Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Sangu Mandanna SERIES: Vanya #1 GENRE: Middle-Grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: March 11, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy with a neurodivergent lead and plenty of magic. Too many characters, not enough character development. Diverse mythical beings from global folklore, though they could have been used better. Great incorporation of the setting. Chosen One trope, which gets a bit annoying. First of a planned series. Cliffhanger ending. I liked it, but not as much as I had hoped. Plot Preview: Eleven-year-old Vanya, a British-Indian girl with ADHD, stays with her bookseller parents in a mostly-white part of England. She doesn’t know much about their past, nor does she know why some books in the alcove talk to her. When her family is attacked by a strange monster, Vanya discovers a couple of her parents’ secrets. For safety and protection, Vanya is whisked off to a magical school based in the Nilgiri mountains of South India. Named ‘Auramere’, this sc...

AUTHOR: Megha Majumdar NARRATOR: Soneela Nankani GENRE: Dystopian Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: October 14, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future literary dystopian novel set in India. Character-oriented, steady-paced (but not fast). True to present reality despite being set in an unknown future time. Excellent exploration of human behaviour. Much recommended. Not for those looking for light, relaxing stories. Plot Preview: Near-future Kolkata, India. Ma, her two-year-old daughter Mishti and Ma’s elderly father Dadu have to stay just a few days more in their climate-battered city with its heat and food shortage. They have finally procured their climate-approved visas, and a week later, they will join Ma’s husband in Michigan USA. To their horror, the next morning, Ma’s purse is stolen, and with it have gone their visa-stamped passports. Can Ma somehow find those valuable documents before their flight? The story is set over the course of one week, and comes to us in parallel...

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: Arundhati Roy GENRE: Memoir PUBLICATION DATE: September 2, 2025 RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A memoir written by one of India’s most eloquent writers. I picked it up for her writing and was rewarded richly with her thoughts and words. Her deeds aren’t always my cup of tea, but I judge memoirs by their content and not by their authors’ life choices. This was an easy winner in that regard. Much recommended. I am not a big fan of memoirs. I find most of them fake and pretentious and even indulging in humble-bragging. Celebrity memoirs are even worse because they all sound the same ( probably because most of them are ghostwritten by the same ghostwriters who went to the same kind of creative writing courses .) I also am not a big fan of the new trend in memoirs wherein dirty family linen is washed in public, sometimes after the death of the “antagonist”. Given all this, I shouldn’t even have picked this book up, forget about reading it. But there was one key dif...

AUTHOR: Deepa Anappara GENRE: Indian contemporary mystery. PUBLICATION DATE: February 4, 2020 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A crime mystery set in contemporary India. Excellent character development, realistic setting, outstanding use of child narrators for a mystery. Incorrect expectations of fantasy because of the title and the first chapter. Literary in approach. Colloquial in writing. Recommended. Plot Preview: Nine-year-old Jai stays with his family in an overcrowded slum. He lives a carefree, uncomplicated life going to school with his elder sister Runu (an aspiring athlete) and his best friends Pari (a desi Hermione) and Faiz (who balances school and work). Everything changes when kids from the locality start disappearing. Faiz suspects that it is the work of djinns while Pari is convinced that focussing on the more immoral residents of the area might be a better idea. The trio decide to form a detective team. Unfortunately for them, some shady elements decide to tinge the...

AUTHOR: Aman J. Bedi SERIES: Ghosts of Ethuran, #2 GENRE: Epic Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: March 13, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A dark fantasy set in a fictional South-Asian setting. The second book of the Ghosts of Ethuran series, and needs to be read in series order. Continues the story well, revealing more shades to the protagonist and the world. Excellent action sequences. The gore and the cuss words were still not to my liking, but I enjoyed the rest, maybe even more than the first book as I was better prepared for the graphic content. This was a “paisa vasool” experience. Plot Preview: (Contains mild spoilers from the first book.) After the victory against the Kraelish, Kavi is now the unofficial leader of the Taemu, who are finally getting a bit more respect in Raayan. But when a hooligan forcibly takes control of the Imperial Rickshaw Company and forces Kavi to work with his gang as an enforcer, threatening her with dire consequences against the Taemu if she refuses or...

AUTHOR: Namrata Agarwal ILLUSTRATOR: Parvati Pillai GENRE: Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: September 30, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A picture book focussed on a little girl who takes the philosophy of ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ too seriously. I liked the story and the illustrations, but didn’t love them. There was room for improvement in both. Still, recommended to those who wish to read about this traditional Indian approach towards welcoming guests. Plot Preview: Ria is very excited to see her paternal grandparents who are coming for a visit after two years all the way from India. She wants to have the perfect chai party to celebrate. Baba and Dadi arrive, as expected, with plenty of gifts for Ria, including a mithai (sweets) box. Ria is very excited! Soon, the other guests start arriving for the chai party. Ria’s grandparents have taught her the traditional Indian philosophy of ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ (We welcome our guests like they are gods), so Ria is determined to become the b...

