BOOK REVIEW :: Unns – The Captivation

Book: Unns – The Captivation
Author: Sapan Saxena
Publisher: Inspire India Publishers
Release: March 18th 2016
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3/5

Unns, the 2nd stage of love, the stage of infatuation and captivation often makes us fool. In Urdu, there are seven stages of love. Hub (stage of attraction), Unns (stage of infatuation), Ishq (stage of actually falling in love), Aqeedat (stage of respect), Ibadat (stage of worship), Junoon (stage of obsession), and Maut (stage of death). I think I have lived all the first four stages of love and after reading this novel I am really glad that I have never reached any of the last three stages.

Atharva Rathod and Meher Qasim paid high prices at different stages of their lives for love. They were once high-school sweethearts. Meher being the ambitious one and obedient daughter of her parents, ended the relationship even before they could realize at which stage of the love they were. Heartbroken Atharva tried to move on for next 15 years and became a successful senior agent of RAW, the primary foreign intelligence agency of India. 15 years later they met again in Germany while Atharva was leading an important mission and Atharva’s life turned upside down. Was it a coincidence or planned?

They met again after 12 years, this time in the suburbs of Belmont. While they faced each other again, they had to face their own demons, emotions, and weaknesses for the finality. What happens at the end readers should find out. I recommend it for young adults.

Frankly speaking, I was never so confused about deciding whether I really liked or disliked a novel before. I liked the plot, the characters, and the narration. But still, there were a lot of things I didn’t like at all. The story could have been a brilliant thriller but fails miserably. Following are the points which ruined my experience of reading a good book.

1. Text needs lots of editing. The grammar mistakes are really annoying.
2. It was really difficult to keep track of the abrupt transitions between past, present and different time periods in the same chapters.
3. A trained RAW agent can’t be such careless or naive to give access to his laptop which contains such secret and crucial information of the country’s security to anyone else.
4. What Atharva was trying to find out for months, was found by others within few hours after the mission fails. That is absurd.
5. It was actually Dev’s idea to involve Meher in the mission. But he never takes the responsibility when the mission fails. Why?

The book cover, binding, and paper quality are really good.

“I received a copy from Writersmelon in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.”

BOOK REVIEW :: Think with me by ‘Saharasri’ Subrata Roy Sahara

Book: Think with Me
Author: ‘Saharasri’ Subrata Roy Sahara
Publisher: Rupa Publications India
Release: 10 November 2016
Genre: Non-Fiction
Rating: 3/5

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“Think with Me – Fundamentals for making our country ideal” is Subrata Roy‘s second book of the “Thoughts from Tihar” trilogy. The book is divided into 5 topics – Electoral System & Leadership, Population, Education System, Media, and Religion. The writer elaborated on the problems we Indians are facing at present and tried to give some solutions for those problems in this book.

I agreed on the points writer raised on Electoral System and Leadership. A narrow minded person can never make a good leader. And our current electoral system helps flourish corruption and corrupted people. He repeatedly mentions about the five categories of emotional sphere, “I“, “My“, “We“, “We All“, and “Us“. He even offered to guide the system if the authority (ever) agrees to implement the solutions he suggested.

I found his opinion on poor population is outright insensitive where he mentioned poor people are responsible for the degeneration of merits and qualifications of India’s entire population. We all know for a fact that lavish upbringing doesn’t ensure someone’s intelligence or make him a good human being. Same way being poor doesn’t mean they can’t be a skilled professional or a good human being or have the emotional sphere of “Us”. No one can deny that our country always depended on efforts and hard works of our poor population. We had great leaders, writers, poets, players, artists, activists, businessmen who belonged to poor families. Most of our security personnel come from poor background and that doesn’t stop them from being brave or skilled fighters. I would like if the writer reconsiders his view on this topic.

The chapter on our Education System is well thought and his solutions are interesting. I will leave it for the readers to find out.

Where I completely agreed with the writer was the chapter of Media. The role of the media houses on nation building is huge. But our media is doing just the opposite these days. He suggested which actions should be taken to stop irresponsible journalism. In my opinion they could be really effective if applied.

Religion has an unavoidable impact on human lives. Our country’s political motto is “Unity in Diversity”. To maintain that, we all need to put extra efforts and keep a peaceful approach to solve the problems sometimes arise due to communal tensions. Otherwise a civil war or riot can break out and destroy our country anytime.

This is the first and only book from the trilogy I have read. It takes longer time for me to read a non-fiction as I give more time to understand the writer’s perspective. One needs to keep in mind that this book contains writer’s own opinion. The solutions he offered not all of them are practical and agreeable. But overall it is a good read.

“I received a copy from Writersmelon in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.”

