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Showing posts with the label book talk

Untold Stories

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Eleventh grade has taken off like a bullet from a gun. The days have been flying so fast, especially the weekends, and I’ve hardly been able to keep track of what’s going on. I think I have mentioned my love for music in some of my earlier posts, and if you’re someone like me, who loves singing (despite the fact that I’m not very gifted and can make a dog’s ears bleed), then Smule is definitely the app for you. Smule offers a million songs to sing to, AND, you can join other aspiring singers with collaborations. Plus, if you take an All Access Pass (like I did), then you can access every song, which is totally awesome. I think the best feature of Smule is Sing With The Artist, where you can jam out to pre-recorded video versions of some of your favourite singers, like Shawn Mendes and Charlie Puth. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it looks pretty cool. You can find me, as JanakiSajan , on Smule ;) Lately, I’ve been into reading fanfiction, on fanfiction.net . I’ve neve

Book Review: The Crown by Kiera Cass

It’s finally here! “ The Crown ” by Kiera Cass was released on 3rd May ! It’s the ending we’ve all been waiting for. Will America survive her heart attack? What is the future for Illéa? And most importantly, who will become Eadlyn’s husband? I finished the novel today. It was pretty good, but I felt it was rushed in a few areas, especially during the ending. Since there are people who are looking forward to reading “The Crown”, I’m not going to tell you much about the plot. And don’t worry, I’m definitely not going to tell you who wins Eadlyn’s heart at last. Right before the Report, on which Eadlyn is to reveal her fiance, she talks to her father, Maxon. We get to learn some information which had never been shared previously about his father, Clarkson. There are several changes in Eadlyn’s personality during the course of events in ‘The Crown”. She becomes less snobby and proud, and becomes more aware of the fact that in order to become a better ruler, she needs

Swan Diary

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When the captain announced that the plane had started to descend, at first Mom and I could see nothing but clouds. Then eventually, when we felt the popping sensation in our ears, Switzerland came into view. The aerial view of Switzerland was like one of those pictures you get on postcards. I dont know why I felt so, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. Everything being so proper and perfect. But the real beauty was when the Alps came into view. Even from far away, the sight  was breathtaking. We could see the snow on the peaks of the mountains. We’d never seen snow before in our lives, so it was exciting. Snow was something we had only seen in photos and on TV. The closest chance I had got to see real snow was in Ski Dubai and in Disneyland in France, even though Ski Dubai had technically ice and Disneyland could offer only fake snow, as France had decided not to snow while we were there, but if that was a blessing or a curse, I could not tell, as in referen

And then there were none

Yesterday I watched the 1945 film “ And then there were none ”, based on the book by Agatha Christie! It was really entertaining, even though the end was nothing like how the book said. The pretty girl, Vera and the dashing guy who turned out not to be Philip Lombard, but his friend, managed to escape the island, possibly getting married after they reached home. The movie had also altered the crimes and names of some people, but other than that, it was nearly the same. I’d read the book before from our school library. According to everyone, it’s one of the best books Agatha Christie has ever written. Chocolate syrup was used in some of the old black-and-white movies as fake blood, like in the Hitchcock movie, “Psycho”, which I should have probably known earlier so that I could have prevented freaking out over the gruesome scenes.

Elementary, my dear Watson

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always liked to read series like The Hunger Games, Divergent, Percy Jackson, The Selection, Celestra, Secret, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and books like The Fault in our stars, Elephant in the Garden and Let it snow. The list is practically endless. It’s funny because I know there are a gazillion books out there which I would like to name and still not a single one comes to my mind when I’m asked on the spot. On the other hand, Nanditha loves to read Agatha Christie books and Sherlock Holmes, and despises the novels I read. It took me forever to convince her to read the Hunger Games. Once she finished the first book, she got pretty interested, so I was like, “See?” The school library has several Agatha Christie books, like the Miss Marple series and the Poirot series. I myself had ‘Miss Marple’s final cases’ and ‘The 4:50 from Paddington’. They were pretty much wasted on me, so I asked Nanditha if she’d like to read them. Dad said he liked Sher

Kindle & Pebble

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What do you get when you do the following equation? Kindle + Smart watch + Janaki = ? I think the answer is pretty obvious, though. Kindle + Smart watch + Janaki =  :-)  :-) I had been waiting a long time since we ordered these 2 from the Amazon  (well, not that long, but time feels slow sometimes). Dad explained the full process of how it gets shipped to me and it seems like a lot of work.  My new Pebble Smart watch is pretty sleek and cool. It allows me to download apps and watchfaces on it through Mom’s phone. My Kindle Paperwhite , on the other hand is very useful for reading books. It gives you the actual feeling of reading a book and has a lot more advantages.  For example, it is eco-friendly, thin and small so that we can easily slip it into a handbag or backpack and also helps to look up the definition of difficult words. I borrowed the second book of the “Hunger Games” trilogy from the library. It’s called “ Catching Fire ”, the first few parts

Black Friday

Sunday my FA-3 is starting. I’m just praying it gets over soon. After that we have our winter vacation for which I will be spending my time doing “Aaaaaaagh………” and relaxing. Now that I have finished ‘Blood of Olympus’ too, I think it’s a bit sad that Leo’s friends never really found out he was alive. Apparently today is “ Black Friday ”. If you stand outside a shop in the US, you will probably get trampled. Last evening at badminton class, our teacher made me and Raksha as team captains. One thing you should take care of- always try to win. Otherwise all the blame goes to you. But we were able to win 2 games out of 3. Once, Anne was a captain at school in our group for a project, There were an overall of 4 team captains in the class. Anne had me and Chandana too in her team. We weren’t really worried because we had all this right in the bag, but Anne was a bit nervous when it was time for submission. We didn’t make her feel better when we asked our teacher if Anne

