Love, Rosie

Rosie Dunne & Alex Stewart have a deep friendship that begins in their schooldays and grows over the passing years. They share each other’s lives through a series of notes, e-mails, IMs and sometimes long, winding letters. Their friendship survives unexpected pregnancies, marriages (not to each other), subsequent divorces, bereavements and various phases of their chequered careers.

While everyone expects them to end up together, Alex & Rosie are the proverbial ships passing in the night. When Rosie wants to take the friendship further, Alex is announcing his marriage. When Alex wants to profess his love to Rosie, the latter is unaware and taking another shot at her failing marriage. A series of similar ‘almost-there’ moments and that’s pretty much the gist of ‘Love, Rosie’.

Cut the book in half and it would be a fantastic read. Instead, it rambles on.....and on...and on. While you start off rooting for Rosie and Alex…somewhere along the way, the roadblocks seem a bit contrived. The only bright spark for me was the quirky cast of supporting characters. They pepper the pages with their wit, humour and sheer likeability.

The Star of Kazan

Eva Ibbotson weaves an old-fashioned adventure around a young foundling called Annika. Abandoned in a church on the slopes of Mt. Dorfelspitze, the baby is adopted by a pair of friends: Ellie, the cook and Sigrid, the housemaid. They take her back to their owners’ house in Vienna. Annika is a happy, industrious child…..learning to cook Viennese delicacies from Ellie, keeping the house sparkling clean and doing a multitude of odd jobs for the eccentric professors who are the owners of the house. Her spare time is spent enacting mock-plays with her friends Pauline and Stephan. She also manages to pay frequent visits to a dying old lady who was formerly known as the wonderful actress ‘La Rondine’.

She only has one wish…that her birth mother sweeps in one day and says: ‘Where is she? Where is my long lost daughter?’. And here the adage of “Be careful what you wish for, it just may come true” comes into full play. Very soon, an aristocratic lady named Edeltraut von Tannenberg comes to claim Annika and swoop her off to a cold and desolate castle in Germany.

Fitting into a new scenario is always tough, but for Annika who has been used to a warm and friendly Vienna, her new home throws up many nasty surprises. Unfriendly relatives…lies and secrets…dreary food...dank climate...things are not as Annika imagined her new life to be.

The only bright speck is the new friend she makes called Zed, a Romany stable boy. But as the mystery shrouding her new family deepens...Zed is accused of robbery…robbery of a trunk which was left to Annika by ‘La Rondine’. Annika is torn between her faith in Zed and her loyalty to her surprisingly cold mother. In Vienna her old family is missing Annika terribly and also come across some unpalatable facts …which could put Annika’s life in grave danger.

A simple story…a predictable mystery and a plot oft-repeated. But what makes ‘Star of Kazan’ so engrossing is the absolute love and affection with which Eva Ibbotson describes the splendour and grandiose of a vintage Vienna..... The ancient but much-loved Emperor Franz Joseph with his ‘mutton-chop whiskers and bald head’. The extravagant waltzes streaming out of the cafes. The decadent opera houses. The sinfully rich confectionaries bursting with aroma and taste. And of course the pride of Vienna : The dancing Lipizzaner Stallions. You are soon transported to a magical city that seems to hum with colour, light and vitality. This is a book to be savoured...and enjoyed at a leisurely pace. Eva Ibbotson triumphs yet again !

The Zoya Factor

Zoya Solanki.....a mid-level marketing executive at an ad-firm...a typical ‘Karol-Bagh’ type....with masses of black curling hair and a super-spunky attitude. Her idea of a perfect assignment: Working with SRK and getting a glimpse of his toffee-coloured torso!

So how does ordinary Zoya Solanki become ‘The Zoya Devi’..the Indian Goddess.....the good luck charm on which the hopes of a million Indians are riding?
Simple!

Zoya happened to be born at the very moment when India clinched the World Cup in 1983…infact when the last wicket fell, out popped Zoya! As she works on an assignment with the current Indian Cricket Team, the superstitious bunch discover that having breakfast with Zoya leads to victory. And not eating with her...well, crushing defeat (…to Bermuda!!). Zoya is instantly escalated to the status of “Lucky Charm”!

With the tenth ICC World Cup just around the corner, Zoya is soon begged, bullied and emotionally blackmailed to accompany the Indian team as their official good luck mascot. Driven by a misguided sense of loyalty to India and the hope of bringing back the elusive world cup.....Zoya is soon off to Australia on a fully-paid holiday.

