Wednesday, May 30, 2018

The Girl I Love - Amit Nangia - Reviewed!

“It didn’t take her long to reach his place. All she had to do was to pull on her comfortable old jeans, wear a top, shove her hairbrush and Mac make-up kit into her handbag, pull out some suitable clothes for work the next day and that’s about it”. Myra, a beautiful thirty-year-old lady in search of a suitable partner to get married and settled but unfortunately she longs to get into Kairav’s arms all the time. Kairav, Myra’s best-friend and boss with the phobia of commitment get into flings and casual relationships with other women despite knowing that he has feelings towards Myra. His casual and flirty nature makes Myra apprehensive of his love and she refrains from confessing her love to him.

As the story progresses, Kairav loses two relationships back to back and seek Myra’s help to get rid of his pain. The story begins when Myra gets a call from Kairav in the wee hours and as she reluctantly pulls her car out and drives down to his apartment Kairav gets drawn to her beauty and he recollects the day they had made out in Shimla very long time back. Kairav’s mind keeps hovering around the same thing repeatedly and his craving to get Myra becomes an obsession. 

He protects Myra from all the other business partners and also tries to keep her away from Akhil, a guy who truly loves Myra and wants to get married to her. Although Myra first confronts Kairav about his behavior towards the other men in her life, she secretly admires his care and concern towards her. Would Kairav’s phobia towards commitment allow him to break al the shackles and unite with Myra or would Myra be left heartbroken and does she gets married to Akhil? Would Kairav ever realize that Myra is the girl he always loved?

Amit has made an effort to describe the characters at their best but at times it becomes too banal. The scenes are repetitive as the plot just occurs in just three places; office, home, and Shimla. Every scene written is attached to the couple making love and it becomes boring. Kairav, being the most eligible bachelor has all the qualities which any woman would desire to have but at times his desperation towards sex makes the character a little off balance. The plot could have been a little gripping and the storyline could have been mature. The writing justifies the genre yet, there could have been more twist in the plot inducing that sensationalism in the readers' mind.


The relationship best-friend has lost its essence in this book because it is more of Friends with benefits relationship which has been described by the author with the title ‘Best Friends’ and this is extremely disappointing.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

My Mute GirlFriend by Himanshu Rai - Reviewed!

“Please Vaidehi, you can’t let me do this sin, please forward your palm and let me touch…one last time” 

Author: Himanshu Rai
Genre: Romance
Rating: 2.5 / 5
Well, after a long time a book made me so emotional. Himanshu Rai has given his best piece of work to his readers I must say. The story is touching and very well woven, it is simple and connected easily as I flipped the pages. I must confess that I finished reading all the 208 pages of the book in 3 hours. It has been quite some time since I got glued to a book like this. It was a fast read and an enjoyable one for sure.
The Cover Page - My Mute Girl Friend by Himanshu Rai

The characters Rohan, Vaidehi, Akash, Rahul, Vineet, Reena, and Chaaru have been brought to life by the author effortlessly. It is a typical love story that happens almost in every student’s life hence, it can connect to the audience at ease. The best bit in the book which I loved the most is about the boys’ hostel life and the way the other boys tease Rohan linking with Vaidehi. The language is simple and easily understandable.

The story starts when Rohan, a Telecommunication Engineer receives a message from his long-time lover, Vaidehi. Rohan, a boy from Sagar, Madhya-Pradesh who takes a break to study for his entrance develops a huge attraction towards his junior at school Navya and puts his heart and soul to clear the entrance exams to become an Engineer. His idea of getting into an Engineering course is to propose Navya and convince his parents to accept their relationship.

Being an average scorer right from his school days Rohan happens to meet Vaidehi during his course counseling at one of the centers. He gets smitten by her right at the first meet and chooses the same college and stream as hers just because he gets to see her despite having tremendous passion towards Computer Science. The two of them become very good friends and slowly as the relationship evolves, Rohan starts to get confused to choose between Navya and Vaidehi. While Vaidehi is famous for her high attitude and arrogance she reveals a different persona of hers to Rohan which draws him towards her completely.

He gets into a deep dilemma if he still loves Navya or was it actually an infatuation or is it just Vaidehi who is made for him! He seeks his sister’s help and makes the choice of proposing Vaidehi on the New Year’s Eve. Vaidehi and Rohan get inseparable and Rohan invites Vaidehi and his friends to his sister Surbhi’s wedding. When everything seems picture perfect, Vaidehi breaks-up with Rohan and goes absolutely “MUTE” without any reasons for five long years. While all his friends warn Rohan that he is dumped by her Rohan, still believes that she would certainly come back one day because he sensed the spark in her eyes which he had never found in anyone else. Do you think Rohan would end up being with his girl-friend Vaidehi or would he lose her forever?