BOOK REVIEW :: A Walk in the Rain by Udai Yadla

Book: A Walk in the Rain
Author: Udai Yadla
Publisher: Kyron Publications
Release: 2016
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3/5

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Sunny was a timid, lonely boy before Sandy came into his life. Sandy changed Sunny’s lonely friendless, gloomy life into a bright sunshine. Two innocent 5th standard classmates soon became inseparable and found love and solace in each other. After few years Sandy disappeared from his life without a trace. Sunny had endured a lot of grief in his life but losing Sandy was the worst of them all. He never healed and went back to his solitude and grew up to be an extremely introvert and misogynist. His heart was connected to Sandy’s with the “thread of love”.

Sunny was still deeply in love with Sandy when his only friend Imran planned to give a surprise birthday gift to him. Imran wanted Sunny to forget Sandy and start a new life. That night Sunny met Saloni and his life changed again. They instantly started hating each other. Sunny hated Saloni for being a prostitute. Saloni hated him for being a rude and insensitive person. That night Imran was brutally murdered by a pimp named Hari while trying to save Sunny from a mob. Saloni was the only hope for Sunny to find Hari and take the revenge. In exchange of money Saloni agreed to help Sunny and they set for a dangerous journey. Was Sunny walking into a trap laid by Saloni? Did they overcome their hatreds and become friends or they turned out to be enemies? Would Sunny be able to fall in love again? What happens to them finally is up to the reader to find out.

The book talks about a very serious issue. Our mindset and social conditioning makes us hate and judge prostitutes irrespective of their reasons to choose such profession. We hardly ever question or judge the customers or the society these prostitutes serve, willingly or unwillingly. The story shows us why and how women are forced to accept such degrading life. Some of them are yet very much able to retain their self-respect and grace.

The characteristics of Sunny reminded me of a girl from my class in college. She would keep to all by herself and hardly talk to anyone. She would look uninterested in everything around her. She wouldn’t make any friends. I even heard she once tried to commit suicide. Fortunately Sunny never did so. Sandy’s memory kept him somewhat happy and alive.

The action scenes seemed very much like a Bollywood movie but I must say they were the added spices for me. Even though there are many grammatical mistakes and some sentences sounded really odd, I found the story rather interesting. This was Udai Yadla’s first book so I wasn’t expecting it to be perfect. The style of narration is good. It is a light read actually. I finished it in one sitting.

Rain plays a very important role in this story. I myself love rain so much. So does Sandy and Sunny. The descriptions of them playing in the rain reminded me of my childhood. After finishing the story the cover makes lot of sense now.
 

“I received a copy from Writersmelon in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.”

BOOK REVIEW :: Finding Juliet by Toffee

Book: Finding Juliet
Author: Toffee
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors
Release: 14th December 2016
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3/5

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Our Romeo, Arjun, in his roller coaster journey of finding the love of his life, learns the most valuable lesson : Mind-game is the most favorite game of adults. To escape from becoming the victim of love one needs to know the rules of mind games. The story reminded me of those days when I and my friends were learning our lessons in hard ways. The days of confusions, whether to show more love or to hide, whether to open up and share or to stay distant, the heart breaks, the sleepless nights, tears and then finally moving on. We all had our share of pain.

Arjun is a clueless (about love) boy who believes in true love and waits for the cupid to do the magic at the right time though he doesn’t understand women or girls at all. He stereotypes girls in his mind at every step of his life. Then he falls in love, not once but thrice, following every rule of love available in the rule book of losers (we all felt like that at some point of our lives). After rejection he even tries his best to remain friends with them. But eventually he loses all of them. Filmy, yes. But very much relatable.

Even after all these ups and downs he manages to score good marks and gets enviable job. Already lost trust in love Arjun had to face a horrible and tragic incident which changes the course of his life. Anyone else would have lost hope in life and become mentally unstable after that but fortunately he has a very special friend who supports him in every phase of failures and heartbreaks without ever judging him. Anjali, his childhood friend, doesn’t even blink before rushing to help him or to be by his side.

Then he meets Krish, the loveguru, and gets a crash course on women, love, lust and  life. He turns into a Casanova to the point of loathing himself. But still couldn’t find the peace of his mind. Then finally he realizes what does he want from his life. As every film ends, the story of our Romeo also ends with a happy note and he finds his love.

The book is suitable for young adults who loves erotica. The narration is too informal and tries to tell us about a lot of things in very short time. I couldn’t feel emotionally attached to any of the characters. Most of the characters are one dimensional and failed to catch my attention.

The cover is catchy. I liked it.

PS. : I have one question which is still puzzling me.
1. How was Arjun rescued from his flat in Hyderabad you-know-when (can’t give spoiler)?

