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Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As Neil Gaiman says in the prologue of this book that he wanted to write an 'Alice in the wonderland' for adults and he has done it in a very compatible way. He takes us in two worlds; similar yet very different in many ways; London above and London below and also in each of these worlds belong, two protagonists, Richard and Door (yeah, an actual name of a girl). One is a regular chaotic, monotonous world that we live in and the other is the magical world of which we all dream of at some or the other point of time in our life. In Gaiman's fluid language I travelled through extraordinary lives of its characters. The best part of reading this book was listening to it in Neil Gaiman's voice in my mind (after having listened to so many interviews and talks of Neil), his dreamy voice was an added benefit for me. I'm a Gaiman fan through and through now.
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If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sometimes after reading a book, when you sit to write a review, you wonder what I can write so that it won’t belittle the greatness of that book. Something of that sort is happening to me after reading this one. Finishing this 240 something page book in almost one sitting, I am left with a cauldron-full of emotions. Childhood, innocence, magic, harsh realities, way of life and deep philosophies in simplest of sentences; that’s what this book is made of. Neil Gaiman is a wizard of words. This will be the third book of his that I read and every time I am left at loss of words when reviewing the book. Some sentences just steal your heart. At “You don’t pass or fail at being a person dear!” I was holding my kindle and trying not to overflow with emotions. Another sentence which shuts you up is “death happened to her. Death happens to all of us.”
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