itsy bitsy spyder by apeksha rao
A read has to be really gripping for me to be completing it. I might sound like I’m difficult to please (and that may partly be true in terms of content) but the reality is that I’m actually a slow & poor reader. I gain inspiration from talking to people and hearing their stories in an audio/visual medium more than reading. But when Apeksha Rao’s ” Itsy Bitsy Spyder” reached me, it immediately caught my attention. The word play here is just amazing! SPY-der – why was it spelled as Spyder? I went on to the read the blurb and it intrigued me even more. So here are some details about the book and a review for Itsy Bitsy Spyder written by Apeksha Rao.
What do you do when your mother feels that you don’t trust her?
If you’re Samira Joshi, and your mother is an elite spy who works for RAW, the first thing you do is … hide the knives.
After that, you go straight to the therapist that she has chosen.
For, when your mother knows seventeen different ways to kill a man, you don’t argue with her. Much.
Unless she’s trying to destroy your dreams.
Then, you fight dirty. Like a spy.
Samira is sweet, sassy, and almost seventeen. She dreams of becoming a badass spy like her parents.
And, why not?
That’s exactly what her parents have trained her to be.
So, why is her mother suddenly acting like a typical Indian mom and pushing her to be a doctor?
Samira can swear on her stack of covert operative manuals that it has something to with her mother’s last mission.
Her therapist disagrees. She feels the key to the mystery lies in Samira’s childhood.
Between her mother’s drama, a trouble-making grandmother, and a confused therapist, Samira’s life is spinning out of control.
What’s a good spy to do when her dreams are in danger?
Apeksha Rao is a homoeopath by profession, and a writer by passion. A polyglot, fluent in six languages by the age of five, she fell in love with words very early in life. She wrote her first story at the age of seven, and her stories and plays won many accolades in school and college. She is also an amateur sitar player.
A Mumbaikar, born and bred, Apeksha comes from a family of doctors. At the ripe age of thirty-four, she wound up her practice and moved to Bengaluru, and as she explored her new city, she was inspired to start a food blog, in addition to her already-popular fiction blog.
Apeksha has been lauded for her taut and gripping stories that always come with a twist at the end.
(Author details taken from her Amazon page)
The book is 61 Pages Long
The Itsy Bitsy Spyder is available in the ebook format
It is a prequel to the already released “Along Came a Spyder”
The book starts with a young girl, Samira seated in the office of a Psychiatrist who she has a hard time trusting. The book immediately transports you into the head of a teen. You are almost eye-rolling, scoffing, and deep seating in your seat with Samira!
It is only in the 3rd chapter that you realize what the discussions have been about and why did it matter.
For me, reading that long to know the crux was a bit.
There’s too much building up of characters, and I’d been happier if it was more precise or cut short.
However, wordplay and scenario creation by her words is a gift Apeksha Has! The story is full of witty liners, clear characterization, and going back in memory lane to understand several aspects.
Again, the to and fro between the flashback and present times had me confused on a few occasions.
Itsy Bitsy Spyder keeps you hooked through and through. It builds beautiful scenarios in your head as the story goes and you can see how a little one is that skilled and well trained. The lead character of Itsy Bitsy Spyder, Samira, is definitely a prodigy and a skilled woman.
The story is an interaction between 3 women most of the time – Samira the teen and aspiring spy, her mother, and her aaji. All 3 women are powerful and strong-headed women characters. However, to someone who is not familiar with the word aaji, it takes a while to understand who aaji is.
The character portrayal of their father is that of a person who is so dedicated to his job that he is loose with the safety and responsibility of his own child. He is exhibited to not have a very intense connection with his child, even though the mother and child have a phenomenal relationship.
For me, the book left me wanting to know more. There was a recurrent mention of an event that happened in Pakistan that I had no clue about. I expected it to turn up in the upcoming chapters, but for that case, it ended abruptly.
The book is a quick fun read. I found some gaps, but that is also because I did not know it is a prequel. I will read the book “Along Came A Spyder” and try to find answers and links to my book. The book is a refreshing change in the Chick Lit category as it is a fun, sassy, and savage book. All characters are well-etched and the book builds beautiful imagery in your head as you keep reading.
I would rate the book 4.5 out of 5
It is an absolutely fun read and I recommend it!
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