A Maverick Heart: Between Love and Life
You know when you want to write you could always do a light reading stuff, after all this also has an IIT background to it. But I was surprised to find logical and philosophical takes which was on the verge of being practical and carve a character to be the etched in memory though it was an aspirational one.
The story opens up at the college campus with the three characters in question, Rahul the narrator, his friend Neerav and the lady love Richita. These three characters live out our fantasies of being at the IIT and also echo some of the aspirations and beliefs that we would have held at that times in our lives.
The author takes a realistic view on their lives not to go the fairy tale way and clubs the logical and practical issues with how the world views them and the protagonist is nurtured to be the person with such characteristics that its very aspirational that we could see someone in the real life. Probably that sense in the reader keeps him to see what happens to him till the end.
A nice lucid read except for some parts I thought was little too explanatory which could have been avoided, the pace of the story is kept intact. The characters keep themselves up in their own right. Sprinkle it with some family drama and some real life incidences across all their lives, it gets close as much as possible to reality.
Some explanations are not obvious but then the author has taken himself to explain them especially with the character of Rahul. I did like the way he views the deadline and competition part of academics and how we are creating a robot out of the students every time the same time of the year!
The story moves in parts and covers a lot of events across the given time period and takes you across to the land of dreams USA and gives a glimpse of how the world works in corporate corridors.
Some instances will remain with you forever and may be make you sit up and look back if you can probably do something like that. Of course read keenly you can come up with many instances straight out of the real happenings in our times.
Absolutely an awesome read, could have been a little light at times and at some place, the narration is in second person towards the end, could have been in first person narrative like it started, though it isn’t so noticeable.
A light read and makes for an interesting debut. Though there are enough college romances, this would stand out for its sheer way of portrayal of the characters especially the protagonist. If you really read between lines there is ample scope for you to look at the world differently.
A word of thanks to The Readers Cosmos for the opportunity to review this a part of Book Review program!
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Senthilkumar R