PPS.: The stereotypes about girls in every page made me feel so annoyed that I have actually counted them consciously and it was 42 times!

‘I received a copy from Writersmelon in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.’

Book Review :: My Father Is A Hero by Nishant Kaushik

Book: My Father Is A Hero
Author: Nishant Kaushik
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors
Release: 15th January 2016
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3/5

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The novel My Father is a Hero is based on father – daughter relationship. Vaibhav is a single parent and Nisha is his 10 yrs old daughter. The book is an easy and quick read. Vaibhav is a caring and sensitive father and goes to any length to fulfill his daughter’s dreams and happiness. Making sacrifices at personal level to accommodate his daughter’s needs is his daily routine.

Nisha is a brilliant girl and a class topper with a talent of becoming a famous singer in future who already won inter-class singing contest for three years in a row. She idolizes the famous singer, songwriter, and actress Rihanna. Father-Daughter duo’s lives were apparently settled and somewhat happy along with the struggles just like any normal family until the day of Nisha’s 11th birthday and something changes Nisha for worse. To bring her back to normal life Vaibhav plans something which is simply craziest for a person like him. With already so much financial burden he goes out of his way to fulfill Nisha’s biggest dream.

Now my take on the story.
The good part of the story is how Vaibhav treats his daughter with compassion and sensitivity. Never losing patience with a child even though he is so much stressed and frustrated with his professional life and colleagues is a great trait. Being a single parent is a challenge itself. He plays his part as a parent very well and yet there is a generation gap which is very normal. The way he prioritizes his daughter and the daughter is so well aware of his sacrifices leaves a good feeling about Father-Daughter relationship.

Nisha and her friends never sound like 10 years. Generally to be a sixth grader one needs to be atleast 12 years old. As much as I know International schools provide lunch and snacks to their students so Vaibhav and Nisha eating lunch together or Vaibhab preparing for lunch everyday or giving her lunch money felt a bit odd. No school allows their students to get inside school with colored hairs. The story is too simple and very much predictable apart from the trip planned at the end. And the last part is just far-fetched and dramatic in my opinion.

The cover also looks too simple and plain. Being a graphic designer myself I am very critical about book covers. Hope they change the cover in their next editions.

‘I received a copy from Writersmelon in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.’

Book Review :: Someone to Love by Ruchita Misra

Author: Ruchita Misra
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release: January 2017
Genre: Fiction / Romance
Rating: 3/5

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‘Someone To Love’ is my first novel I read by this author. The author switches us smoothly from past to present and keep us engaged successfully through the story. The story is about Koyal and Atharv, the childhood soulmates, one mature and calm  and the other one short-tempered whenever someone else tries to come between them or says anything bad about the other. They have a strange connection too. Whenever Koyal is in distress Atharv knows it even if they are miles apart. One must be very fortunate to have a connection at such level with someone. But their luck don’t last. Someone else comes between them and everything changes. Miscommunication, misunderstanding, hatred, broken trust and unspoken words change their course of lives.

Some lessons from the story are :

1. No relationship should be taken for granted and when in love express it loud and clear. Subtlety is fine but that can cost us a lot of regret when it comes to loving someone.
2. Don’t make your career choices based on your love life or loved one. True love is going to remain by your side without making you sacrifices.
3. When you are disappointed with someone or feel betrayed confront the person in question.
4. Never get married out of hatred as you might never get a second chance.

The part which I liked about this novel is the way it showed the struggle of a victim of domestic violence. To quote the author “From the outside, looking in, you can never understand it. From the inside, looking out, you can never explain it.” Lack of education, financial independence, emotional strength, self-confidence and support-system are the reasons why so many women suffers life long. But if someone is determined to overcome all the odds there is nothing and no one can stop them.

The second point which I liked is that I had to go back to the ‘Prologue’ page few times as the suspense uncovered and I realized I got it wrong at the beginning. This was an interesting way of telling the story I must say. You need to read it to know it.

I must confess that I found the second part of the story so much predictable and reminded me of some bollywood movies. Was expecting better turns of events. There are some technical glitches too regarding the ages of the protagonists. If 10 years is the count from the time they drifted apart to the time they reintroduced to each other then they should be aged around 31/32, not 38/39. To become a neurosurgeon it takes 14 years or longer. So all the math doesn’t quite add up. Hope these will be corrected in next edition.

‘I received a copy from Writersmelon in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.’

About the Author
Ruchita Misra is a three-time gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi and the author of the bestselling books Second Chance at Love, The (In)eligible Bachelors, for which she was awarded the Awadh Samman in 2012 and Can This Be Love?. She works in London and blogs at smilethesmile.blogspot.com