Tara Trilogy: The Third Eye - Part 1 By Mahatab Narsimhan

The Tara Trilogy is a brand new series which is a combination of Hindu mythology, a modern plot and spooky stuff. The leading protagonist is Tara, a girl of age unknown to us, and Suraj, Tara's brother. The story begins on the night of Diwali. Their evil step-mother Kali slaps Tara for stealing ladoos to feed a starving Suraj. Basically the background of this story is that Tara's mother Parvati and grandfather Prabala (healer of the village) leave the village because of some unruly rumors, leaving Tara and Suraj alone. Their father, Shiv marries Kali (now their step-mother). Kali tortures Tara and Suraj, beats them up and starves them. Tara has half a mind to run away from home.

This book is really interesting and every chapter is equally exciting. The sentences are easy to understand and each sentence is a small burst of excitement which makes you want to read on.

One day a man named Zarku shows up; he wears a black robe and has a spooky third eye. Zarku persuades the village Panchayat and takes the place of the village healer. Zarku calls himself the best healer in all of India, but Tara can see through this healer and she can see evil. While roaming the village market Tara can see a huge crowd gathered around a dead Vetala. This book is really scary in the chapters including the Vetalas and fights with them. Vetalas are monsters that have appeared in the Kelsar forest, they are bodies of decaying green flesh, have a gash in their forehead which oozes black liquid and their insides are black, and their feet turn at a 180 degree angle.

One night Tara, on the way to the temple alone, overhears her step-mother Kali and another unknown person talking about murdering her and Suraj! Tara makes up her mind to escape at dawn with Suraj to the Kelsar forest despite the grave danger. They are not aware that a black cobra is following them. One night Suraj falls ill and Tara prepares a medicine for him but it does not help, and the next morning Suraj is gone, presumed dead. Tara walks on searching for Suraj when she reaches a temple.

If you thought the book was interesting so far, this is the part where it starts getting really exciting. The problem is that the middle of the book is so exciting that the climax seems boring compared to these middle chapters. I am not going to give away the plot but I will lead you up to it.

Tara quickly hides when she sees a sobbing Zarku holding a silver anklet and talking about his mother! As soon as Zarku talks about finding and killing Prabala, Tara shouts out to Zarku. When Zarku grabs Tara and slams her against a tree, the silver anklet falls into Tara's kurta pocket. Zarku tries to open his third eye to burn Tara but cannot as she now has the protective silver anklet. Tara manages to escape and later runs into Ananth, a boy whose father is dead and mother was eaten by a tiger when she was going to perform Sati.

Together they embark upon their journey once again. They need to find the water of life and Prabala to save Morni (thier village) from Zarku's evil clutches.

The most exciting chapter in the book is yet to come: the one including lord Yama and the water of life. In some places it gets so scary that a shiver runs down my spine. There are a lot of surprises and the book is filled with adventure and chills.

Mahatab Narsimhan has done a really good job giving mythology an engrossing modern plot. Read it for a quick adventurous read. The only problem is that this book answers all the questions, and by that I mean to say that if this was a single book then it would have made no difference, as it leaves no loose ends. Therefore, it doesn't really make you lunge for the 2^nd or 3^rd book, which I am reading now by the way. I am not sure if I feel like reviewing them. 

There are a lot of Indian references so you will need to already be familiar with Indian mythology to understand it.   

Boom! by Mark Haddon

Jimbo is a normal kid with normal parents and a normal family. Everything is going just fine, but when Jimbo's sister (Becky) plays a silly prank on Jimbo, he takes it seriously and goes off with his best friend Charlie, spying on teachers! That's when everything goes topsy turvy. When Jimbo and Charlie stick a walkie-talkie under their teacher’s desk, they hear a weird language, which confuses them. They want to investigate further, so they sneak into their teachers’ houses, where they find a weird metal band. Then, one day, while having breakfast at a fast food diner, Jimbo finds a weird man telling him to stop investigating further. If you're a young teenager, would you listen to such a warning? Probably not. It turns violent when 3 men appear on Jimbo's doorstep after the mysterious disappearance of Charlie. Somehow Jimbo and Becky escape and go to the Isle of Skye (this location was on the tin which contained the weird metal band). Here, they see a blue light from a tiny island, and find a kind of portal, through which Jimbo falls into a brand new planet. The weird people live on this planet 'Plonk' and want to abduct humans to restore their race. On the bright side, Jimbo finds Charlie, and now the weird people want them to talk to Earth's authorities about coming to Plonk--otherwise Earth is going Boom! Now it's up to Jimbo and Charlie to stop the Earth from going Boom! This book is good but Mark Haddon should stick to writing books like 'the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time' which I liked much more. Mark Haddon is better off writing those kinds of books; he should not try these alien and sci-fiction books. The book is not THAT interesting.


** This book can be found on the Guardian Children's Books site at http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/2011/dec/09/boom-mark-haddon

Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett

One day as Johnny and his friends are walking through the cemetery, Wobbler (Johnny’s friend) challenges Johnny to knock on the tomb of Thomas Bowler. As Johnny knocks, Thomas Bowler opens the door casually and says “Yes?”. Johnny and Mr. Bowler start chatting casually, but Johnny’s friends think that Johnny is mental because Johnny is talking to a closed door of a tomb. Then Johnny realizes that he can see the dead! Most people would think that Johnny was mad but not his friends, his friends decided that no matter what they were going to stick with Johnny. One day as Johnny got a newspaper for his fellow dead friends at the cemetery,(the dead were his friends by now, dead people like William Stickers, Thomas Bowler etc) but after reading the newspaper the dead were furious because the cemetery they were living (dying) in was getting broken down by a company to build a boring office. So now the dead were depending on Johnny and his friends, who create the Blackbury volunteers who speak up against the council, hoping to save the cemetery. Whereas the dead think that the cemetery cannot be saved so they go wandering of into the living world despite warnings from Mr. Grimm the head ghost, he who warns: “If you don’t come back on Judgement Day then you will roam around the world endlessly”. To escape the Judgement Day the ghosts jump from one country to another through phone lines and the night before judgement day lasts longest for the ghosts. Johnny saves the cemetery but all the ghosts have left and when they return the judgement day is over and as an extreme punishment the ghosts fade away. My main comment is that if you are looking for a book with a point then don’t buy this because after saving the cemetery the ghosts just fade away and the cemetery is saved for nothing. This book is not a must, but a book you would read to pass the time the story’s fine--but not a must. But it is as hilarious as nothing I can describe in words , reading this book I was laughing so hard that the house shook. So the book is just a kind of book you would read while going for a picnic reading this to escape supreme boredom.