LOL: Life Of Leo

Image Source Title: Sharp Objects Author: Gillian Flynn Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Genre: Thriller/ Drama Price: Rs. 271 on Amazon . Pages: 254 After ' Gone Girl ', I had fallen in love with Gillian Flynn's style of writing and picked up this book which happens to be her first one on an impulse. The gist of the book was about a toxic family and this piqued my interest. So one fine day once I was back from work I sat down with a cup of tea and started reading this. The fast pace of the book was good because no body likes a prolonged mystery where the author takes ample amount of time to build a case and sneak in a clue. That was the only problem I had with ' The Girl On The Train '. This book moves fast with every page and the mystery gets deeper and deeper. So, what is the book all about? Camille Preaker is a reporter working with a newspaper in Chicago. Her boss, Frank Curry asks her to visit Wind Gap, the place where Camille grew up, to r...

Read Part 1  here  / Part 2  here  / Part 3  here / Part 4  here / Part 5 here . Image Source The loud ring of her phone brought Alisah back to reality. She slowly got up from the swing and checked her phone. It was Neha, her best friend. She answered the phone and spoke to her for a few minutes. She did not mention the topic of Arjun at all, as she did not want to worry her. Neha has been her friend since her school days and was against her decision of marrying Arjun. But later on she accepted Alisah's choice as long as it made her happy. Neha had stood like a rock by Alisah's side while her marriage was falling apart. Knowing that Arjun was back in her life would hurt Neha and this clearly was not the time to tell her anything as she was heavily pregnant and was due to give birth in a few weeks. After enquiring about her health and promising her to look at the baby names that she had emailed, Alisah hung up. She looked at the clock. It was 10.3...

Read Part 1  here  / Part 2  here  / Part 3  here / Part 4 here . Image Source Dinner continued to be a quiet affair after this revelation. Alisah finishes her meal and quietly walks back to her room. Her laptop was still on and she knew that Kay was waiting for her response to his poem, but Alisah was not in the right frame of mind to judge another person's work now. She goes to her balcony and sits on her swing, her favorite spot in the house. Her balcony opened out to an empty piece of land that was under dispute since ages. This brought in fresh air into her room and she loved it. Looking back to see if the door to her room was locked, she slowly removes the pack of cigarettes from her pajama pocket and lights one. As the smoke fills her lungs, she replays the dinner conversation in her mind again and again. Thoughts of Arjun floods her mind. Arjun, her Arjun. He was the favorite of everyone in her college. Students and teachers alike. The first tim...

Read Part 1  here  / Part 2  here  / Part 3 here . Image Source Alisah looks for her father and sees him walking towards her. " Shall we start our rounds ?" He asks with a smile. " Sure. " She says thinking that would give her time to think about the face that she had just seen. She plugs in her ipod and lets the music take over. She jogged slowly at first and then increased her speed gradually. The face refused to leave her though. She now knew who exactly he was, but a part of her mind refused to believe it. She could be mistaken as well. Into her fifth round, she felt a bit exhausted. She sat down at a nearby bench and stretched her muscles. In a few minutes her father joined her. " All okay darling? Your face is drained of color. What's wrong? " He asks sounding worried as he sits beside her. " Nothing, Pa. Ran a bit too fast than I usually do. That's it. " " Let's sit for a while and then get back. "...

Read Part 1 here  / Part 2 here . Image Source Kay's reply was something that Alisah had not expected at all. She had thought that he was a new reader as that was his first comment on her blog post. She had checked his profile on receiving the comment. It had said that he was twenty eight years old and a male. It also said that he was blogging only since a year when compared to Alisah's four years of experience in the blogging world. But it turns out that Kay was following her blog since she had started. His mail spoke about her old posts that she had almost forgotten about. He also mentioned that she was his inspiration in starting a blog of his own. He claimed that he was shy and silently followed her posts and never commented on them. But 'The Curse' was something that he wanted to explore further, and hence he decided to ask her permission to write about it. He also said that he had half expected her to say "No", but was surprised when she agreed f...