But being a lucky charm is not all it’s cracked up to be. Zoya is soon crossing swords with the brilliant captain of the Indian team, Nikhil Khoda. Khoda doesn’t believe in lucky charms. He works hard and wants the team’s victories to be attributed to the effort put in by the “boys”. The fact that there’s a definite attraction between the two.....only adds to the escalating fiasco.

Pursued by pista-munching agents, harangued by saffron-clad babas, manipulated by IBCC chiefs and wooed by Cola firms……Zoya is soon sinking into the mad-crazy world of Indian Cricket. In a country where cricket is almost a religion, Zoya is elevated to goddess-status. Staying true to herself is becoming more and more difficult and the hype threatens to over-power the sassy Zoya.

Finally a book by an Indian author that I can say I thoroughly, truly enjoyed. No “Indian-settled-abroad-culture-clash” drama…no pages of purple prose.....just pure unadulterated fun. Anuja Chauhan has brought the fun back into Indian Literature. Generously peppered with doses of 'Hinglish' and ribald humour…”The Zoya Factor” is a laugh riot.

As the author herself puts it “Anybody who loved DDLG and the Twenty20 World Cup will like Zoya”. Too true….and I hope fledgling Indian Authors everywhere get the hint and leave the “rhona-dhona” behind!!

The Haunting Of Hiram

Alex MacBuff is 12 years old. He is also the sole surviving owner of the ancient castle of Carra. While Alex does his best in the upkeep of the crumbling castle, he soon realizes that there’s never going to be enough money to meet with the ever-increasing expenses. The only solution is to sell the castle and hope for the best. And luckily, an American millionaire Hiram C.Hopgood is willing to buy the castle…crumbling turrets, underground passages, blood-stained drawbridge et al. But he has one condition……there should be "no ghosts". Not a single scary spook haunting any nook or cranny of the castle.

And Alex has a new task at hand. Finding a suitable new home for his resident ghosts. There’s Krok Fullbelly, the six-foot four enormous Viking, whose body was thrown off Carra rock. Miss.Spinks, the Victorian governess…..who suffers from Water Madness and spends her time flinging herself into the well or any other available waterbody. Mr.Louse, the ancient vampire who’s lost his false teeth when he drove his wheelchair over it. Wrecking good-natured havoc like any self-respecting poltergeist is the youngest ghost of Carra…Flossie. And then of course, the excitable little hell-hound Cyril who has an over-exaggerated body of a dachshund and follows Alex around like a dutiful pup.

Alex adores his ghostly family and the thought of being separated from them fills him with dread. But a castle owner's (and a penniless one, at that) got to do what a castle owner's got to do!!

And thus begins a crazy adventure. An unlikely group of heroes and a truly nasty bunch of villians....."The Haunting of Hiram" is enjoyable and filled with drama, mayhem and a lot of nonsensical good fun!

The Great Ghost Rescue

Humphrey is a lovable little ghost, the colour of summer clouds and cursed with twinkling eye-sockets. He wants to be “Humphrey the Horrible” .....downright scary like his impressively hideous family. But that’s the least of his problems.

Craggyford Castle, their home for the past 500 years is soon going to be converted into a holiday resort and they need to find a new home.....soon. In their search they come along Rick, a small boy in a school dormitory who appears to have the solution to their woes. Rick’s plan: head off to London and make an appeal to the Prime Minister for a Ghost Sanctuary.

Meanwhile, ghosts and other spectres elsewhere are also losing their homes as rivers get polluted with industrial waste...lovely old estates get converted to tourist hotels and green fields morph into smog-filled motorways. Rick and his motley crew are soon accompanied by displaced ghosts and even a family of blood-starved vampire bats.

A grave (pun, wholly unintentional) problem indeed! Will Rick’s grandiose plan work? Will the Prime Minister

do his job or be a skeptical non-believer? And will the ghosts find a place where they can truly, in the full sense of the word.....Rest In Peace?

Eva Ibbotson’s droll sense of humour effectively puts across an ecological message. In a time when animals are losing their natural habitats and the world is becoming a messier place to live in.....is it too much a suspension of reality to imagine, that ‘undead’ creatures are facing a nasty end too?

A fantastical tale..yes, but with it’s heart in the right place.

Dial-A-Ghost

Frieda and Fulton Snodde-Brittle are bursting with joy. Finally the rather gloomy but majestic Helton Hall seems to be theirs. But before they can savour their inheritance, they have to deal with the sole surviving Snodde-Brittle, a small orphan called Oliver Smith who lives in a children’s home in London.

