She (Ekla chalo re) book review by Jayshree Sridhar.

First of all I would like to appreciate the writers and the publishing house who are doing great with the promotion of this book and thank them for asking me to review this book. A few days ago I received a mail from Amrita foundation asking me to review this book, it truly was an honor since this is the first time I was requested for a review.

Now coming to the book, She (Ekla chalo re) is a beautiful short story that describes from gender stereotypes to fitting in a society pressure in the most basic and beautiful way.

The book (more like a booklet) comprises of around 50 pages and explains biggest of issues in our country in shortest of words. The writing is beautiful and though the subject is controversial the narration is not filled with angst and sorrow. It is a very light read but gives a very strong message. I personally loved the ending. Santhosh Avvannavar (the writer) is brilliant in storytelling and I hope to read more works by him in the future. I again appreciate the publishing house for releasing this book and hope to see this story flourish and reach a larger audience.

If any Tumblrian can see this post, I'd ask each and every one of them to read this book because all the lgbt community supporters and gender equality supporters in tumblr would be so happy to find out a success story in the issue.

If I had to explain my reaction to

this book in one gif, it would be this.

WOW!

I'd like to give this book a five star rating, hands down. Great going guys. Keep up the work!

THE QUEST FOR NOTHING! BY ANURAG ANAND

GUEST REVIEW BY VISHWAS ANAND

When you're really up to something and enjoy it thoroughly, you carry on doing it, irrespective of the time you've spent on it, or the exertion or exhaustion you experience by doing it. It might not be exhaustion after all since you're enjoying it. I had already finished one novel that day (All Yours, Stranger by Novoneel Chakraborty, which is an excellent piece of work) when I stumbled upon this book and took it up as a challenge(or maybe it was more of an exercise) to complete it that day itself, and guess what, I succeeded.

            The Quest for Nothing! is a short novel by Anurag Anand giving an insight into the cut throats of the ambitious corporate world. The book follows a non-linear narrative style, a technique used in super successful movies like Memento and 12 Monkeys, and also in some novels, and moves in three timelines.

           The first is the time when Akash, a student of IBA business school is about to complete his MBA and is looking for a job in an economic depression hit world. The second is immediately after his marriage with the love of his life, Deepali, and the third is a few years after his marriage, when he is bored and frustrated by the institution called marriage and also his job, and takes up a new job in a different city.

Akash's struggles as a husband, as an employee in this rat race competitive world, and as a human who faces his life's biggest corporate scandal and how he escapes it is showcased in the story. It is an easy and light read, with a simple story. The author himself is from a corporate background, a Marketing Professional with an MNC Bank, which reflects in his work as he gives deep insight into the functionality of the corporate corridors. It has been praised by many famous personalities.

"The book is very special."-Pritish Nandy

"I was surprised at why I hadn't finished it earlier."-Gul Panag

The criticism-

The ups-

1. A light read with a simple story. You don't have to stress your brain cells a lot.

2. Gives a deep understanding of the corporate universe, and the toll it can have on you.

3. The climax is decent.

4. I especially like the non-linear storytelling technique of the author. It is a different and difficult style to write in and the author has managed successfully.

5. The number of characters is less, which avoids unnecessary complications.

The downs-

1. The plot is too simple, which sometimes turns boring. The climax is one saving grace.

2. A little bit of unnecessary detailing, removing which could have further reduced the length of the book.

The score:

Vishwas Anand is a philosophy and nature enthusiast, who believes reading to be a need and shares his experience about all the books he read in his main blog BOOKRITIQUE
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AFTER ALL THIS TIME Book Review

So, with that title if you are thinking you'd find a love story very near and dear to that of Severus Snape and Lily, say hello to disappointment. Although you can find a one paragraph reference to it. YAY!

After writing interesting page turner books like, The Promise, If its not forever...it's not love and Someone like you, Nikita Singh brings you a successful drag story of a confused soul suffering from HIV who doesn't decide till the very end of the book what to do about the disease or the rest of the time she has to live. Somehow the title absolutely fits in with the plot, After all this time...would you just decide what you have to do???

Thankfully the answers to all our, “what-happens-in-the-end” questions are answered in the end but trust me you don't need to go through the whole book for that!

Interesting fact, this book is also a love story! But no, don't you get back to the idea of Snape and Lily again! I told you its not them.

Remember that time the guy you friend-zoned creeped you out with his love for you so much so that you ran away to a different country? Well meet Shourya, the hero of the story who cannot get over any of the women he has ever been with and move on with his life. He literally creeps them out very much until all of them give up and come back to him. Now that he has all of them in his pocket he gets to choose and creepy that he is, chooses the first girl, Lavanya the protagonist, even though that woman is an annoyingly crying mess.

The problem with the book is that it is irritably draggy, nose-cringing cliche and bland for the most part of the story, though it is expected to be soul-crushingly emotional. 

After all this time could have made a beautiful short story of 2 pages unfortunately extended to two hundred pages.

I would give this book one star clearly just to show the level of disappointment. 

 

WORLD'S BEST BOYFRIEND Book Review

So after reading around 10 books by Durjoy Datta which give brilliant messages in themselves, 'World's Best Boyfriend' book turns out to be a huge disappointment. 

IN SHORT: The Boyfriend is anything but Best, I assure you that.

The story although has a lot of things, fails to be a page turner. The plot seems cliche, and at a point of time, turns out to be an unreasonable nonsense. Like the previous stories by Durjoy Datta, one can definitely not take inspiration or hope from this book as it fails to give any moral to the story. The writer in attempt to return with the dark humor he used to write in his initial books, goes overboard and spoils it.

More than any other thing, the writer for the first time failed miserably in dialogue delivery which did not bring the right emotions expected from the readers, or can we say the emotions at all. The love story is said to be revengeful in the synopsis but it looks more like immature tiff between high schoolers.

Other than that, the writer also could not do any proper justification to the characters as they seem unrealistic, mechanical and a little too cliche' to be real. The love story although seems to have a happy ending, in the larger picture, the pair don't seem to be fitting for each other. Also there are a lot of subplots in the story that goes unanswered.

I could not give any major spoilers to you in here because like other books of Durjoy Datta, this one doesn't have any major plot twists, like I said, a huge disappointment.

I would rate this book with 2 stars mainly for the witty one liners by Aranya and the characterisation of Sanchit.



Let me know what you think in the comments below.