Book Reviews!

Yes, you are reading it correct! The last 2 days had me polish off 2 books from my 2-read list! One was being read since a year and a half!, while the other one was read in a day and a half!

The first book was ‘borrowed’ from a friend and as the author has penned books like “Fear is the key”, “Ice station zebra”, “Guns of Navarone”, “Where eagles dare”, the expectations were high! The author is none other than the master story teller, Alistair MacLean!

The fact that he is amongst my favourite writers and that it took me a year and a half to read his book, speaks much about “The dark crusader”. To be honest, I was disappointed as the plot of the book succeeded in capturing my interest but failed to hold it. Sure, it got interesting as well as exciting, but having read many of his books, I was not as much impressed with this one.

While the narrative in the story is at par with Mr. MacLean’s descriptive standards, i think it is the plot and the twists that are to be blamed for my disappointment. The book is good but it is not amongst his best work. Reading The Dark Crusader felt like it was written for a B-grade thriller movie that introduces too many twists in the plot and unravels a lot towards the end.

The major twist in the book comes after the reader has finished reading the book. Reading the Epilogue makes one re-think the story from a completely different angle, but it is a tad hard to digest!

The story does start out well and the narration of the encounters between the goodies and baddies is very well written as is expected out of a MacLean book! For readers who are not familiar with his work, such are his descriptions, the writing can make you feel cold on a hot Indian summer night! (Ice station Zebra), it can make you feel claustrophobic in the hull of an underwater machine (Fear is the key) and make you visualise a girl dangling on a chain (Puppet on a chain)!

In summary, this one is not to lose sleep over. It aint bad, but it definitely aint the best from the author. Somewhere between 2.5 to 3 stars out of 5!

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The next book was read fairly quickly! It was my first book by an Indian author and if you are an avid reader of fiction, you probably have read it. Its “five point someone” by Chetan Bhagat. While there were strong positive reviews about the book, I was warned by a few good readers and friends about the bad lingo (grammar) in the book. Thus my expectations from the book were rather low and in the end, it turned out to be what I expected it to be – a book that was average in its literature, but one that scored high in storytelling.

The best thing about the book was the POV writing. The easy-breezy style of writing and the ‘feel’ given by the book instantly made the reader connect to the protagonist/s as most readers have studied in Indian education establishments.

The book introduces the readers to various stigmas about the Indian society and Indian schools like – ragging, mugging, dowry, parental pressure, peer pressure on students, lack of innovation in IIT, the ‘systemic’ way of judging a student based on his past performance, etc. While the author touches these subjects, he does not attempt to present any solutions to most the problems, thus avoiding being preachy. This keeps the book light and makes it an easy read because the author has really dumbed down many things about the life of an IIT student for the layman to understand.

However, the flaw of the book also resides in this dumbing down and un-preachy writing approach as it makes the book uninteresting for someone who knows about the IIT life! Many things about life on an IIT campus are missing from the book and it feels like – to present a POV effect, the author wore blinds that are put on a horse’s eyes to keep it from veering off its his path! In other words, the book is too simple and light to be appreciated by an avid book reader! The language is not classy by any measure! It is crass, much like an un-showered, drunk, below-average engineering student! However, like an un-showered, drunk, below-average engineering student’s life, the book is equally interesting in its story telling! The connection with the characters is instant and it holds throughout the book – this, combined with the short length, makes the book un-put-down-able!

This book deserves multiple ratings…. A) If you are an IIT student, the rating is 2/5 B) If you are an avid book reader, the rating is 2.75/5 C) If you are a reader who is starting to read books OR if you want to start with Indian authors, the rating for this book is 3/5. D) If you want to read something light and breezy, the rating is 3.5/5 For CB fans, its 4/5!