Oliver, an asthamatic and frail child is not exactly keen at the prospect of leaving his orphanage friends and taking up residence at the sinister Helton Hall. And Fulton and Frieda sense the perfect plan to scare the beejusus out of Oliver. They call up "Dial-a-Ghost". Dial-A-Ghost is an agency run by two kindly ladies who provide homes for misplaced ghosts.

Fulton has a clear request.....proper, fiersome ghosts who moan and groan and scream and curdle the blood in your veins. The agency, unaware of Fulton's devious scheme are happy that they have the perfect candidates: Sir Pelham and Lady Sabrina De Bone …a pair of thoroughly disgusting ghosts. Originally belonging to the aristocratic set, the couple had ‘A Great Sorrow’ which had driven them mad. Carrying their wildness into the after-life.....they are truly hideous and seem to fit Fulton’s requirements to the tee.

But a mix-up by the agency’s office boy leads the de Bones to a nunnery and causes the Wilkinson family to make an appearance at Helton Hall. And a nicer ghost family it is difficult to find. Warm and considerate…they provide Oliver with the love and family support which a lonely boy always needed. It's a Happy Haunting for all!

Things seem to be going splendidly, but what will happen when the Snodde-Brittles realise the faux-pas?....How long would it take for the scary spooks to leave the nunnery and take up rightful residence at Helton Hall?

One more fun read from Eva Ibbotson’s “Ghosts-aren’t-anything-to-scream-about” collection. She manages to talk about ooze and slime and severed heads and crumbling body parts and you still can gaurantee that any child who reads them would be hooked till the last page.

Percy Jackson and The Battle Of The Labyrinth

After a week of so-so…and some truly disappointing reads, am thoroughly glad to say ‘Percy Jackson and The Battle of The Labyrinth’ lived up to my expectations and was a truly fine read!

Half-boy, half-God Percy Jackson starts off another school year by fighting off a pair of ‘Empousai’ and blowing up the school…again. He also runs into Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the mysterious mortal girl who can see through the mist.

It’s time to head back to camp Half-Blood, because trouble is brewing….huge, scary ‘the-GODS-are-angry’ kind of trouble. The ancient Lord Kronos is slowly reforming, aided by Luke and his unearthly army. Luke’s plan is to invade Camp Half-Blood, raze it to the ground along with it’s heroes and then head off to destroy the Olympians.

While the camp members felt that Camp Half-Blood was impenetrable...they soon realize that Luke intends to invade it through one of the exits of the famous underground Labyrinth. Percy and gang decide to head into the labyrinth themselves and discover Daedalus’s (the creator of the Labyrinth) workshop, so that they can find a way to stop the invasion.

Simple? Not Really! The Labyrinth is supposed to be the only piece of architecture that changes constantly. Even the creator Daedalus himself has no control over it. Tunnels changes.....new ones pop up…and backtracking is never a good option..because you never know what is in store for you…left, right, back or front. A person could enter the maze and never get out. Add to that the constant threat of running into Luke’s demonic army and Percy has his job cut out!!

Is Percy doomed to roam the endless labyrinth? Will Grover finally find the lost God Pan? Will Annabeth’s faith in Luke lead to her downfall? And will the Gods survive to fight another day? All that and much more.....perfectly packaged in another superb instalment by Rick Riordan.

Percy Jackson, the prince of understatement is as quick with his trusted ‘Riptide’ as he is with the droll quips. A brave and comical hero, you’ll be rooting for him till the last page.

Airhead (Airhead #1)

Em Watts; a grungy tomboy and Nikki Howard; reigning teen supermodel…both happen to be at the same place and time when a freak accident occurs and knocks Em out. After being unconscious for a month, Em wakes up in the flawlessly perfect body of Nikki Howard. While Em Watts was declared dead, her brain had been transplanted into the body of Nikki Howard (who also conveniently happened to become unconscious at the same time as Em’s fatal accident).

A whole new body and a jet-set lifestyle…not what a computer geek in hoodies had signed up for. Now she has to honour Nikki Howard’s career obligations and be prepared to grace the covers of top magazines. She re-works several preconceived notions and deals with unwanted (albeit extremely attractive) suitors. And at the same time, she hopes to find out whether she can resurrect her friendship (and a wee bit more) with her best friend (in her past life as Em Watts), Christopher.

Confusing, yes. Tremendous scope for laugh-out-loud-moments.....didn’t happen. And that left me disappointed. After having read Avalon High, The Mediator and The Missing Series by the supremely funny and talented Meg Cabot….you kind of have great expectations. But Airhead seemed more like an introductory book with the sole purpose of providing a backdrop for a sequel. A bit of a let-down…but having said all that, I am still obviously going to wait for the next instalment :‘ Being Nikki’. Go Figure!!

