Book Review : The Cockatiel Confessions and Other Collected Works by Lavanya Srinivasan
Title: The Cockatiel Confessions and Other Collected Works
Author: Lavanya Srinivasan
Genre: Short Story Collection
About the book:
Do you know why the moon is blue? Or why the cockatiel complains? A poor little rich girl & another girl who likes to gamble away her life credits. A tribal warrior & a time traveller. A celestial journey and a missing damsel.
My Review:
From the time I was a kid, I have loved reading short stories. I think this comes from the fact that all of us started our journey into the world of stories with short stories – the bedtime tales, grandma’s tales and the like. Even though I’ve grown up to reading full-length novels, I always enjoy reading short stories. This short story collection has a dozen stories and each one is different in its own accord. As mentioned in the description of the book, this book takes you on a journey to different lands, times and minds! I must say that Lavanya is blessed with a wonderful imagination and her narration and vivid description of the characters adds that punch that short stories require.
I’ve had a few favourites among the stories in the book. The title story “The Cockatiel confessions” shows daily life from the perspective of a Cockatiel. I loved the twist that the story “Ganpati Bappa Morya” had. “The Switch – He as she and she as he” was an interesting one too. These three are the ones I enjoyed reading the most. Some of the other stories worth mentioning are “The Choice” which has a moral lesson for the kid in the story as well as the reader, “All the apples in the Kingdom and a missing damsel” which brings back memories of the stories you heard as a child and “Do you see me?” .
Though I enjoyed reading most of the stories in this book, I found a few to be lacking the punch that short stories should have. There were a few that I found to be abrupt and felt that they would have been better if they were longer or if they had a twist in the end. I was slightly disappointed because I was expecting something more from this book as I’ve read a few chapters of Lavanya’s book “The God, The Girl and the Gem” and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them for brilliant twists and narration.
But overall, this book is an enjoyable read if you enjoy reading short stories. This is the kind of quick read you’d like to pick up when you have a few minutes to spare or if you are looking for a short read between two long reads.
This book was published as a part of the Blogchatter Ebook Carnival and you can download the book for free from here.
My rating: 3/5
Thanks Reema. I envisioned this book akin to a junk food indulge between full lunch and a dinner. I deliberately kept some of the stories short. Half you enjoyed the book
That was “Glad you enjoyed the book”