Book Review: Story of Tublu - Jahid Akhtar!

  

Book: Story of Tublu.
Author: Jahid Akhtar
Tagline: An amazing journey called life.
Publication: Lifi publication
Price: Rs.200
Pages :204

What does it take to make debut of a book decent? Fine narration with the proper use of language along with skilled editing. The story of Tublu lags behind in these departments forcing Jahid's commencement into the literary world to elicit less interest from the reader.
I don't seek words that would make me sit with a dictionary to decipher every sentence. A simple prose with simple lingo can weave a grand tale.

Further, ill conceived characters and bad editing makes you cringe all through.
The repetitious 'cute little' to describe all the babies/toddlers in the story and the 'wells' coming on to prefix itself before sentences, in little less than 1/4th of the book, are enough to make it limp.

Dynamics between the characters remained unexplored. Sigh! I so wanted to see some alchemy at least  between Tublu and Adi. Nothing. The romance was placid too. And what mother would get into a passionate night in the couch with a person whom she gingerly pushes to marry someone else, while her unwell kid is in the bedroom? I wonder!
Btw, what was the hurry Jahid? The lets-wrap-up-quickly angle could be felt in many chapters especially in the latter ones making the book free of zest. I'm sure this wasn't your intention but it shows.

Accuse me of nitpicking, if you may, but such lackadaisical approach to prose and other foibles strewn throughout left me unimpressed. 

Note: The foreword is nothing but a spoiler. Don't ask me why! But if you are about to read the book, leave the foreword for last.
A good friend that you are, Jahid, but as promised for an honest review, I, with a hope of a better novel from you in future, rate 'Story of Tublu' with lesser number of stars; 2 out of 5.

I thank Jahid who gave me a copy of his debut novel to read and review.

Book Review: Catching The Departed- Kulpreet Yadav.

Title: Catching The Departed

Author: Kulpreet Yadav
Publication: tara India research press.
Price: Rs.299...$8.99...£5.99
Pages: 255



The author seems to not have paid much attention to the main characters. Monica's character seems to have been forcefully injected and nothing constructive comes out of it. Not fair to her intelligence. The architect behind all the wrong doings too didn't seem to be enough spiteful to be loathed. They  fail to impress. At times they shine and other  times they fall flat. The same happens with the story.

This review has been sitting on the back burner for months. My sheer incapability in time management is the sole cause of the delay. Apologies to the author.

An investigative journalist is probing the murder of a lawyer...the black hats and the nasty chain of events that are consequences of the miscreants...our hero's love is just not a pretty face; all this and more from a hamlet near New Delhi to Mumbai breathes through the words of a very capable writer. Kulpreet, after a delicious anthology, India Unlimited, comes on with the first installment of his Andy Karan series, "Catching The Departed". He won a fan in me with his first book and ergo my expectations invariably reached the highest rung of the ladder. Expectations, however, slipped a few rungs down as I progressed with the story.

To begin with, the protagonist's name doesn't strike a chord with me. It's Bollywood-ish.

However, the prologue and some chapters like the one where Hakim, the informer is slaughtered, had me turning the pages. The murder scene engulfed me so much so that I could swear I could smell the coppery blood wafting off the pages. But in the other parts the placid terrain made things dull for me.

Thrillers especially treading into the realms of undercover agents, ex army people, etc., need good research. The lack of it makes its presence felt in the story, thus, disappointing the reader in the process.

This one kind of flatters to deceive

 I rate 'Catching the Departed' 3/5.
    I thank Kulpreet Yadav for letting me an opportunity to read and review his first thriller.