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Archita Mitra

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Archita is Currently Reading

Archita Mitra is currently reading

The Begum and the Dastan

by Tarana Husain Khan

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in January 2022

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Archita Mitra said: " |4.5 stars|

A masterful piece of feminist historical fiction, a genre much ignored by Indian authors, that is well-researched and evocative. Many stories of our past survive only in the oral history of families, especially stories from the zenana or w ...more "

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(page 248 of 280)
— Jan 23, 2022 01:18PM

Jan 23, 2022 10:54PM · see review

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1)

by J.K. Rowling

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Apr 22, 2026 11:49PM

Archita Mitra is currently reading

Manacled

by SenLinYu (Goodreads Author)

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read in September 2025

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Archita Mitra said: " The chokehold this book had on me...I think I did nothing for an entire weekend except suffer with Draco and Hermione.

"She could almost feel the edges of herself crumbling and breaking. Dissolving into ether. There was almost nothing left of her
The chokehold this book had on me...I think I did nothing for an entire weekend except suffer with Draco and Hermione.

"She could almost feel the edges of herself crumbling and breaking. Dissolving into ether. There was almost nothing left of her but hurting."
It has been three days before I even felt capable of putting down all my thoughts about this book down into a somewhat cohesive review. The book has ended but I am still lingering on the last words, "She was a non-active member of the Order of the Phoenix and did not fight." .
At the outset, let me start off by saying, this book is NOT a romance, by any definition of the term. What it is is a very dark exploration of war and the cost of war. Draco and Hermione as a pairing was never my favourite, and that remains unchanged after reading this book.
I, however, was riveted by how good the world-building is by Sen Lin Yu, and look forward to picking this story again, when it is published as an original piece of work, titled 'Alchemised'.

"What is it you think you're protecting in that brain of yours? You lost the war."

The story begins sixteen months after the Battle of Hogwarts, where Harry Potter was killed by Voldemort, and the Wizarding World was thrust into a dark reign of terror under Voldemort and his right-hand Death Eater - the ruthless High Reeve.

While most of her friends were killed during or immediately after the war, Hermione Granger was imprisoned and (due to a mistake in paperwork) forgotten. After she is finally dragged up from her jailcell in the dungeons under Hogwarts, the Death Eaters realise she has lost her memory about most of the last year leading up to and after the Battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort is worried that Hermione intentionally chose to hide parts of her brain in order to protect the remaining members of the Resistance, and will go to any length to retrieve those memories.
In the aftermath of the war, fertility rates among the pure blood witches have plummeted, and Voldemort decides to use the witches of the Resistance, now imprisoned, as 'surrogates' for high-ranking Death Eaters. Hermione, the best friend of Harry Potter and potential carrier of the Order's last secrets, is assigned to the High Reeve himself. And she is shocked to discover that the High Reeve is none other that her old classmate, Draco Malfoy.
If an assasin's blade were made into a man, it would take the form of Draco Malfoy...Beautiful and damned. A fallen angel. Or perhaps, the Angel of Death."
The High Reeve aka Draco, is infamous among the Death Eaters. After killing Dumbeldore he steadily rose through the ranks to become a trusted general, and has killed many members of the Order.

"Some people deserve to die," she said coldly. "And the ones who didn't - you killed them anyway."

The first part of the book is very hard to read and contains many graphic scenes of torture. Hermione is repulsed by Draco, and loathes being imprisoned at his manor. Despite her smartness and bravery, Hermione is unable to escape Malfoy. She is forced to wear manacles that suppress her magic, and he regularly reads her mind to learn all her plans.
Hermione is barely a shadow of her old self. Filled with survivor's guilt and tremendous grief, she mourns her friends and the fall of the Good. Her long imprisonment and subsequent torture has also left her with a lot of trauma and anxiety. She struggles to not give in to despair.

Amidst all this darkness it surprises Hermione to realise that the only person she even remotely trusts is her cruel jailer, Draco. She soon realises that despite all his bluster and outright cruelty, Draco hates hurting Hermione, and tries to find tiny ways to look out for her wellbeing. At this point, I have to give major kudos to the writer for not romanticizing Draco and Hermione's relationship as anything beyond Stockholm Syndrome at this point. He is her captor, and she is his unwilling victim.

