Book Review: Life's like that

Some debut authors are strangers to us until we complete their novel but Mr. Prashant, author of “Life’s like that” is not a stranger to me, not to many, if you are a subscriber of TOI. I have read almost all of his articles in TOI and I know how he writes the articles but I wanted to know how his novel would be. The book’s jacket says

Set in the beautiful city of Udaipur, this love story is filled with everything, jealousy, one sided love and betrayal. Amit gets approval of Preeti, his love and Ishita, who unknowingly helped Amit gets involved with Sankalp. The story moves on with ups and down of college life.A nicely flowing story takes turn when opulent guy Shekar comes into the picture who is not only rich but intelligent. Unlike fairy tales, the love starts to take a backseat and money takes the charge.Do dreams shatter when they meet the harsh reality? can waves of love survive having hit by the shore of wealth? can love still be based on fairy tales where money cannot distract?Remember its money that is running the world, love is only a part of life. So what wins and what should win?

With the synopsis on the jacket and its design we can easily conclude that the story deals with college life. Thanks to RKSJ for the good cover design.

Coming to the story, as mentioned in the back cover, it is based on Udaipur. The story starts on the 3^rd semester of the protagonists when a hot girl, Ishita joins the university in Udaipur, transferred from Jaipur. She gets every guys attention on her first visit and sits next to Amit who was deeply in love with Preeti. Preeti stays next to Ishita’s house and eventually they become close friends. Nandini, one of their class mates was getting married and the whole class was present on that occasion. That was when every guy got a chance to see the girls of their class in Saree. Amit on the other hand was astonished by Preeti’s beauty and Sankalp, Amit’s best friend couldn’t take his eyes off from Ishita. In a few minutes Amit and Ishita were left alone and Amit had to help Ishita in driving her to home. Reaching her home, both of their touches makes them to make love. From the next day Amit and Ishita gets close and the sudden closeness cause Preeti to envy, who so far was not bothered about Amit. For the first time she talks to Amit and both falls in love. Sankalp on the other hand love Ishita. All the four gets close during the project time and two more Rahul and Niharika also joins the gang. A trip to Kumbhalgarh makes the three pairs intimate and the bonding grows stronger. When everything goes on the track, the gang leaves to Jaipur for a job fair where only Preethi gets selected. The gang parties for Preethi’s victory and meets Shekar who is one among the five who was selected along with Preethi. What has Shekar got to do with the story? Does it affect them in any way? What happened to Ishita and Sankalp? Do Amit and Preethi marry at last? What does money got to do with the story? Who betrays who? Read the book to know more about the story.

It is a light read and fun filled story that could give entertainment throughout the read. The first few pages were simple but it gets the readers hooked from page 40. The author has kept the language simple and I could see few mistakes then and there which could be rectified on a little rework. The story covers almost all the ups and downs of a regular college life including friendship, love and betrayal. Author has portrayed every scene well and brought out the emotions properly. Climax is what I liked the most in the story as the emotion has brought out clearly and conveyed perfectly.

At few places the conversation was not that clear. I mean the delivery part. Proper spacing between the conversations would have made it clearer.

The author has done a commendable job with his debut novel. The characterisation is strong and the author has made enough roles for all the character. Only after reading the whole book I could understand why the author has titled the story ‘Life’s like that’, as the story has more situations that which conveys “life’s like that”. The writing style of the author has many changes when compared to his articles in TOI and I hope it helped him in producing this novel. I would give 4 out of 5 for this book. I recommend this light read entertaining book to all. I’m looking forward to read his second book soon and I wish all the best for the author’s future endeavours.

You can get the books from Infibeam or Flipkart.

Happy Reading :-)

About the author:

Born and brought up in Udaipur, Prashant wrote his first poetry in 1998 and since then he has been a creative writer. Later in 2007 he added English article writing to his skill set and started penning articles for The Times of India. In order to pursue his writing passion, he opted to be a Technical Writer in his IT job.Being a post graduate in computer application, he uses his technical prowess in creating and maintaining several websites. Life’s like that is his first novel published by Blackbuck Publication.