As I flipped through the pages
The story is not complex and easy to understand but at times it becomes too melodramatic and takes a turn towards some Bollywood movie. The scenes of the final letter drafted by Vaidehi to Rohan sounds very artificial and the way he feels her in the hospital and college is way too exaggerated. The content gets mundane during the second half when Vaidehi decides to keep quiet. This bit also transports you to a filmy mood. Had the Bollywood twist not been given to the climax; then this would have definitely been a brilliant piece of writing.

The climax of the book is high on emotions and the author Himanshu has the ability to easily penetrate the readers' mind with his words but should have worked more on giving a real ending to the story. The story could have been a little more gripping because somewhere it becomes too ordinary, predictable and repetitive and that’s a buzzkill at times. There are minor grammatical and editing errors in the book.

The characters could have been described a little bit more and that could have made the readers visualize well. The characters of Anna, Vineet, Akash, Chaaru, and Reena are not even touched upon. Their characters are also equally significant as the protagonists. The cover page of the book looks very filmy and glossy and a redesign of it would certainly do justice to the content inside.

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

The Game Of Secrets by Saurish Hegde - Reviewed!

Author: Saurish Hegde
Genre : Fiction (Partial Sci-Fi)
Rating 2/5

This book revolves around the protagonist Nishanth - 32, an eligible bachelor, who is a famous Oncologist by profession and is passionate about becoming a politician. Hailing from an influential family from Mangaluru Nishanth's Dad Mr. Vittal Hegde is also a renowned oncologist in Mangaluru. 

While his father runs a hospital with three other partners Kiran Dev, John and MohanDas Kumar; Nishanth, works with them to gain experience and expand his wings in Mangaluru as a good medical practitioner. Nishanth has nothing to worry about except for being single and at times loneliness strikes Nishanth and he longs to be in a companionship. 
The Cover Page of "The Game of Secrets"
Nishanth, for his passion towards Politics, finds out an eminent and energetic leader Kashyap and helps him in raising a party but the opposition leaders Adishakthi and Dhanush shatters the dreams of Kashyap and Nishanth when things start favoring them. 

As he curses his misfortune of still remaining single, he accidentally comes across Navya, daughter of a business tycoon and a family friend of Vittal Hegde in one of the parties. He gets smitten by her beauty right at the first sight and asks her out with a lot of hesitation. Navya, a fashion designer by profession has plans of starting an apparel store at Mangaluru and in Paris too. Despite the nervousness, Nishanth asks Navya out and after a couple of dates, the two get intimate and serious about the relationship.


While both his professional and personal life are falling into their places Nishanth has a new task to take up and his love for science forces him to break-up with Navya as well. He also moves away from Kashyap, handing him over all the responsibilities of the party and goes to Switzerland to meet Mr. Ramdas. Ramdas, a renowned scientist who is in quench of finding a host for his experiment of fusing hegdrons, an element that has the ability to turn humans into super-humans seek Nishanth's help. The plot here gets interesting and to know what these hegdrons are, I recommend you buy the book.

The plot gets nail-biting when Nishanth gets a death threatening call regarding the powers he would have gained after getting the Hegdrons fused into his body. the conspiracy that gets created by the kith and kin of Nishanth has been plotted well.

Saurish has given his best shot to come up with a book of his choice, however, the language used in the book is very immature and sometimes sounds too casual as well. The flow of the sequences also gets messed up at times and this can make it slightly difficult to follow the storyline.


As I went through the chapters
The plot of the story could have been more interesting had the author tried to bring in the power of Nishanth after undergoing the experiment of getting the hegdrons fused successfully into his blood. This bit has not even been touched upon apart from a couple of scenes where he gets to examine a couple of patients. One Mrs. Anita, Navya's distant aunt and the other lady from a village who comes for a treatment at the hospital.

Most of the time the protagonist has been showcased as being nervous, timid and low on self-confidence and this sometimes puts off the reader. The scenes where he meets the scientist Ramdas, his first meeting with Navya and also when he has to face a few challenges after the threatening call.

Some of the scenes where Navya and Nishanth get intimate also sounds very desperate and the usage of "IT" when the author explains about the longing for a physical relationship by Nishanth everywhere lacks sophistication. The choice of words such as, "He dies on Spot" when Nishanth sees Navya for the first time and "Cancer of Lung" again lacks maturity.

The scene where Nishanth starts to admire the breasts of his patient becomes ugly and this should have been completely avoided as it makes the protagonist a womanizer and it also takes a toll on the personality of the earlier described character of Nishanth. 


Belonging to the medical background, it is easier for the author to come up with jargons but for a reader, it becomes quite difficult to understand. Those things require a clear explanation. 

Describing a character has become slightly tough for the author and it is very evident from the writing style. The description lacks flow and at times where it has been exaggerated quite a bit. Many times when the story just begins to get interesting, the author has quickly given away the secret and this can be a buzzkill.

Editing is very poor and the words are spaced in such a way they sometimes convey a different meaning altogether. For example, 'The Best oncosurgeon' has been typeset as "the best on cosurge on", this really is a major turn of throughout the book as every page has editing errors.

Overall I rate this book 2/5 as there is a lot of groundwork to be done before penning a Sci-Fi genre.