"Oh Granger, if I had know what pain you would cause me, I never would have taken you."
The second part of the book delves into a flashback a year before the Battle of Hogwarts and is concerned primarily with the memories that Hermione had forcibly hidden in her mind. A year before the war ended -Draco had turned double agent for the Order to bring Voldemort down from within his ranks and Hermione was his handler.
This is my favourite part of the book, and could honestly have been an entire book in itself.
Sen Lin Yu draws upon our beloved characters from the Harry Potter universe, and spins a beautiful alternate universe that is haunting because of how probable it is. If Dumbledore had not meticulously planned Voldemort's defeat, and trained Harry, the Order would have struggled to defeat the Dark Lord.
"Dark magic was responsible for robbing him of his parents, Sirius, Dumbeldore, Dolin. They had all been stolen away by the dark arts. That Hermione's solution was to fight like with like was unthinkable to Harry.
Harry was determined: they weren't going to be killers. The Order wasn't going to be like that. Love had defeated the killing curse before. It would defeat Voldemort.
The war is exacting for Hermione.
After Dumbeldore's assasination she trains herself to become an accomplished healer. While Harry and the other members of Dumbeldore's Army fight thrilling duels with Death Eaters, Hermione is in the hospital ward fighting - and frequently failing - to save her friends. The war turns her into a cynic, and she is among the few who first recognises a reality most of her friends are oblivious to - the Order is losing the war . She wants the Order of the Phoenix to start using lethal curses in self defence, but is voted down because Harry Potter believes that killing another human being is never justified. Hermione is akin to a cursed Cassandra figure in the Order meetings, arguing in favour of a more stringent war strategy, but no one takes her warnings seriously. She watches helplessly as her predictions come true, and the Order is unable to gain ground in the war. Her constant doomsaying isolates her from her friends.

"Making hard choices - someone has to do it. Someone has to suffer. I'm willing to. I can bear it."

There is little that Hermione won't do to save her friends, including bartering herself to Draco Malfoy. However, Draco is not what Hermione expected him to be. In many ways, he is as lonely and trapped as Hermione feels, and tentatively the two become friends.

"You are like a rose in a graveyard. I wonder what you could have turned into without the war."
The final part builds up to a tragic and bittersweet climax as our two main protagonists fight to forgive each other for their betrayal, and also fight to keep each other alive.

"She had thought she could do anything. She thought there would be no limits to what she would be willing to do to save Harry—to save everyone. That she would be able to bear with the consequences for long enough to reach the end.

Apparently, Draco had become her limit.

"Just live, Hermione.” His voice was shaking. “That's all I am asking you to do for me.”

Hermione gave a low sob. “I cannot promise that. You know I cannot promise that.”

Survival is the primary goal, but survival without each other is intolerable. A life together is impossible.
"I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I'm so tired of not getting to choose you."

One thing this book did do was give me a newfound appreciation for Slytherin House. While in the canon they come across as evil bullies, this book portrays Slytherins more as cunning and strategic. And in the real world, pragmatic strategy wins over bullish stubbornness and reckless bravado that Gryfindors have.
Ultimately, the difference between them is that Draco would happily burn the whole world down to save Hermione, but Hermione would gladly sacrifice herself to save the world. It is a rather irreconcilable difference.
In conclusion, this wrecked my heart. No one will escape this Wizarding War without permanent scars - not the characters, and also not the reader.
"There are undoubtedly still unexplored depths to the potential misery between us. Should we endeavour to achieve all of it?"
...more "

Oct 08, 2025 02:14PM · see review

See all 9 books that Archita is reading…

Archita’s Notes & Highlights

Mother Dear by Nova Lee Maier

2 notes & 6 highlights

There was no sound more reassuring than the thud of their heavy wooden gate.

What a simple line but it evokes such a beautiful picture of care and worry.

See Archita Mitra’s 5 books with notes and highlights…

Archita’s Quotes

“Simon Snow, it hurts to look at you when you’re this happy. And it hurts to look at you when you’re depressed. There’s no safe time for me to see you, nothing about you that doesn’t tear my heart from my chest and leave it breakable outside my body.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Wayward Son

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“There’s a low-level, specific pain in having to accept that putting up with you requires a certain generosity of spirit in your loved ones.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility

110 likes

“Vasiyat Mir ne mujh ko yehi ki
Ki sab kuchh hona tu, aashiq na hona.”
― Ralph Russell, A Thousand Yearnings: A book of Urdu Poetry and Prose

tags: ghazals, love-poetry, mir, urdu

0 likes

“Mom always says,
"You'd be so pretty"
- and all the big girls in the world
can finish this sentence in unison -
"if you lost weight.”
― lisa fipps, Starfish

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“Stay here. I can stay here. You go. Run.”
“Really.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. If that’s what you want. I mean, I could probably die or something, but you do you.”
He jerked his head up as he growled. “Die?”
I nodded solemnly. “Might trip over a tree root and break my neck. Or Ox could jump on me and crush my liver. Who the fuck knows?”
“Stupid Carter,” Gavin said.
“Stupid Carter,” I agreed.
“Know what you’re doing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. So I’m just gonna go, I guess. Don’t know if I’ll ever come back, seeing as how I might be dead and all. If only there was someone out there who could have my back and—”
He put his hand over my mouth. “Stop talking. You make it worse.” His nostrils flared. “Fine. I’ll go. Stupid Carter always almost dies.”
― T.J. Klune, Brothersong

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