Amina Thajudeen Book Review, non-fiction, Self-Help

Kick Off Bad Habits: 2020 by D.K. Hunter|Book Review

ebook (2)Your habits define you as a person and they are responsible for all the things that you have and do not have in your life right now. It is not going to be an easy journey as breaking habits you have had for a long time is going to be tough. Getting rid of your bad habits will totally liberate you. It is a great feeling to change something that has been holding you back for a long time. Forming new empowering habits will also be a great experience for you and will make you feel confident about the future. With this book, you will learn how habits work and how they are formed. You will also learn:

1. The 3 R’s neurological loop and the time that it takes to make changes to habits
2. To break those bad habits which are not supporting the life that you want and form new habits that will empower you to make a positive change
3. How you can change your life for the better with the power of habits how you can reinforce new habits and much more!

Pages:40

Genre: Self-help

My review

Kick off bad habits is an A-Z guide for breaking bad habits and forming sustainable new habits. Habits define who we are. We all are the summation of tiny habits that we are performing every day, consciously or subconsciously. Either we are addicted or not willing to change these bad habits. We lack the will power to break these habits. But there is always a solution for everything. The best strategy to achieve this difficult task is to understand everything about habits. How they are formed, what are its root causes, how we are addicted to them, why we hesitate to let them go. Through this book, I got all the answers. The in-depth analysis of habits was a good learning experience.

The author moves on to break these bad habits only after he explains the cycle behind habit-forming. The techniques adopted in this book for breaking bad habits are scientifically proven 3R’s neurological loop method. The book also devises a plan to understand and control our habit transition phase. The book concludes with some best practices and new habits that we all should develop for optimizing our potential. This short book covers everything on this topic. This is a good guide for anyone who is planning to bring some changes to their everyday life.

Rating:5/5

Purchase here: Amazon.IN https://amzn.to/2G3aTzU

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, Erotic fiction, Fiction, short story

The Unexpected by Avril Sellin|Book review

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Two strangers in the night are joined by audacity and danger.

On a dark, deserted beach in Los Angeles, a wealthy man in an Armani suit and sleek Bugatti is approached by a wandering twenty-something woman in tattered leather. She boldly interrupts his brooding, refusing to leave as he urges her to move on. In an effort to get rid of her, he promises to take her where she needs to go.

However, a trip intended to be quick ends up turning the night into something out of a nightmare, and the two strangers become linked by an unexpected bond.

My review

The Unexpected is the tale of two strangers. They are drawn into each other’s company by some unexpected circumstances. Garret, a wealthy businessman who was brooding in a deserted beach is approached by Rhea, a homeless twenty-year-old girl, rather fearlessly. He tries to get rid of her but some unexpected turn of events pushes them to spend more time together than they thought. One thing leads to another and they are now all set to start a road trip. But both these characters have their reasons to justify these situations. They have their justifications. Both of them are escaping from some mysterious past. They are met in the way of escape. They are connected by a mysterious bond.

The author carefully builds up a dark mystery on both characters. Both of them are in pain. The pain that they are trying to escape rather than facing them. The story doesn’t give any hint about the character’s background. This makes the plot even more mysterious. The story has much potential to develop into a thriller or horror considering the various events that took place in the plot.
Overall it is a very engaging short read which leaves you with questions at the end.

Rating:5/5

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, non-fiction, Self-Help

Say So by Marian Hanna MPH| Book review

415soOjdMCLDelving into loss, empowerment, and despair, this is a unique, page-turning art of nonfiction with real-life stories. This is a compilation of gorgeously written stories about daring to be more, transcending expectations, and generating opportunities for yourself when doors are being slammed in your face. This book will provide the road back to yourself when you’re lost and teach you how to stop doubting the greatness in yourself and act with love, as the absence of love is fear. This is an honest, blunt, sassy, unapologetic and raw account of life-changing insights of hope, faith, and personal transformation.

As the reader discovers the depths of courage in vulnerability, you learn along with her that in forgiving your past and moving toward your truest selves, you will flourish in the chaos of life.

My review

Say so is a collection of stories about real-life experience and the lessons learned from it. The author has narrated a piece from her own life through simple words. The author never tries to sugar-coat the harsh realities. She put down the raw face of real-life realities as it is. This helps to take responsibility for our actions. This encourages us to create our opportunity and carve our life in our terms.

The author includes her personal stories to convey each lesson. Why she included her personal stories in the book is explained in the first chapter itself. It is a powerful medium to connect with our audience. Because the author herself has gone through all these difficult situations and realized her faults. She talks about her life lessons. This helps the readers to connect with the lessons.

