The Reptile Room or Murder! - (Book #2 in the 'A Series of Unfortunate Events) by Lemony Snicket

A children's book is a wonderful way to begin the new year. I enjoyed this book as much as the first book.

This book deals with the Baudelair children, who were orphaned and now are being shunted to another relative's place after the disaster with the first relative, Count Olaf. The new relative is a nice herpetologist, who is kind, considerate and sometimes, forgetful. However, Count Olaf makes another attempt to get hold of the children in order to gobble up their vast fortune, and the book tells us the story of what happens then.

I like the way the writer describes the meaning of slightly complicated words to the young readers, without it sounding condescending.

I took the shorter route to achieve my book reading goals by choosing a seemingly simple and a small book (170+ pages), but I am not sorry I did. :D

Chain of Custody by Anita Nair

Although I began this book in the last three days of 2016, I will officially count it as the first book of 2017 as I finished it on 5th of January.

Chain of Custody can be called a noble attempt to tackle a complicated and a dark subject - of child trafficking and human deprivation. Much as I like Anita Nair - she is one of my favourite Indian writers - I struggle to come to terms with the way this book falls just little short of the expectations. It is a crime thriller so you expect a water-tight plot and a gripping story line. I wont say she has failed in here, but neither did she excel. There were many passages of wonderful writing, but in a genre like this, its the weak passages that break your attention. 

For example, the insights on Inspector Borei Gowda's personal life is quite interesting and makes the story alive, but some portions feel unnecessarily forced upon. The way his son is a friends with the one of the exploited girl's brother - it all feels too convenient and in the end, didn't make much of a difference to the story. The story of Krishna, the right-hand man of 'Tekhedar' almost got to the point of being interesting and then fell along the way. 

I felt the main subject was touched upon only superficially - may be I am being too harsh here - this is not supposed to be an essay or an expose' but, I would have loved to get more information on the how child trafficking has evolved over the years in India and what progress is being made by the law towards curbing it or, how badly they have failed in doing so. Probably this whole story will continue in the next installment, I don't know for sure, but it did feel incomplete. 

Despite my misgivings, I will still wait for the next book because this book was better than the first in the series and I hope the same rule applies to the third one. And, because she is a damn good writer attempting something very different. I have faith in her.  

2017

2017. The Year of Rooster. The Year of Hope. The year that may turn out to be better than the previous year. (In hindsight, it looks like 2016 was bad for the entire universe.)

I have some milestones to cross this year and it is with a mix of joy and apprehension I am looking forward to the year ahead.

My reading goals have become ambitious - One Book a Week. It isn't easy but it is not impossible either. Sash is the inspiration: he could read, even with a full-time employment.
I also plan to be more meticulous in writing about the books I read - this time, I want to be comprehensive. Maybe I should change the writing format as well, I don't know.
This year too I have planned to read Kannada books (bought four new Kannada books).

For the first week, I have already finished a book - Chain of Custody by one of my favourite writers, Anita Nair.