Review: A Doll's House

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hilarious and heartbreaking. My kind of story.

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Review: Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran

Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Though it is written well, 'Rebel Queen' is more about Sita, one of the Durgavasi, the Queen's Guard comprised entirely of strong female soldiers. Even after finishing the novel, I don't have a clear enough picture of the Rani Lakshmibai's personality, strength, and struggles. Sita's life and struggles, on the other hand, are explained so well that the book should have been titled 'Durgavasi' rather than 'Rebel Queen'. The exposition of Indian ideas and traditions could have been more smoothly interwoven into the moving plot. Still, I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in historical fiction or strong female characters.



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Review: Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cloud Atlas is a phenomenal and profound read that left me in tears of wonder. It is a novel that must be revisited countless times accompanied with a pen and notebook. David Mitchell is truly a genius, but what amazed me was his unique grasp on humanity that can only be understood by reading the book.

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Review: Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Beautifully constructed story with layers of symbolism and themes that questions the meaning of "human". Every character in this novel is so unique and has their own fully fleshed out plot line. Orson Scott Card said that this book is even more important than its prequel Ender's Game and I have to agree. While Ender's Game explores the psyche of one young boy who is supposedly destined to be a savior, Speaker for the Dead explores the minds of various people in an isolated and highly regulated community who have to come to terms with their mistakes and their consequences.

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Review: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

His language is poetry
what is life when all there is left of it is survival?
beautiful
haunting
lasting

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Review: The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

No idea what to make of this. Honestly, I didn't understand it, but I couldn't tear myself away from it, so 5 stars!! Goes from mysterious to hilarious to tragic almost seamlessly. Poor Gregor. Or poor Family. Not sure which interpretation to settle on.
It's one of those existential classics that you must read, just because…either you love it or you hate it. I love it and will reread at some future unspecified point…unless of course I am turned into a giant dung beetle and am unable to do so.

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Review: The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I have kids, I want to read this to them at bedtime with all the animal voices :-)

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Review: Leaders Eat Last

Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a fantastic book! I only picked it up because it had a great title and it turned out to be one of the best books I've read this year.

I would recommend this to anyone who works in an organization regardless of whether you are in a leadership position or not. Emphasizing trust, empathy, and compassion, he illustrates examples of how leaders have a responsibility toward their organization and their community to create long lasting success. He praises and encourages the concept of servant leadership--though I don't think the term is used at all in this book.

By the way, the title says it all.

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Review: A House Like a Lotus

A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a difficult book to review. First of all, it is a GREAT book, but because we expect perfection from Madeline L'Engle, the flaws in this one were hard to handle.
1) The plot switching from
South Carolina to Greece was confusing and hard to follow, which is why it took me several months to get started on it. I realized that the transitions she used would have been perfect for a movie, but not for a book.
2) Polly's character does change significantly from the two prequels and the sequel, "An Acceptable Time". These changes weren't due to adolescence. She appeared to be a different character entirely.
3) SPOLIERS: Max. Here is my opinion on the incident. I don't think Max was drunkenly trying to come onto Polly. There was nothing homophobic about that scene. Max had become a mentor that Polly began to idolize. In her naiveté, Polly expected Max to be perfect in every way. As adults, we know that's not possible. When Max was drunk out of her mind and her inhibitions were erased, she couldn't maintain the image of strength that Polly had come to expect. Remember, this part is told through Polly's memory of it. In the panic of facing her own demise, Max loses control and lets loose all the bottled up anger and resentment not fully realizing that poor Polly who is really still a child, will remember this as an act of violent monstrosity rather than an act of human weakness. Again, there os nothing homophobic about this. The fact that Max is a lesbian is irrelevant. This book is driven by Polly discovering layers of the world and learning to accept them. At first, she can't cope, so she runs away and seeks comfort in the arms of an older boy. Again, I think this has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It's about a teenage girl seeking solutions in the wrong place, as many teenagers (and adults) do.
3) Greece and Cyprus. Honestly, I think the story is about Max and Polly and the entirety of Greece and Cyprus was out of place. Zachary, Omio, Khris, Norine, Vee, and even Sandy and Rhea didn't really belong in this story. With that said, I really liked those parts and all of it deserves to be its own book titled "Saranam".
4) Ultimately, it was a wonderful coming of age story. Madeline L'Engle is still my favorite.

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Review: The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

WOW. I love Kate DiCamillo. Books like these are why I prefer children's books to adult books most of the time. It's a tale of adventure, betrayal, kindness, courage, and empathy, but most of all it's a tale of love. For a children's adventure story with talking mice and rats, it's a surprisingly realistic tale.

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Tall Tales and Short Stories

Hello Friends! I wrote this puntastic piece when I was 14 and very amateurish. It's not my best work and honestly, most of it doesn't make any sense, but it is fun to read every now and then. I decided not to change anything, though I may return to it in the future and write another version. Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.

Tall Tales and Short Stories

"It was the best of lies and it was the worst lies," as the infamous Darles Chickens wrote in his A Tale of Two Kitties. He indeed was right. His Late Expectations were heard by many who participated in the "Tax Romana", a period of heavy taxation during the Emperor Leo Falsetoy's teetering between Car and Keys.  Many people suffered as there were Sonnet Wars all the time. Great lovers such as Poemeo and Couplet were forced to commit themselves to suicide because of the notorious preaching, Literature or Death. The man loved by the world, William, shakes with fear every times he hears the words, "to write or not to write." This happened for he had earlier lost a Megabet of an Omlet to the very sensitive Nathaniel Longhorne who used his Starlit Feather to steal it secretly. Poor man, let us all wish he should Relax Daily while polishing his Boots.

