Review: Everyone Has A Story

Everyone Has A Story by Savi Sharma
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Story begins with three characters.
A wanna-be author girl. Mysterious, wanna-be traveler guy. Coffee shop manager, wanna-be coffee shop owner guy. 3rd character brings one more girl into story. A girl with tragic past.
What happens among these 4 is this story.

Though there are only four characters, all characters are designed well. The behavior of characters remain reasonable throughout the story. There is no place where we can think that this cannot happen in reality.

Story and the way it was told... Hats off Savi Sharma.

There's a place where the lead protagonist says - "I want to inspire people with my writing. I want to touch their souls. I want them to say, she feels us, she moves us".
I think this defines Savi Sharma's writing with respect to this book.
I have lot of things in mind which I consider too insane. But towards the end of this story, I started to believe that, maybe I am not so insane :P. Everybody has a story, so am I !!

Maybe the reason I loved this book is because it had too many similarities to my life.

I will recommend it to anybody who want a decent read :)

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Review: A Knotty Affair

A Knotty Affair by Dhaval Birajdar Jinadatt
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This story is about a software engineer, Viraj, in his thirties. Good job. Good pay. Lovely mother to take care of him. One day he meets up a girl from his past - Ruhi. From there we go 14 years backwards.

Young Viraj is very low in self-esteem. He has a stammering problem to add fuel to fire. His father, a strict Physics professor (assistant), joins him in the same college he works for. Innocent, shy, stammering young boy in a modern college. No need to say about the ragging and harassment he might go through. Amidst all this, one girl helps him to go through all this - Ruhi. Towards end of college life, Viraj falls for Ruhi who is no where in comparison with Viraj. With time and events, they move away from each other. Meanwhile Viraj's dad got framed in a case which ends his career and screws the life of whole family.

What happened to that case? What happens between Viraj and Ruhi after 14 years gap? This is the remaining story :)

What I loved in this book :
Book cover:

• Two faces of most probably same guy facing opposite directions. One face is thick whereas other is light. This resembles the character of protagonist. Viraj is like two different persons in 14 years gap. Changed physically, mentally, verbally. Young Viraj is so opposite to current Viraj.

• There is a region where both faces intersects. So there's a common space for both faces. Same holds true for Viraj. Though he changed lot in 14 years, he still have few things unchanged.

Courtroom drama:

• I haven't seen an Indian author of current generation writing courtroom drama. Kudos to Dhaval for the attempt. This might mark the beginning of many more to come!

Story-line:

• In general, Indian father-son relationship is bit different compared to rest of the world. Dad seems strict and son seems to hate dad a lot. But the love and bond they share is eternal. This book showcases the same. Because of his love towards father, Viraj fights a 14 years case!

• The Courtroom and NGO chapters of the story displayed the state of current Indian judiciary system , things that needs to be changed and an idea that can be done implemented :)

What I hated in this book :
Courtroom drama:

• This the major plus of this book. So I expected it to be in big level. Though the courtroom scenes are good for initial attempt, they could have been made better. Some little tweaks would have developed it more interesting.

• More focus should have been given to this. Instead author decided to focus on many things and kept this for just one chapter. Not amused!

Errors:

• I don't know what went wrong or how it happened, but I came across multiple spelling errors and punctuation errors. It would have been better if more attention was given to that :)

Characterization:

• For any book, characters make the story better. In this one, that is major thing that felt odd for me. The life of a software engineer was somehow I am not able to relate at all! I am software engineer by profession and I have LOT of software friends & acquaintances. Still I am not able to relate with that character (Viraj).

• In any story, if you are a guy, you should like the female lead in romance genre(according to me). In some stories, you will love her. In some, you will like her. In this, I didn't love her or like her!

• You should be able to understand why the male lead falls for her. In this story, I didn't find any reason other than the fact that Ruhi spoke to Viraj when nobody else did (she did it only for her own reasons which are selfish as hell) and she is hot. Not cool !

• There is too much dilemma in and around Viraj that at some point I started wondering whether Viraj is in dilemma or the author was !!

A good new attempt which could have made better :)
Hoping that Dhaval will reduce the impact of movies in his upcoming stories.
Also hoping that the next book from him would be new in concept like this and better in presentation than this!

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Review: Love Like A Fairy Tale

Love Like A Fairy Tale by Shadab Alam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A boy-ish girl. A very good guy. Friends to Lovers. Continues to be in love. Marks beginning of a unique fairy tale love story. End of story.

 
Jacob and Aana are the two mentioned above. The protagonists of this story. Two friends/neighbors. Aana has a painful past which was caused by many things. Her so-called-mom. Boy friend and best friend (who cheated her by getting together behind her back).

She begins a new life with photo studio business, new friends, new place leaving out all the painful past in past. With time, things get better. Business goes good. Friends love her more with every passing day. Lovely sister who stays by her side always.

All of sudden, past crosses path with present when her ex-boy friend and ex-best friend decides to marry and they end up in her studio door. In a turmoil of events, Jacob, her best friend becomes her boy friend. Her ex-bestie decides to screw her life once more. Jacob becomes a fly in that web. How everything gets resolved and how happily-ever-after begins is the rest of story.

