, you’ll love it. 

  Book: The Three Lives of Cate Kay Author: Kate Fagan  Pages: 304 Read on: Kindle Read in: ~3 hours  Plot Summary:  Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now. As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again. Things I Liked:  1. This is a very atmospheric, well-written  and int...

 Hello, hello, We come to you today with the very highly anticipated list of our favourite thrillers/ crime fiction books of 2024! This is what a lot of you have been waiting for, so, without any further ado, let's get into it!  The Gathering by CJ Tudor: If you are a fan of vampire fiction and enjoy thriller, then is the perfect book for you to pick up! Set in a world where vampires (called vampyrs in this book) are known to exist and, seemingly, co-exist with humans, there is a murder of a 15-year-old boy in a small town in Alaska and a cop is sent from the capital to investigate. An atmospheric, interesting and engaging thriller. Full review can be found here .  The God of the Woods by Liz Moore: One of the best books I've read this year. It is a historical crime thriller book set between 1975 and, then, the late 1980s. It is based in a summer camp where a little boy goes missing in 1975 and then, years later, his younger sister goes missing as well. A very atmospheric...

 Happy Halloween🎃👻🍬  You know I love all things Spooky and every year for Halloween, I try to read some spooky and mystery books.  Here are five books I read this year in honour of Halloween.  Happy Halloween my Spooky 👻🐈‍⬛👽🎃👻 Pals.  Five books I read leading up to Halloween.                🎃👻🍬🎃👻🍬🎃👻🍬 Finally read Dracula and since it's such a big part of our cultural Zeitgeist, I feel like I knew this story through osmosis. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it immensely and was surprised how easy it was to read and accessible the writing was. Also watched two film adaptations. One made in 1992 by Fransis Ford Coppola (which was so campy and weird). The other produced by Wes Craven (who I love) which was fun but very, very not true to text. Both films are available on YouTube.  Mariana Enriquez was a revelation. I cannot believe it took me this long to finally find my way to her work. She writes like a dream abo...

  Book: The God of the Woods  Author: Liz Moore  Pages: 478  Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~5 hours  Plot Summary:  Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet. Things I Liked:  1. This book is full of retro summer vibes! It is set in a summer camp in 1975 and ha...

  Book: The Return of Ellie Black  Author: Emiko Jean  Pages: ~320 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work. Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State. But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return. The debut thriller from  New York Times  bestselling author Emiko Jean,  The Return of Ellie Black  is both ...

  Book: One Perfect Couple  Author: Ruth Ware Pages: 416  Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show,  The Perfect Couple , she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize. But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off fro...

  Book: The Gathering  Author: C.J. Tudor  Pages: 411 Read on: Kindle  Read in: ~4 hours  Plot Summary:  WELCOME TO DEADHART. ALASKA. POPULATION 673.  LIVING.  In a small Alaskan town, a boy is found with his throat ripped out and the blood drained from his body.  The brutality of the murder of chillingly echoes a killing from twenty-five years ago. Out-of-state detective Barbara Atkins is brought in to assist the sheriff, Jensen Tucker, who investigated the original case.  However, the inhabitants of Deadhart believe they know who is responsible: one of the nearby vampyr colony who live in an old mining settlement deep in the mountains.  Barbara is under pressure to authorize a cull of the entire colony.  But the evidence doesn’t stack up, people are lying, and the more Barbara and Tucker delve into Deadhart’s history, the darker the secrets they uncover.  As the snow thickens and the nights grow longer, another teenager ...

  Book: Won't You Stay, Radhika?  Author: Usha Priyamvada  Translation: Daisy Rockwell  Publisher: Speaking Tiger  Pages: 184  How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 days  Plot Summary:   After her widowed father marries a younger woman, Radhika’s world falls apart. She feels betrayed—the emotional and intellectual bond that she had forged with him since the early death of her mother breaks with that sudden marriage. To escape the unbearable situation at home—the growing rift between her and her father—Radhika moves to Chicago to pursue her master’s in fine arts. She returns to India two years later, burdened by a sense of alienation and homesickness, only to realize that while nothing had changed in her country, everything had. The family that she had longed to be reunited with barely acknowledges her arrival. The sense of belonging is missing, leaving her in ‘an emotional state of in-between-ness, of universal unbelonging’. As days pass, Radhika i...

  February draws to a close.  And it's time to talk about all the books I read this month.  February being my Birthday Month I try to read some of my favourite books and authors. I do this little thing called Reading Favourites in February and I tried to read some old favourites and even re-read some beloved books of mine.  I had a good reading month.  I read 15 books.  A mix of old loves and new.  I read two memoirs.  Read a spot of kid lit.  Literary fiction.  Some Indian Lit.  A good solid reading month.  I also bought some books.  Read a ton on my iPad.  Got some ebooks.  Read a classic too.  I am so happy with how my bookish life shaped up this month.  FEBRUARY BOOKS:   1. Mukesh Starts a Zoo by Ruskin Bond: Started my month with a Chapter Book about something sweet and fun and funny. A young boy and his friends start a rag tag zoo and all sorts of hijinks ensue. This was sweet and a good tim...

  Hello Loves!  January is over and while so many people were complaining how long it was, I like January and the air of freshness and hope it brings with it.  I try to read happy and good books in January, fully believing that what I read in January will shape the rest of my reading year.  Well, January was largely a good reading month.  I read 18 books.  Out of which 6 were read for Japanuary. I have talked about all of those book in yesterday's post, so you can go on over that post and read my detailed thoughts about those books. I read a fair number of kidlit, which I love.  And some contemporary fiction.  I read mostly physical books and a some books on my iPad.  I read three graphic novels.  Lots of translations.  I bought ten books this month.  A solid reading month.  Let's talk more about each book I read this month.  BOOKS OF JANUARY 2024:  1. Animals in the House by Ruskin Bond: My first book of the y...