The author has dedicated more than 50% of the book to only one topic: how to understand and manage fear. For me, all the chapters dealing with fear was empowering. They help to understand myself and my flaws. Fear creates doubts about our capabilities. This doubt hinders us from reaching our goal. To be courageous is no small feat. We often find us in our shell of comfort. These lessons teach us to be more courageous. Just like the saying, everything you want is on the other side of fear.

The rest of the chapters talks about some other great points, such as facing criticism. We never want to hear criticism. We hate it. Because it shows our vulnerability, our flaws. But if and only if, we can accept our flaws then only we grow ourselves and use it for our advantage.

Altogether, this book was a great learning experience for me to understand and renovate myself to face more challenges.

Rating:5/5

 

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, Fantacy, Fiction, Poems, poetry, Self-Help, Young-Adult

No Damsel by Marian Hanna MPH|Book review

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No Damsel is a eulogy to the beauties with curly hair and a song of praise to the naturally confident woman who wades through life, armed with her true sense of self as she paves the way for her successes.

Hanna carries carefully weaved words that captures the strength of women who confidently make their demands, and get served by life without fear or favor.

A woman’s strength is a virtue that is scarcely understood, and this strength is central to the ideas captured in No Damsel.
Sadly, the only response they have for their fear of strength is resorting to labels and hasty generalizations. They call strong and vibrant women – bitter feminists. These labels can never dampen down the strength of women, they only lend more credence to women’s voices and demands of equality and equity.

My review

All the writings from Hanna has one common quality, she advocates for unity in diversity. She writes for breaking barriers and preaches to stay true to oneself. Her writings, empower the readers none like others. The carefully chosen words convey the underlying idealogy beautifully. It was a great pleasure to witness this creativity of conveying ideas, only through very few words.
“No Damsel” basically encourages you to rise above your inferiority mindset. It is about empowering yourself to maximize your potential. The author sees all the women as one. She uses the power of sisterhood. Not to believe everything you hear, but to find out everything your own. That’s how we develop our personality and bring ourselves to a step closer to equality.

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, Fiction, Poems, poetry, Self-Help, Young-Adult

Coiled by Marian Hanna MPH|Book review

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People often confuse self-confidence to mean pride and vice versa but, the truth is pride and self-confidence are poles apart. The difference between pride and self-confidence is made clear in Coiled.

While self-confidence helps you to understand your strengths and makes you aware of your truth, pride is a brash covering for inadequacies; it never lasts. Self-confident people don’t need to brag about their strengths before you will notice their strengths, as they are conspicuous and accommodating.

The difference is crystal clear for all to see, like the ravishing beauty of a girl with curly hair that twirls. Hearts melt when the sun emblazons its natural light on their coils of confident people, but they are never one to make noise about their beauty because they know that loud talk never validates their beauty.

My view

Coiled is the celebration of curly hair! I came across this topic for the very first time. I have read many writings about breaking gender biases and stereotypes. But this author has chosen a very different topic to address these issues, curly hairs. This beautifully written poems are about celebrating the differences and ethnicities by accepting them. Although the poems gave importance to curly hairs, it also carefully acknowledges all others. This is the underlying message that every reader should accept from this book.

I have read Curse of curls from the same author before. So I felt that this is the continuation of that book. Here the author gave emphasize on developing self-confidence and mutual love. This message is presented through the close-knit bond of sisterhood and friendship, addressing little girls. As always the illustrations also contribute to the beauty of the book.

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, Fantacy, Fiction, Poems, poetry, Self-Help

Curse of Curls by Marian Hanna MPH|Book review

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Curse of Curls is a probing piece that mirrors the inherent biases in our diverse world and rightly deciphers them.

Using curly hair as a symbol, Hanna understands the prevalence of stereotypes, which constantly dislodge the truth and forms our judgment of what is right or wrong.

Curse of Curls asks vital questions such as – Why are we naturally averse to something we do not know? Why do we deny ourselves the chance to learn, grow, and embrace new perspectives? Why can’t we embrace other outlooks to life? Why must one be looked down with disdain for the other to be rated highly?

My view

Curse of Curls addresses one of the most important issues of modern society, stereotypes. Judgment and body shaming is one of the most prevalent virus in our society. Instead of accepting the diversity, we have made a class difference with them. This narrow mentality is the root cause of every problem in the world. The author is trying to preach about the essentiality of a broader mindset that accepts everyone by acknowledging their difference. The best example that the author has been chosen to express this issue is the biases towards curly hairs. The author presents both sides of the story addressing the little girls who are prone to these stereotypes from an early age.

This beautifully written writing piece talks about empowerment through embracing our differences. Through addressing children’s the author is trying to eradicate these stereotypes from its roots. Apart from the writing, I also liked the illustrations included in the book.

