Marian Keyes - The Other Side of the Story

 Time is a flawed concept. It is one of the shittiest jokes that nature could ever play. But just like everything else, we endure it. Much like time, happiness is a rotten concept. So much has been written and spoken about it that now it seems almost idealistic.

I was, and someplace deep inside still am convinced with this. There comes a phase when almost everything and everybody is conspiring against you. Every single action or event compels you to believe that you are now rotten, just like happiness.

You sit in a corner of your room isolated, free from all the chaos, delimited by absolute silence. And that silence is the root of your agony. You longed for it when you didn't have it. But when you finally got it realization dawned and it hit you in the face.

Amidst the noise of silence, I did what I do best. Embracing the isolation, I picked up a book and crossed the threshold into the virtual world. Marian Keyes’ ‘The Other Side of the Story’ is rather an unusual story. But a perfect book to read in times when you are on your way to self-destruction. The books starts on a wrecked note and you realize that it is perfect. Reading about other people’s miserable life is somehow comforting when you are on the same page as them.

But as the book progressed, it delivered a strong vibe of optimism. Not the clichéd concept but the kind where it tells you to stop over-analyzing, take a deep breath and deal with whatever shit you are going through. The lives of Gemma, Jojo and Lily are portrayed in a very realistic fashion and that’s what made the book so appealing. It is fast paced and makes you bubble up with happiness inside.

After all happiness, however rotten it is is a rare thing and we have to take our chances where we find them. We want to do the right thing – but how do we ever know? There are no guarantees. I could rationalize until I was blue in the face but then why not just accept and smile.

John Green - Fault In Our Stars

The thing about books is they leave you with memories. The thing about characters is they take the form of life you want and permanently reside in your universe. Sometimes as a friend and sometimes as a reflection of what you want to be. The thing about books is that the story they behold stays with you. It becomes a part of you. They make you feel emotions you never thought you could feel.

I was looking for a certain book when I accidently came across John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Now even though it is not some extraordinaire work of fiction, it still has that spark. People who have read it might just call it a ‘chick book (like a chick flick)’. But I refuse to do so. Emotions cannot be differentiated on the basis of gender. That would be unfair and rude. Emotions are meant to be felt.

The book is about Hazel Grace and Augustus (Gus) Waters. Both are Cancer patients and both have a unique sense of humor which absorbs you as you walk through their journey. The thing about cancer patients is that we believe they start living death even before they actually face it. John Green managed to contradict that in a manner as if mocking us by proving us wrong.

A person leaves you with a void to deal with for the rest of your life when s/he walks out of your universe. You never knew what that void could be like unless it hits you in the face. That’s the thing about death. It leaves the others who are alive emotionally handicapped. Their lives are like stars that cannot fathom a constellation.

When Gus died, he left a void in my universe.

This book is definitely worth a read. 

Fifty Shades Of Grey - Book Review

When I started the much talked about Fifty Shades of Grey (trilogy), I had high hopes.  And I did try to sustain that level till the second part eager for something interesting to happen. Some unanticipated twist, some startling event, something that makes me want to be fond of this book.

Regrettably, none of that happened. The book in my opinion insults romance and love. E L James seems to have a dull understanding of love…err…lust. The books are divided in two parts –

1) Pages and pages of erotica which after a point becomes suffocating and frustrating.

2) The Twilight Saga

The story has two protagonists – Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. The former being a control freak, dominating, bossy, overprotective, stunning and filthy rich guy who apparently has a dark side to him which is not revealed until the first half of the second book. The latter being a clumsy, confused, take-no-bullshit and a hopeless romantic. (Remember Edward Cullen and Bella Swan?).

When the two are not making love they are thinking about making love. As usual the guy has a dark side and has had many girlfriends (or sub-missives as they are referred in the book) in the past but he tersely changes after he meets the clumsy soul who has never had any boyfriends in her past. Clichéd!

The plot is nothing which can’t be predicted. It establishes with a typical, hasty, unexpected meeting which results into love at first side. The guy stalks the girl and the girl instead of finding it utterly creepy falls for it. As the story progresses, somewhere in the middle of all the erotica, it disappoints. The events that bit by bit unfold are nothing novel or atypical from the conventional.

The girl craves for the one thing which the guy has plainly refused to give. The guy has a creepy stalker ex-submissive with a gun who wants to kill Ana. Without a second guess, Grey is all over protective of Ana and all he wants is for her ‘to be safe’.  The family is profligately affluent and they all adore Ana the moment they meet her.

Now doesn't all that sound familiar?

Looks like E L James filled in the blanks for what she felt was missing in The Twilight Saga. The crux of the story remains the same all the way through with just some minor improvisations which fail miserably. It’s distressing how she has looked at romance as a genre in such monotonic manner like there was no hope to explore and give something worth reading. The book has nothing new or exciting to offer (unless you like reading porn). Perhaps the answer to the writer’s every ‘what now?’ was Sex. Every time she didn't know how to advance with the story she laid pages and pages of erotica which after a while got dreadfully exasperating.

Fifty Shades Of Grey – Trilogy has zilch new to offer and is a sheer letdown. If you are a book lover and prefer to read good substantial stories then this one is not for you. 

Read Instead

I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.

The thing about books is that they take me in a world I can only dream of – the fresh air, the coruscant sunlight, the devil-may-care environs.  I cannot feel all this even if I wish to – because firstly, I live in Mumbai and can only expect polluted air, abrasive sunlight and nerve-racking environment. While travelling in an overly crowded Virar train at the peak hour, the only thing that makes my 80 minutes journey not so cumbersome is Books.  

I respect writes the most. They have a God gifted talent to put words in such magical way that leaves me hypnotized. They somehow express my feelings in a way I can never even if I tried. When I don’t want to face reality, when I want to believe that the world is a better place, when I want the reassurance that I am not the only one with troubles, I turn to books. 


The sassy aroma, the crisp young pages and the words staring at me asking me to read them. That never-ending moment when I stare in the space thinking about what I read. People come and go, feelings change, life moves on but books stay and so does those moments and thoughts. I share my deepest secrets with them and they keep it.