Blurb:
Story of a businessman who falls in love of a girl to achieve his goal but after that loses his life goal..
My Review:
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
I received a free copy for an honest review
I LOVE THAT ENDING OH MY GOD! Okay, I am getting way ahead of myself. You would understand what I mean later.
I'm going to be honest here. The story is amazing. You've got a strong, determined leader who is a successful businessman driven by an unchanging life goal, and a book featured in the economic business world, so I got a good reading experience and insight on how businesses work. And isn't that one of the best things about reading? You learn about different professions through different books just like you've experienced them.
The relationships also seemed promising, and the idea of 'revenge mixed with love' implied a hate-love relationship.
It also started off really strong to me. I was impressed by the main character's drive to success, and his leadership strategy and qualities really appealed. I love how he is an intimidating respectful leader but at the same time is justifiable and doesn't overuse his workers. The author was also successful in the first chapter of the book to show Tapasya as a professional, strong female businesswoman.
Everything about this book seemed extremely promising, so why did I only give it 3 stars?
It's really a shame because properly written the story, in general, has the potential to make a good book with depths and character developments, while teaching the reader the lessons of revenge and love, and how they're both not so different from each other.
But first off, the author needs to fire his editor for this book. There are only one or two simple punctuation mistakes, but (this might be a little bit hurtful, but it's the truth) the dialogues are terrible. It's not the worst because at least it's still understandably and readable, so I can still enjoy the story. But it's all so stiff and scripted; it's like reading a bad movie script. "OK, I have no objection to following your kitchen rules only because I want to check out your cooking skills. But I don't have any skill or experience to tile my hair." Maybe by adding some of these dialogues into first person thoughts, the dialogues maybe can be more likable and realistic. "I gave her a look of annoyance as I tried to contain myself. "Fine," I grunted. 'But I don't know how,' '". This might not be perfect, but hopefully, gives you an idea of what I'm trying to say.
In fact, this made me remember an old technique from my lower school writing class, called 'show not tell'. There are so many places in the book where the authors could describe the scenery or situation using the protagonist Prabuddh's first person perspective, but by adding it to the dialogue it just ruins it.
And next is the development and growth of the protagonist and the relationships between the characters. I stick to my previous statements that there has been growth in the characters, and the romantic relationships also seemed promising. But unfortunately, thanks to the unrealistic dialogues, it's been really hard for me to connect with the characters, resulting in me hard to even like them. This is why I feel all the love triangles and complication complete boring and fake, and also why I could care less when Tapasya died. It's really a shame because in the first chapter all the characters are all written very well, and their unique characteristics are very distinct. But as the book progresses - as soon as to the second chapter when Prabuddh gave Tapasya a ride I felt like their character just went blah. Prabuddh is supposed to be an independent man who wouldn't let anything distract him from this goal. But the number how times he is attracted by a hot girl in this book is surprising for someone who is a strong and not easily swooned bachelor. At first, I just thought that it's because this book has romance so it's just a one-time thing with the main characters, but it seems like he's smothered by every female in the book, no less how every single one of them is 'breathtakingly beautiful'.
Another thing I'm a little bit bugged about how all the characters call the main character 'sir'. I know that they are known to have formalities before they warmed up to become friends, but for example when Prabuddh gave Tapasya gave her a ride, and how he felt and she herself said that 'I'm warming up to you ', I don't think all the 'sirs' are necessary anymore.
The pace of the book is also slightly, and I mean really just slightly too fast. But it's understandable since the book is split into two parts: the love and the revenge, so it's not that big of an issue. Overall, the book has some really good ideas, just not written well. The characters developments and relationships were also ruined by the stiff, fake dialogues. However, I believe if the author revised his dialogues a little bit, this book can make a drastic improvement because the story is really good. Especially the ending twist is a nice one.
On a side note, there's another thing the author can consider, and that is to change the cover for this book. A little improvement wouldn't hurt. I just feel like it doesn't' really fit with the book.
