Book Review: The Nidhi Kapoor Story by Saurabh Garg

 

Book: The Nidhi Kapoor Story

Author: Saurabh Garg

No. of Pages: 316

Genre: Fiction, Murder Mystery

Publisher: Grapevine India

 

This one was not easy to review. I liked the book when I started reading it and then it became slow. I began to think that the author was losing it, when some twists in the story brought me back into it and I was interested. It again began to lose pace and I was rapidly losing interest but the climax was near and I wanted to know 'for sure' who-dun-it (I had already guessed it long ago in the book). Right then, the author killed off a key character and I was stumped. The climax was as expected but pretty much anti-climactic.

At the end, I was left with the feeling of incompleteness. I felt that the book could have been much much better. I even picked up several flaws in the narration and several things did not seem logical to me. So I wrote to Saurabh (the author) and he graciously took all my criticism and comments. He tried to explain the 'flaws' that I had told him about and I must say, I agreed with some while on some, I remained unconvinced.

There was one thing which I actually liked about the book - the idea of telling the story in 5 chapters ... with different perspectives ... with different events to highlight the perspective. I personally feel it is a brilliant writing device and gives a very different feel to the reading experience (and I am going to give one-star to this book, exclusively for that). Although, I must also state that I am not sure how well it was executed by the author ... since between the back and forth, there are chances that some things got lost, edited, missed etc. leaving some loopholes and gaps in the story.

The uniformly high rating and good reviews the book has received on Good-Reads and blogs makes me feel that probably I was overly critical about the book. But then my book review is about what I feel about the book. I feel there are flaws in the storyline, the basic plot and the climax was very weak and not impactful enough. 

It was a decent book and my only advice would be that you read the book with an open mind. DO NOT read it as you would read a murder mystery thriller because IT IS NOT THAT. Read it for the unique writing style and turmoil that goes inside the heads and hearts of the various characters.

 

Ratings on Book Review Parameters:

Cover Design: 1.5 / 5

Writing Style: 2.5 / 5

Characters:     3.0 / 5

Story / Plot:     2.0 / 5

Climax:            2.0 / 5

Overall:           2.5 / 5