Image Source " Al, come down for dinner. The fish is getting cold. " Alisah's mother calls out for her. " Ten minutes, Mom. I'm in the middle of something ." She yells back. Alisah was busy writing a poem on her blog. She had just come back from work with a poem running on her mind and she just had to pen it down. The words created havoc in her mind and she was typing away frantically mumbling the words along. Her manicured fingers graced the key board and her glasses now sat on the rim of her nose. She paused every now and then, squinting at the screen and thinking of rhyming words. She still was wearing her work clothes but her shirt sleeves were now folded up to her elbows. Her bag was carelessly thrown on her bed and her shoes were at the foot of it. She had a meeting today that had held her up until late. As soon as she got out of her cab, she had rushed to her room to make something out of the words that was troubling her mind. " Al......

Image Source Cal and I have a problem when it comes to cars. We both hate it. There is something very unpleasant about the smell of a car. Inspite of using the best car perfumes, the stink still remains. I feel extremely claustrophobic inside a car. And the car AC is another enemy of mine. Even if I sit for five minutes in a car with AC I get a splitting headache. The stink then adds on to it making me want to puke immediately. To avoid all this we both always travel on our bike. We are extremely happy and comfortable with it, but society is not something that would leave us alone. People tell us to buy a car soon, now that we are married and all, you see. Well, I do not see. Both our work places are less than two kilometers from our house, so why do we need a car? And we love travelling on the bike. Next, people think that we are stingy and do not want to spend money on a car. Great! Just because you can afford it doesn't mean you have to buy it. Right? Cal and I are extre...

A few days back I wrote about how I did not know anything about babies. I do know what they like, what they don't, how to handle them and what makes them happy and pleased. I get a negative score when it comes to babies and I was more than happy about being ignorant about these things. But little did I know what I was in store for. I did not know I would have to learn all of this in the most toughest way possible. And that too not with my own baby. Last week, I visited my friend after a long time. She has a little toddler of about ten months and that little girl is one cranky kid. My friend was exhausted from all the daily chores and wanted to relax for a while. The baby was sleeping, so we dimmed the light and sat by the window with a cup of tea and caught up on our gossip. I was visiting her after a long time and it felt nice to get back to how we were before. But with the first sip, we heard a wail and rushed to see our little princess all awake and irritated. I looked...

I am me, just let me be. I am the younger of the two daughters born to my parents. Apparently when I was born, my grandparents cursed my parents for giving birth to yet another girl child. Everyone looked down upon my folks for having two daughters, wondering how will they get us married. Today both my sister and I are in very good positions at reputed companies and taking care of our parents very well. The same people are now forced to eat their own words. Being a woman has never held me back from doing anything that I wanted to do. And by anything, I mean everything. I refuse to be labelled as the weaker sex. We live in a country where we are forced to use words like equality and feminist. Suddenly 'feminist' is a bad word and any woman who calls herself one is labelled as bold. Every one has a right to stand up for themselves. This applies to both men and women. I have lived all my life being proud of the fact that I am a woman and it definitely takes more than one w...

Image Source Some days ago there was this interesting article in the newspaper about wedding gifts. The article spoke about how couples these days mention " No Gifts Please " on their wedding cards and how there are some typical wedding gifts that offer no use whatsoever. I was reminded of my wedding gifts on reading that and how I had planned to write about it. It has been almost two years since my wedding now and yet some gifts come back to haunt me every now and then. A wedding is a very personal affair, but mine was anything but that. Almost half the crowd of Bangalore was invited to my wedding and before I could realize, there was a huge pile of gifts wrapped in shining paper piled all around the house. I always feel that it is better to ask the couple what they want as a gift and then get it for them. If you are not close to the couple, then it is always better to gift cash instead of some tacky show piece. Even hundred bucks is fine as long as it can be used. T...

Image Source Title: The Fault In Our Stars Author: John Green Publisher: Penguin Books India Genre: Romance/Drama Price: Rs. 399 Pages: 313 Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten. I know that almost everyone of us have heard about this book and the wonderful things that people have been saying about it. Almost every Facebook update had a quote from this book and almost everyone spoke about how much they cried when they read the book. I bought the book only for its hype. I loved reading ' A Walk To Remember ' and that is a stand out book for me. And I knew deep within my heart that nothing can surpass that book. But since everyone around egged me to read this one, I fell prey. The ...