Book Review of "Mistborn #6 - Bands of Mourning"

“The Bands of Mourning” turned out to be a mixed bag of goods. On one hand, it follows the “Sanderson formula” to a T, a slow first act, a slightly better second act, and an insanely fast-paced, what-the-hell-is-happening-over-here third act! But on the other hand, the twists are slightly predictable and the character development isn’t super solid - with the exception of one character that I won’t spoil. What works and in my mind, makes this the best Mistborn Era-2 book so far is the perfectly executed ending. It ties up the story neatly and still ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger. Overall, if you have made it this far in the Mistborn Era-2, you won’t be disappointed. 4 out of 5.

"How could I have been so in control as a youth, yet often feel so helpless as an adult?” 

Book Review of "Mistborn #5 - Shadows of Self"

“Shadows of Self” - the fifth novel in the Mistborn series or the second novel in the “Mistborn Era 2” has everything that you would expect from a Brandon Sanderson novel - crisp storyline, well-executed action set-pieces, at least a couple of well-rounded characters and one or more unexpected twists. Compared to “The Alloy of Law”, this time the stakes are higher, the scope of the story is bigger and the antagonists are deadlier. All in all, entertaining & engaging, solid 4/5.

"That’s the thing about having an eternity, kid. It gets really easy to procrastinate."

Book Review of "Mistborn #4 - The Alloy of Law"

“The more alone you are, the more important it is to have someone you can rely upon.”

When was the last time you read a fantasy novel that was not set in the usual Victorian slash dark-age era - the time of the Kings and the Knights and the houses and such. Well, here you have it! 

“The Alloy of Law” is a skillfully crafted, fast-paced, and above all - insanely entertaining novel that takes place in a world that has recently discovered electricity, a world that is getting used to steam engine trains. And Brandon Sanderson has managed to blend the magical and the fantastical elements superbly with this new “advanced” Mistborn world. 

I had read the Mistborn trilogy a little over a year ago and frankly, I was a little hesitant to read the next novels. I mean come on, the original Mistborn trilogy is a great work of fantasy writing. Well, no more hesitation - "Alloy of Law" was thoroughly enjoyable and I am surely up for the rest of the ride!

“The fact that most people are decent does not make their decency any less valuable to society.”

Book Review of "The Guest List"

Ok, sorry, but no! This was a snoozefest. I consider myself a fan of the ‘whodunit’ genre and of course I don’t expect every ‘whodunit’ story to be the next “And Then There Were None” caliber, but “The Guest List” just didn’t work for me. 

The first 20-25% of the book was engaging, the setting was sufficiently creepy, the characters just the right amount of quirky, but my interest started to wane as the plot took forever to get going, the characters and the story slowly became too campy. And don’t even get me started on the coincidences! Even a cheesy, sugary 90s romcom has fewer coincidences than this story. 

Maybe it is me. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone in with high expectations based on the reviews and I shouldn’t have been expecting the next “Gone Girl”. There’s definitely some good stuff here (and for sure a ‘racy’ low-budget Hollywood movie in near future). But if you want to dive in, then do so with lowered expectations - you have been warned.

Book Review of "Flash Boys"

“Every systemic market injustice arose from some loophole in a regulation created to correct some prior injustice.”

Being a fan of Michale Lewis’s past work, mainly “The Big Short” and “Moneyball”, I had super high expectations from the “Flash Boys” - a book about anything and everything HFT (High Frequency Trading). Unfortunately, though, the book is simply put - just all over the place.

It starts out taking a technical look at the fascinating world of High Frequency Trading but then stops short from getting into the real meat of the details and prefers to just be handwavy about it. It then embarks into portraying backstories and motivations of some of its characters (which are, by the way, all real people from the world of HFT) but then suddenly changes gears to go back to talking about HFT. I think the book has a serious identity crisis - it wants to be technical about HFT but not really, it wants to paint interesting character portraits but then prefers not to do it to completion.

Despite all of this, it’s an engaging read. On one hand, the sheer technological feat of running HFT at scale is fascinating but on the other hand, the monumentally immoral way in which it is being used - leaves one speechless. The “Flash Boys” gives an excellent peek into the inner workings of a stock exchange and interesting details around the IEX vs NYSE vs Nasdaq spiel. A fair 3.5/5 from me.