The long haul and lollipop

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I am just so happy today!!!! We went to Jarir bookstore and bought two of some of my top favorite books. - Diary of a Wimpy Kid- The Long Haul - The Blood of Olympus I finished "The Long Haul" and it was really funny. I just want to say that Greg and his family should avoid road trips. I have never heard of such a complicated trip. When Nida was reading "House of Hades", she did not want anyone to ruin the story for her. She probably should not have said that, 'cause that just made everyone tells her the plot while she plugged her fingers inside her ears. The conversation went something like this: Manasy:      See, at the end, Percy and Annabeth are… Nida:          Stop it! Me:             They get… Nida:           I hate you! It was the same for Manasy while reading "Allegiant". Me:              Something really big happens at the end. Manasy:       I don't want to hear about it! Rakshanda:  Tris dies.

3 movies and 2 books

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A complete week of Hajj holidays has been over and now it is the second week. As Dad too has holidays for one week, he wakes me up every morning in a different way. One day, he shook me awake and sat next to me and kept talking until I forced myself out of bed. Another time, he placed the alarm clock under my bed. It did not wake me up, but instead it woke Mom.  I watched 3 movies this week- “ The Syrian Bride ”, “ Psycho ”, and “ Baran ”. After watching “Psycho”, I got a bit scared and never moved an inch away from my parents. But that was only for a day. “Psycho” is a classic 1960 horror-thriller movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It  wasn't  the plot, but the sudden-scary music that really got me. Seriously. Like ‘Scree! Scree! Scree!’ ‘‘The Syrian Bride’’ was full of suspense, mostly like “What’s going to happen? Will she be able to go? Huh? Huh?” “Baran” is very touching and sad, but it is funny also sometimes. According to Mom, I am now old enough to wat

Trip to Malaysia: A missed field trip

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Our school, instead of usually taking us to theme parks or the rides at malls, has planned a 5-day trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.   We were all like “WHAT??!! NOOO!! AAWWW!!!”  Our class was in a state of depression, confusion and anger. This was because of three reasons- A) We did not want to go somewhere alone for 5 days, without our parents. B) We already knew what the answer would be when we would go home. “NO”. C) We had just missed a field trip and now we would have to wait till next year. My Grandpa told me, “You are not yet old enough to go to another country alone, but we can always go together as family.” After seeing the movie “The Conjuring”, I avoided doors, closets, taking long showers, staying somewhere alone for more than 30 seconds, thinking about the scariest parts of the movie and a lot more. But that was only for a few days, thankfully. I was already getting tired of my father doing “Boo!” to me and me screaming. I was describing th

OK Google!

This week was very busy. I bought 3 books from Jarir bookstore- “Diary of a Wimpy Kid- Hard Luck” by Jeff Kinney, “Dork Diaries- Tales from a Not-So-Happy heart breaker.’’ by Rachel Renee Russell, and “Gangsta Granny” by David Walliams. We  weren't  actually planning to go to Jarir bookstore. We just decided to go somewhere since we were bored and we thought of it. I jumped on the books the minute I saw them and Dad regretted of even thinking of going to the bookstore. He was also surprised when I finished all 3 books in one day. Go figure. A Nexus 5 Kit Kat is on its way from America and its destination will be the waiting hands of my father, or, more truthfully, my hands. It is a new version and not yet available in Saudi Arabia.  I said I could always help get rid of his old phone by accepting it as a hand-me-down.     If you come to my home, don’t be surprised if you hear someone always shouting “ Ok Google !” in front of the computer. This is because now there

The first kid to get The Third Wheel @ Jarir Bookstore!

The winter holidays have started and now I am totally looking forward to the whole of the two weeks that are stretching out in front of me. But there are many obstacles lying in front like the dozens of projects that I have to complete before the holiday finishes. Seriously, why do teachers have to give projects and holiday homework? It is almost like this in every vacation. I HATE HATE HATE CLASS PROJECTS! If I ever become a school principal, the most important rule will be, No holiday homework! ***** We went to Jarir bookstore today to buy some things that I needed to make my projects and besides, I also wanted to check if the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel had been released. We could not find it anywhere and I was a teeny bit disappointed because I really wanted to read it. Later I just took a few books, sat on a bench and began to read. I was halfway through Big Nate Goes for Broke (I love Big Nate) when Dad came over and said tha

Book Talk

I love books! Give me a children’s book and I will sit there with my head buried in it. My room is filled with books. Before we went to India, we ordered some books through flipkart . We had given the address of Grandpa and the books reached there before we did. Grandpa was in the hospital for a week. Mom and Granny went everyday to see him. Sometimes they didn’t take me along, so I would get bored. And guess what I did? I would take a few books, march to my grandparent’s bedroom, turn on the light and fan and sit there reading. Sometimes I would read for a long time. My grandparents would take the book away and say my eyes need rest. Valyamma bought me 2 Enid Blyton books which are my favorite now. Dad sent a few more books through flipkart afterwards, and Mom bought me another 2 from DC books while we were waiting at the airport for our flight to Riyadh. These are some of the new books I like - The Smurfs and the Egg, Diary of Amos Lee, Tintin in Tibet, Adventures of