 
I have fallen in love with Aana, right from the beginning of the story. Independent, awesome woman in her early 30s. Someone who didn't stay down after taking multiple hits from childhood. Belongs to the type of girls who will make you fall for them easily without putting any effort at all.
 Jacob. The all charming, well earning, good, hot guy. Dream neighbor for any girl :P.
Sonia. The best sister you can ever have :)
There are few more characters which will get our attention. But these there are the major ones.

Below are what I feel as good and bad in this book. Just my opinion :)

Pros:

• Simple story line. Neat, simple, good.
• Characterizations. Especially Aana <3.
• FIFA love. Very intense love. A rare thing to witness in India. Very rare to witness in an Indian girl. Rare but not non-existent. Good to see the small community getting recognized.
• Shadab Alam made it clear that not every happily-ever-after will be of same type. There can be different types as well :)

Cons:

• Why would Alvia sticks around just Aana to screw her life up? If money is the only motive of Alvia, as mentioned in book, didn't she find anybody better in 3 years? Why should it always be Aana whose life should get screwed?!
• For a genius cool guy like Jacob, the misunderstanding he gets into with Aana, is not so brainy! He who is so stable in mind, gets freaky at the first sight of trouble. Not so cool. All the good thoughts he gathered up from the beginning was spoiled at that point. Though he regained that one from many characters in book, he failed to regain it completely from me :/

Overall, a good read with just a small glitch..

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Review: Arranging love, contemporary way!

Arranging love, contemporary way! by Poornima Dhiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Best way to begin this year..
This is 1st book I started this year (1st completed book was from last year :P ), and I wish the whole book year be the same!

The story is about a girl. Facts which make the story is, that girl is - 30, independent, strong-willed, cheated in her 3 year old relationship, Indian.
Though I use the word story, when I read the book.. I felt like I am reading the journal of a girl.
Honest. Straight-forward. Lethal.

It's not easy to be a girl in India. Yes, I am a patriotic Indian. No questions on that .. I am just stating the fact, which is so true.
This society is still digging lot of pits for woman.
She can't make her life decisions on her own. She can't decide her marriage age. She can't be the breadwinner of a family. She can't do so many things.
Author Poornima just hit all the can'ts with valid whys...!

I strongly believe that most of the incidents in this story is inspired by Author's or her immediate circle's experience.
You just can't get all the facts right on without experience!
Relationship.. Break-up.. Betrayal.. Getting over it.. Unable to find any right person.. Situations faced by single.. All are right on target!

Too many negative male characters in the novel. Too bad that Ananya didn't meet any guy who is not negative!!!
But .. That's the concept of this story :) A girl who couldn't find any guy whom she like ..

Hard to believe it is a debut novel. A good, decent work from author.
Expecting more from her ...

Any woman, who have her own dream, should read this book.
Definitely an inspiration. Especially the 'Note to self' in the end.

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Review: A Half Baked Love Story

A Half Baked Love Story by Anurag Garg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Life goes ON. This is what the book is all about. Philosophy spun around tale of romance (It don't get philosophical till epilogue :) so don't worry romance story lovers).

Story began with a spoiled brat, who is our protagonist. Things he do irritate a lot that I just wish he was not real. I was even surprised why author have decided to have such a freak as protagonist.
Real story began when he explains the reason for his nature. From then there is no hate towards him from my side.

Love at school. Between two people of different background (food, state, culture, caste, etc etc). The ways in which the romance/love between them are described, are great!
After a long time, read a love story which actually didn't had much sexual content. Felt happy to see that there are still young Indian authors who can express love as love and love only, without getting physical. It is really tough to write a love story like this since sex is considered part of romance genre. Not that I am against such stories, just that I am surprised to see this type still alive :)
Just beautiful cute love, with no sexual incidents. Hats off!!!

It is not necessary that you should always be with her/him if you are in love. It's just loving them wherever they are, however they are and doing whatever is good for them. Described well in this book!

Pain will change people. Agreed. But that doesn't mean you have to become a jerk. You can and have to reshape yourself for the people around you, for the people who care for you. This is the message that the author missed to tell. Would have been more happy if he did that too!

As the wise say, as the author tried to say, whatever happens life goes on :)




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Review: You are the Password to my Life

You are the Password to my Life by Sudeep Nagarkar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Simple. Touching. Sentimental.
3 words to describe this book.

Sudeep made the story with good proposition of friendship and love. A story that can play with your emotions.

There were some good quotes in the book.
If you are 90s kid and have been through the era when there was unlimited free text messages that kept flowing your mobile, you can spot a lot of those messages you have received in the book. Me being from that period, felt a bit nostalgic of those good old days :)

The only thing I felt disturbing with the book is, there were too many quotes. It's true that they are good, but still the quantity in which they came in is a bit high. For every second page, reading a paragraph with lot of quotes is a bit annoying. They make the story move slow.




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