Rating 5/5

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, Fiction, Young-Adult

Takari’s Missing Bearcub (Takari & Little Sparrow Children’s Book Series 2) by Randa handler|Review

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Takari, a Japanese American eight year old girl and her best friend, Little Sparrow, a Native American boy learn how to protect wildlife and the environment, and how to lessen their footprints while protecting, Mama Bear and her two cubs, whose habitat is being threatened by logging.

My review

The adventures of Takari and her best friend Little Sparrow continues in this book. This time they are trying to save a bear habitat. Takari and Little Sparrow spotted a Mamma bear and two bear cubs not too far from their home. But their habitat is getting gradually destroyed by logging. The bear and cubs are forced to change their habitat twice. In the chaos, one of the bear cub was separated from the family. Takari and Little Sparrow are trying to find this missing bear cub and put efforts to rejoin it to its family. Takari also put forward an initiative to protect bear habitat by reaching out to her friend circle and making them call to Mayor’s office.

This story teaches children many timely messages. First and foremost, the importance of environmental protection. It also acknowledges the loss of livelihood when certain environmental protection rules are enacted. The story teaches the importance of maintaining equilibrium for exploiting natural resources and to recycle them as much as possible. It also encourages kids to raise their voice collectively for bringing change. This is an important lesson for shaping their personality in later years.

Rating:5/5

 

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, Fiction, Young-Adult

Flag Day Camping (Takari and Little Sparrow Book 1) Kindle Edition by Randa handler|Review

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Takari, a Japanese American eight year old girl and her best friend, Little Sparrow, a Native American boy go camping, embrace each other’s differences while learning about Flag Day, flag folding and why we need to follow rules even though we’re free.

My review

Flag Day camping by Randa Handler is a beautifully illustrated book that emphasizes education and friendship. Takari and Little Sparrow are best friends from day 1 of their school. They are going camping on Flag Day. The story beautifully conveys the importance of freedom and why we have to respect the hard-earned freedom. The story also talks about the inclusion of various ethnicities and why we have to stand together amidst diversity. However, the main message from the story is, although we respect our freedom, it is also important to obey certain rules to sustain and enjoy that freedom. Accountability is essential for maintaining everyone’s freedom. This little book has expressed these invaluable insights through this adorable story.

Rating:5/5

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, non-fiction

ORGANIC NOMENCLATURE: SIMPLIFIED.: IUPAC System Made-Easy by Anthony O. Nwobosi|Review

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Title: ORGANIC NOMENCLATURE: SIMPLIFIED.: IUPAC System Made-Easy Book (Organic Chemistry 1) 

Author: Anthony O. Nwobosi

Pages: 109

Organic nomenclature is the foundation of organic chemistry. If the foundation is strong, then you can build a fortress very quickly. Although my favourite subject in school was chemistry, I always struggled with many sections of organic chemistry. It is because of the lack of accurate, simplified and elaborate material in the market. Every time I search for a reference guide in organic chemistry, I ended up in books with incomprehensive information and without any illustrations. But all these difficulties are rectified in this book.

The author has immense knowledge in this field. But what makes this book special is how he chose to present his knowledge through words.

The book has very well structured content. The terminology and basic concepts that need to understand beforehand is explained in the first chapter. This will give a new learner head start. After that, the IUPAC system of nomenclature for Organic compounds are explained. As we progress the learning, all complex nomenclature is neatly explained. Proper exercises are also included at the end of each chapter which is enough to test our knowledge on concepts. The striking feature of this book is the inclusion of a much larger number of illustrated examples. This is a rare and very helpful aspect for all beginners. I would like to see more books in Organic chemistry like this.

Rating:5/5

Purchase here: Amazon.in https://amzn.to/34remCn

Amina Thajudeen Book Review, Fiction, Poems, poetry

The Big Game: Volume 1: Spirituality and Love by Bethany James|Book review

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Title: The Big Game: Spirituality and Love

Author: Bethany James

Pages:119

Genre: Poetry

The Big Game: Spirituality and Love is a short collection of poems by Bethany James. This artistic expression ranges from free verse to rhymed poetries. The author also takes advantage of her creative freedom to experiment with words. This volume is dedicated to poems written on spirituality and love. If I look superficially, I can argue that this is a blend of various emotions. But if we look closely, we can find love and spiritual sense in everything little thing around us. That inner meaning is conveyed through these poems. She appreciates all emotions and every materialistic desire through the words. She is trying to find meaning in everything in and around us.

I have never read a narrative style of poetry involving romance and dessert recipes. For me, those dedicated sections of poems were a new experience. She has mixed dessert recipes with love and bridged through words. Along with that, a section of poems that ends with “I’AM” was also a unique experience. Her rhymed poetry section also has an original and refreshing style.

Overall, this is a must-read for every poetry lovers.

Rating:5/5