Book Review: No Time for Goodbye

Time Travel? Is it even possible? Common! I have only seen it happen in movies. BTW the question is not whether or not time travel is possible but it’s all about what would life be if we travel back to past. Sounds crazy right??!! Here is yet another story which will steal your time for a while.

2012, Bangalore. Sixteen-year-old Tamanna finds an old Polaroid photograph in the attic and stumbles into her mothers past.

It is 1982. Tamanna finds herself in her grandmother's house where her mom seems to be younger than she is. She also meets her grandmother, aunts and Manoj, her mothers charming neighbour. Manoj's granddad is a scientist working on time-travel but he seems pretty clueless about getting Tamanna back to the present. Even as Manoj helps Tamanna sort out the mess that she's in, they fall hopelessly in love. How will the impossible attraction ever work if Tamanna has to return?

A delicious romance, No Time for Goodbyes is tender, irresistible and unforgettable all at once.

No time for Good Byes begins with the usual description of a 16 year old Girl, Tamanna. Waiting for her collage admissions, she is already bored staying at her home with her mom and her younger sister Raina. Wanted to be isolated, she finds a dirty yet a secret place at the terrace to get involved with the Harry potter book. She finds a photograph of her mom with her sisters in their childhood along with a guy posing with them. Little did she know that this photo is going to life her toppy turvy. She decides to leave the place as her mom had already started to search for her.

When Tamanna goes downstairs, she gets a strange feeling. Finding her way down, she realizes things to be changed. The place where she was staying minutes before seems to be no longer her own house. Later she finds not alone the house to be changed but also the people inside the house were no longer familiar to her. She lands up in her grandmother’s house where her mom and her two aunts were younger than her. She also meets her mother's neighbor Manoj, on whom her mother has a crush and later as the story progress she herself was falling in love with. From Manoj, she comes to know that the photo which was taken by a camera designed by his grandfather was made to take people into the future. Due to some technical faults she lands up to 1982 which is almost 30 years back.

Though she feels strange to be in the past, she slowly falls in love with the whole bunch of people and the ambience. Does she gets back to the present? Or does she decide to make her life roll back to the past permanently? Will her love for Manoj fade away with the past? Order a book for yourself to know the unexpected end of this time travel journey.

With a seemingly different plot, Andaleeb has created a brilliant story which made me wonder how it would have been to meet my own mother, when she was a teenager. I especially loved the comparison of 1980s Bangalore with 2012s Bangalore. Though it is not that easy to write a story based on time travel, the author has succeed in bringing up an interesting story with a flawless narration. The language she has used is simple and neat which make it easier to live the character. I’m sure ever one will enjoy reading this book as I did. I would rate this book with *** stars. Looking forward reading the other two parts of Tamanna Trilogy.

You can get a copy for yourself at Flipkart and Amazon.

Happy Reading :-)

Book Review: Paper Towns

Could anyone steal the show in the very first paragraph of a book? I have never thought so until I read this one. Is this called a Miracle? Like the Miracle that happen to Q? May be it is. But here the miracle does not stop with the first few lines but it seems to continue with every turning pages. You wonder how? Here is the simple answer ‘John Green’. Got it?

The thing about Margo Roth Spiegelman is that really I could ever do was let her talk, and then when she stopped talking encourage her to go on, due to the fact that 1. I was incontestably in love with her, and 2. She was absolutely unprecedented in every way, and 3. She never really asked me any questions…

Quentin Jacobson has always loved Margo from afar. So when she climbs through his window to summon him on an all-night road trip of revenge he cannot help but follow. But the next morning, Q turns up at school and Margo doesn’t. she’s left clue to her disappearance, like a trail of breadcrumbs for Q to follow.

And everything leads to one unavoidable question: WHO IS THE REAL MARGO.

 I had absolutely no idea what a "paper town" is before reading this book. I though it to be some place having a paper mill or say just a title of a book. Then along with the journey of searching Margo, I came to know what exactly a ‘Paper Town’ is.

The novel begins with 9 year Quentin "Q" Jacobsen, and his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman, discovering a dead man at a park. Q, who is scared, wants to run from the place whereas Margo wants to know why and how did he die. Though this dead man has nothing to do with the story, this little incident clearly describes the characteristics of both main protagonists. After that incident, they quite drift apart.

At high school, Q has his own geeky circle of friends, not a big circle though. Ben and Radar being the best among them, are planning big for the prom show. Margo, who is the queen for her followers, doesn’t hang out with Q in school. When she comes to know that she is betrayed by her friends, she decides to take a revenge on them. On a fine night she turns up to Q’s window to summon him on her revenge trip. The next morning, when Q manages to turn up to the school, Margo doesn’t shows up.
Later on, Margo’s parents finds that she has left the house like she had done before. Her parents who are fed up with her behavior, seems to give up on finding her.

Q, who has spent the night with Margo on the revenge trip, couldn’t wait till she gets back to her house on her own. He wanted to find her out. With the help of his friends Ben and Radar, he finds the clues that Margo has left for him to track her. Lacey, Margos’s friend and also Ben’s girlfriend, joins them in their journey which turns out to be a very adventurous trip. The end of the story reveals the answer for whether or not Margo was found and what was she doing all these days.

The most interesting part of the story was the clues that Margo had left for Q and how he manages to figure of the clues. Here Margo’s character is portrayed with brilliancy. Ben and Radar, who travels throughout the story, have bought humor into the story. Q, though is not portrayed with heroic stuffs, still steals the show with his willpower to find her.

To sum up my review, I would say John Green has done an adventurous work in this book and I would rate 4.5/5. Though it seems to have some influence of his previous work, this book has proven it own way to reach the people. I very strongly recommend this book for all book lovers.

So people what are you waiting for? Go join Q in the journey of Finding Margo.

You can get a copy for yourself at Flipkart and Amazon.

Happy Reading :-)