See also : Airhead (Airhead #2) : Being Nikki

Airhead (Airhead #3) : Runaway

Why So Serious?

Batman and Lt.James Gordon continue their crusade against the mob in Gotham City. They want to incorporate the help of newly appointed D.A. Harvey Dent in their mission. But putting a spanner in the works is the hideously scary Joker. Which basically is what the plot is all about.....but the story, well that’s a whole new ball-game.

There are sufficient hi-jinx, special effects, super-amped vehicles, mind-boggling gizmos, swooping off from vertigo-inducing towers, and a cherried up batsuit to make you go W-OAH! and wince and duck in your seat and give you that oh-so-little head rush. The beauty of 'The Dark Knight' however lies in the actors, their interaction, the spit-fire dialogue and the under-lying message.

Christian Bale reprising his role as the caped crusader is sufficiently wooden and a tad bit cocky. After all it’s not every day you come across a man who is a billionaire by day and a vanquisher of evil forces by night. The fact that he is definitely easy on the eye helps too!! The unflappable Michael Caine as Batman’s butler/father-figure/man-Friday Alfred Pennyworth is the quintessential voice of reason. Morgan Freeman as the stolid Lucius Fox is quick with the witty repartee and well.....he’s Morgan Freeman!! Doing most of the donkey work is the harried Lt.James Gordon played by Gary Oldman. Weary and over-worked, he personifies the incorruptible , seasoned city-cop . Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart)…the golden boy of Gotham City oozes charisma and confidence. His descent into madness is tragic but wholly believable.

And then of course there is the mighty Joker... the deranged, schizophrenic clown. Complete with garish face-paint, staccato maniacal laughter and the absolute nonchalance with which he wrecks havoc.....this is the stuff that ice-cream and pickle nightmares are made off. The twitchiness, the edginess, the total anarchical stand and the desire to disrupt and destroy.....the late Heath Ledger does justice to all. Whether he’s showing his magic trick with a pencil or sauntering about crazily in a nurse’s outfit or relishing the inevitable collision.....he grabs eyeballs!

How long does it take for a running-smooth-as-oil city to descent into lawlessness? ...Does a hero want to stay a hero or does the darkness envelope every shred of sanity?... Is Batman the hero that Gotham city deserves? In all a superb movie which plunges comic book drama into something darker but though-provoking.

~R.I.P. Heath Ledger~

A Song For Summer

Ellen Carr is a refreshing heroine. Departing from the usual breed of go-getters, smart-talkers and hard-as-nails characters that populate today’s books, Ellen is warm, enchanting and the epitome of the ol worlde English Nanny (albeit in a glorified role). Raised by a family of strident suffragettes in the early 1940s, Ellen surprises everyone by showing a love for all things domestic. Her inspiration is her grandfather’s Austrian help/partner Henny who teaches the young Ellen how to make 'Apfel Strudel' and others things practical yet pretty.

After Henny’s death.....Ellen moves to Austria to take up the job as housemother in a progressive school called Hallendorf. Hallendorf is a school unlike any other…supposedly meant to give free reign to the bursting talent of prodigious children. Infact it’s more like a dumping grounds for wealthy parents, whose children are parceled off and promptly forgotten. And the soft-hearted Ellen takes everyone under her wing…from the weary headmaster and the insecure children to the distinctly weird staff and their idiosyncrasies. Another character who intrigues Ellen is the handsome Marek…..the ground man cum fencing master cum adored-hero of the school. Love inevitably blossoms, but it is shrouded by the looming threat of World War2.

And soon Ellen discovers that Marek is a man under disguise. He is Marcus von Altenburg, a world famous musician who has now devoted his life to helping an assortment of resistances smuggle Jews to safety. A noble cause but a path laden with danger and the threat of things going seriously long.

From the minty-fresh air of Austria to the decadence of Vienna to the smoke-filled depression of WW2.....A Song for Summer is a full-fledged historical romance. While the book could have easily veered into mushy sentimentalism, Eva Ibbotson’s classic humor, funnily-flawed characters and smooth transitions lift it to a whole new level. The pain-staking attention to details of places and events would please history-buffs, but for me it was about Ellen and Marek.

While Ellen seems to be too-good-to-be-true, you realize that it has to be just so. Amidst all the chaos and uncertainty, you need a character who symbolizes hope and comfort. Marek, the unique combination of earthy woodsman and temperamental musician is the perfect foil for the practical Ellen.

Another memorable couple and a definite addition to all-time favorites.