AUTHOR: Jeyamohan TRANSLATOR: Priyamvada Ramkumar GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: August 12, 2025 RATING: 2.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A collection of stories all based on real-life people. The first ever translation of Tamil writer Jeyamohan’s work to English. Slice-of-life writing, which rarely works for me. Not sure if this will easily find an audience among non-Indians in the USA as the content is quite parochial. Better suited to readers who enjoy non-linear, meandering narratives and preferably have some familiarity with the (South) India of historical and recent times. Jeyamohan is a prolific Tamil writer, currently based in Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu. He has won many prestigious awards for his writing. This is his first work to be translated to English. It was initially published in Tamil in 2011 as "Aram - Unmai Manithargalin Kathai". The first English translation was published in India in 2022. This US edition of the English version is due for release in Aug...

AUTHOR: Disha Mathur ILLUSTRATOR: Felishia Henditirto GENRE: Children's Picture Book. PUBLICATION DATE: June 3, 2025. RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A picture book highlighting the issue of colourism through a little girl’s experiences. Great intent, pretty good execution. The illustrations elevate the book. Recommended. Plot Preview: Young Maya absolutely loves summer time and playing under the sun. However, a distant relative comments about her darkening skin, Maya’s happiness disappears. Disheartened, she stops going out, until her mother approaches her with some wise words. As someone who stays in the heart of the tropics, I am not a fan of summertime. Since childhood, I have read about fictional characters going gaga over summer and beaches and tans. To me though, summer was ( and is ) nothing but intense heat and humidity. As such, I can't wax eloquent about the sun and I don't empathise with Maya’s fondness for playing in the sun. However, where I can strongl...

AUTHOR: Sona Charaipotra & Samira Ahmed GENRE: YA Anthology PUBLICATION DATE: May 13, 2025. RATING: Leaving this unrated. In a Nutshell: A teen anthology about South Asian diasporic experiences. I had been very excited for this collection, but much of the content wasn’t to my reading preferences. Thus might work better for other readers, hence leaving this without a rating. This collection has sixteen stories written by South Asian writers, giving a voice to teens of South-Asian descent staying in another country (USA). The blurb declares that this book “explores race, class, culture, language, and the very idea of home as both a place and a feeling.” These themes made me hope for a stimulating experience, as the concept of showing diasporic experiences about their progenitors’ cultures is always an interesting one, especially when the culture is as rich and diverse as in the South Asian nations. However, the book didn’t work for me for quite a few reasons. 🚩 For a ‘South Asian’...

AUTHOR:  Padma Prasad Reddeppa GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: May 6, 2025. RATING: 2.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fiction set in 1970s South India. First person narrative, meandering plotline, interesting child characters, lacklustre adults, emotionally intense themes. Didn’t click with me as much as I had hoped. Plot Preview: 1974. Nine-year-old Pavithra (known to us as ‘Pavi’) lives with her extended family in Madras. Life is an adventure with companions such as cousin Ruku, younger brother Arun, and granduncle Chanki. But there’s always a shadow over Pavi. Her mother’s brother Selva died exactly five months after she was born, and some family members seem to hold Pavi’s birth as the trigger for the loss. Pavi obviously never knew Selva personally, but she feels like she has a strong tie to him. When the grownups in her life don’t offer her satisfactory answers, she uses her imagination to find the way ahead.  The story comes to us in Pavi’s fi...

AUTHOR: Srivalli Rekha GENRE: Poem Collection. PUBLICATION DATE: March 6, 2025. RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A proper poetry collection covering varied types of poetic styles. And when I say “proper”, I mean that I wouldn’t have read it had it not been for the author. Some really good poems herein and loads of poetic knowhow. The book would be appreciated better by true poetry lovers. Srivalli and I have been good friends on Facebook (and now Goodreads) for more than five years. So it goes without saying that when she asks me to read her book either for beta reading or reviewing and to give my honest feedback, I read it and give her my honest feedback. Even if it means that I have to shed copious tears of self-pity when she writes a poetry collection. She’s quite an eclectic writer and can pen anything from horror stories to middle-grade fantasy to mythological odes to poetry. And of all these genres, the scariest to me is … No, no, not horror… poetry. 🥴 You can still trust this ...