After all has been said about William, it is sad to mention that there is more of this devastation. Believe it or not, The Lord of the Wings, J.R.R. Molten has taken over the reign of King Liar sending the world into a state of despair. However, we do not think that Molten's reign will last very long. Let us hope it doesn't last so that all of his irrationalities such as stealing chocolates from children will be wiped away. Protests are beginning against him. Many women like Jane Satire, Flannery O'Sonnet, Simile Dickinson, and Very Smelly are starting mobs of raiders called Prankensteins. Molten's aid and chief conspirator John Blindsack is also very violent. We warn you against his bandit. The Dead Pony is yet to be freed from The Grates of Trap, which he embedded into the forest. Hopefully Blindsack will be caught by our hero Ernest Iambway commonly known for his work, The Mold Man and the Pea, his biography explaining the rescue of a Pea from the jaws of a molding man. but ever since Iambway's Farewell to Farms, he has kept himself in exile to avoid being charged for abandoning his duties of serfdom. Oh, do not fear my fellow citizens, for Iambway is performing some advances toward our freedom as he is in isolation.

--

Sravani Hotha

3/14/05

Sun and Moon - 1

The sun loves the moon so much that each night, he lays down his life so that his last lingering breaths may breathe radiant life into her.

Max and the Zombie Hunting Squad

“Chief, you should check this out. A Greyhound’s coming.” Max said as he looked out into the adjoining highway. “Hope they’re going to the SafeHouse.”

Only a week ago, Max was hitchhiking from L.A. on a freight truck whose last stop was Chief Blackthorn’s QuickStop in the middle of the parched desert. The truck would turn around back to LA, so Max decided to wait a few days in the gas station and hitch a ride to the SafeHouse with some passersby. By that time, all that were left in his backpack were his cigarettes, colored pencils, and his beloved sketchbook.

“Can you believe it, man?” He asked as he slurped a Coke, “Only the people with the mutation or the vaccine are alive now.

Words

Words,
Disjointed words.
Meaningless,
Incoherent,
Random words,
My words fail me.
Will they ever come together?

--Sravani Hotha 

(April 24th 2011)

Sarada: Prologue

            I stood fifty feet above the ground clutching the metal railing, engulfed in the August sunset. Every fiber of my body rang with the shame and guilt of the past bubbling up from within. Yet, I couldn't face the truth. It was too painful. What a coward I was.

            Though I could feel his gaze burning a hole into the back of my head, though my fingers were going numb against the metal railing, I couldn't even take one second to turn around and acknowledge his presence. Instead, I stared with tear-stained eyes, at the shimmering Atlanta skyline awash in an unforgiving orange glare.

            He pretended to cough behind me.

Moonlight Grove

Through the thicket of woods and beyond a rocky path that vanished long ago, there is a small clearing along the shore, a patio facing the sea. The clearing is decked with perennial flowers of every color. On one side, a forget-me-not enjoys the moonlight, not cringing from any human touch, while a beady wisteria trails through a sturdy oleander branch and forms an archway overhead. A beaming jasmine vine nuzzles the wisteria cozily as its flowers sway gently in the sea breeze and immerse the grove with a sweet intoxicating scent. Inside, the ground is carpeted with a cascade of flower petals from above. In the middle of the ground, anointed with splashes of seawater and the spray of morning mist, two boulders sit beside each other like a pair of lovers, gazing at the moonlight shimmering and sparkling on the water below.

Sam, The Fearless

“Sam, do you want to be the only ant who has ever been held back? You’re already small for your age,” cried Ace, leader of Troop 11, “Now stop sniffing those flowers and get back in line or you’ll never advance to the second class.” Sam grudgingly dislodged his antennae from the gigantic blue flower and moseyed back into the line with his fellow ants in Troop 11. For the rest of the march back to Arbor Anthill, he stayed in formation, controlling his impulses to wander off at the sight of every blade of grass.

Sam was a Worker Ant in the First Class, who loved to dream and explore new things as his Troop scavenged for morsels of food each day. Though he always completed his duties toward Anthill and his colony, Ace was constantly reminding Sam to get back in the line and stop getting side tracked.

Soon it was exam time. Sam passed all of his exams with flying colors, but when it came to the practical exam, the aged evaluator was exasperated. Sam merrily wandered off into another direction to talk about a flower or to slide down a blade of grass or once, to the horror of the examiner, to explain the eating habits of a spider. “You mean to tell me, young ant, that you track those Arachnids! Have you no sense? Might as well be cavorting with an Enemy!” He fell into a riotous coughing fit, so Sam reluctantly returned to tracking the hidden morsels in the obstacle course. As he walked back to the Anthill over the Gray Desert, a vast barren land that could sometimes take hours to cross, Sam looked over his evaluation.

1.      Tracking Skills: Excellent.

2.      Reflexes: Excellent.

3.      Physical Health: Excellent.

4.      Focus on Task: Poor

5.      General Comments: This Ant has an extremely low attention span and furthermore has acquired dangerous habits.

6.      Required Action: One month Probation. Sam of Troop 11 must bring in 50 morsels each day rather than the normally required 20 for a First Class Ant. Furthermore, if he is seen tracking Arachnids or any other foreign creatures, he will be suspended.

“This is so unfair! I’m only trying to understand our environment. It’s for the good of the colony.” Sam tried to reason with the examiner, but he shrugged him off. After dinner, he brooded over his punishment and grudgingly filled out his Career Survey.

His roommate, Rag swaggered in looking smug. “So… Sam,” he began, “Probation?  Of course I advanced to Second Class. But that was obvious, you know, given my muscles and hunting record and all. But let’s talk about all that stuff I heard about you,” he taunted.

To return to the past
is a gift.
To change the course of destiny
is a privilege.
To make a change for the better
is a duty.
To accept the past and move on
is courage.

--
Sravani Hotha
(1-14-09)