*image will be posted later*
Book : The Soft Target
Author : Kalyan Nanda
Pages : 202
Price : 249/-
Publication : Notion Press
Journey of Mohan, from boyhood to manhood.
Story
The story revolves around a boy named Mohan, he has a unique mental illness whose cure isn’t known to his parents yet. No one understands him, his teachers and fellow students come as bullies to him. Yet Mohan smiles to each one, says something and go away.
And after years of wait, they are ready to take Mohan to a specialist in Chennai, which will change him for sure.
But what will change to know that, you need to read the book.
It’s Mahashivratri, and Mohan’s mother had a dream about Shivji, to let her know to come to him and pray for Mohan’s success for his engineering exams.
Will the fate of Mahashivratri reap a good result for the family ?
Moving from his hometown to join an engineering college will change his life for forever.
Make sure you read Mohan’s life as a roller coaster thriller and heartfelt story is unrolled in front of you.
Writing
A debut book by author Kalyan Nanda, and what an effort. The book plot, and Mohan’s unique disability surely raise our interest more to the book.
The writing was easy to understand and there are many references used to connect with reader’s by talking about Dhoni finishing shot and Sachin’s slong shot (mostly in the first half of the book)
There were details even for the “things” in story to make them real life. for example, the explanation of the cooker in the first 10 around pages, that was made sure that it looked like a perfect cooker in respective of middle class families.then up again in the next 10 pages, about how a middle class man “gets ready”. Which I felt was a little too much may be, sometime in life most of us has come in from a Middle class family, and reading such things made me think it is used as a mockery instead of showing how one Middle class family lives.
This will be my first book,where author himself has a talk in his own book. He talks to readers about a certain situation(Dear Readers…).
I almost had feeling like “Main Samay hun”(remember ? A man aura used to come in Mahabharat’s TV)
The friendship between Mohan, Nikhil, Brij & later Revathy was amazing to read about.
The main characters were BIG time “flawed”, and I loved them because they felt real.
Mohan – A boy with unique mental illness, and exceptional IQ who solved “the” maze
Nikhil – Wealthy boy having everything yet nothing because he stammers
Brij – The comedy kid of the book, a fan of Salman khan(from Tere Naam)
Samidha – <won’t tell you what her relation is> But she is one of my favorite characters, because she said my most favorite line of the book “I want to be your Café Madras”
I love when Books, talks about other books and authors, and I haven’t read ‘PG Wodehouse’ yet, but this book surely has increased my interest in him.
I wish the cover was something else, as it doesn’t justify the content and deepness of the plot of book.
Also if you read it, would love to know your theory of who the actual Soft target is 😉 as the book end with that question too!
Final Note:
If you want to read a book that is different from cliché stories, grab this one up.
Cover: 1/5(really wish it was something much more)
Title: 4/5
Blurb: 3.5/5 (as it reveals too much)
Theme: 5/5
Story: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Overall: 3.7/5
*This book review is a part of The ReadersComsos Book Review Program and Blog Tours*
Read, Write and Life around it... 