Skip to main content

Book Review: S.O.A.R (Success over Adversity Reigns)

I am experiencing all the firsts in last couple of weeks. It's getting better with each book. The 'it' here demonstrates the 'pure joy of readership' and SOAR really stood for its true definition. First book that kept me hooked till its 3/4th part and there is nothing wrong with the last 1/4th either but believe me, readers of this age are so smart and knowledgeable that they get to know very well in advance where a particular book is leading them too. I am glad I ended up in a happier place.

So where do I start? Let me elaborate some more on the 'predictability' quotient of a book. As I said in last para, readers get to know everything in advance going into just 30-40 pages and proceed only if they get something interesting to cling onto. Here in SOAR, there are multitudes of factor that will keep you engrossed. Top class vocabulary, negligible grammatical mistakes (yes, those have become quite a spectacular feature of modern Indian books; so fewer, the better), a riveting plot with two heroins and three heroes and most importantly, a humane story at its core and the one who everyone gets to identify himself/herself with. Abir Mukherjee, the author of this book, never lets the tension seep at any moment and every page of his SOAR comes up with something jittery. I am not going to disclose any element relating to its story or plot for this is the book you definitely need to buy. In the fine tradition of Indian book-writing, SOAR soars.

I likened it to a very fine Hollywood caper/heist film that's slippery, fast-paced (you miss something, you can't go further) and touching at suitably right places. I wouldn't be surprised if Abir scores a movie deal with it.

As far as the setbacks go, I would just like it to be proofread more carefully next time. Cover page, blurb, font-sizes and other technical know-hows are fabulous and they wouldn't need tinkering until something spectacular comes up.

In times to come, I shall hope it stands for excellence. A fantastic read, rush for it.

Rating: 4.5/5

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Love and Friendship

Friendship is an aspect of life that’s not controlled by its beholders. Ideal friendships, well they are the things of past now. Many a times we have seen our parents or their parents talking about their old great friends and how amusingly they tell us about their bonding, the moments they spent together and we see a ‘priceless’ twinkle in their eyes…..that’s something which is missing from modern friendships. There are terms & phrases like ‘yaar tu to apna bhai hai’, ‘yaar tu to ghar ka aadmi hai’ which even today invoke something very beautiful inside our hearts but we all know that the feelings underneath them are ‘hollow’, they are just mere words, ‘emotionless’ and ‘impassive’. Well who am I to comment on such an indefinable ‘qualitative’ perspective? I’m one of you, those wretched creatures that are still in need of true, great friendships. Well I certainly can’t say that I haven’t got friends. I’ve got friends, plenty of them in fact, and some of them are real great. I s...

Racing Extinction (2015) : A Commentary

It's really hard to switch on to a different language from the one you have constantly been tinkering with. I grew so accustomed to writing in Hindi in last few days that it started dawning on me that I might never be good again with my English. So this is a tester, ladies and gentlemen. Yesterday, one of my movie group friends, an American by nationality, questioned my fondness of documentaries. I specifically wrote in one of my columns that documentaries demand your unwavering attention and once you gave 'that' to them, you are rewarded much more handsomely than a proper, narrative, fictitious film. My reasoning for believing so is that a documentary is an experience of a creative process. It doesn't get made to 'entertain' you. They are there to reveal something to you. They teach you something. You get overwhelmed by them. 'Racing Extinction (2015)' was one such documentary. I watched it in last couple of days. I couldn't complete it in one ...

What Virat Kohli Could Learn from Sourav Ganguly's Career

This IPL season might be dubbed as 'Kohli's IPL' in years to come. He is unarguably the best exponent of white-ball batsmanship going around. However, for someone like me who places a great emphasis on longest form of Cricket i.e. Test Cricket, until and unless he proves himself in seeming and swinging conditions of England and New Zealand (I believe in him and thus shall wish him luck), I shall still rank him behind Kane Williamson and Joe Root. Just to make sure I'm impartial to this debate, I put my favorite cricketer of all time i.e. Sourav Ganguly behind Sachin, Sehwag, Laxman and Dravid when it comes to rank him in FAB FIVE of Indian Batsmanship because he simply wasn't as good as them in test cricket. Many call him a very good test cricketer and maintaining an average of 40 in test cricket from the very beginning till the very end signifies their reasoning but still, he fell short of 45/50 that makes a batsman statistical behemoth in purest form of Cricket. ...