Transition of Thoughts

Weaving thoughts into words

Book Review – Of Dreams

Now this is the 1st book for which I was asked to write a review. Obviously it wasn’t a paid one before you start thinking I am being paid to write good things ;). But instead I got this opportunity because my couple of book reviews till date seem to have been liked by some people around. Anyways let’s get to the point.

‘Of Dreams’ is the first attempt at writing by Aditi Talwar Sodhi whose different from our regular out of college writers in the sense that she is an MBA professional with pretty good experience in the advertising industry. When you read the synopsis you realize that the book is about three girls and their dreams and what happens within. 3 girls? Now that’s something different than the regular boy-girl love sagas or gang of boys stories floating around in the Indian market.

Aarti is one whose not that well off but has a strong head on her shoulders and knows that she would get what she wants only with ultimate hardwork and determination. Amrita is manipulated by everyone but interestingly she starts doing the same things as what had happened to her. On the other hand Payal is someone who wants to fly high in life every time. But everytime she tries to move forward, something pulls her backwards. This is the story of three friends. This is the story of how three friends enjoyed life at college. This is the story of how these three go through the ups and downs in their lives over many years and finally meet in the strangest of circumstances.

Aditi manages to engage the readers pretty well throughout the story. With three sets of characters and their lives to be interwoven into the plot, things can become really difficult but she manages it effortlessly. She could do with slightly better editing as well as slightly smaller sentences in certain places. For eg: You have sentences like –

Below that banner, wooden buffet tables covered shabbily with frayed discoloured white tablecloths that fell only halfway down the front, leaving the tables scrawny rusting foldable legs in full view, stood against the wall. (This is one entire sentence)

So she studied day and night; without the advantage of the trendy and almost mandatory coaching classes – just a set of hand – me – down books and used test papers from which she used to erase their previous owners ticks on the multiple choice a.b.c.d; and struggle not to let their stubborn impressions let influence her decision when she took the time bound mock tests! (This is one entire sentence)

Now Aditi may have thought that the sentences need to be big so as to convey the point here. But sadly in this case you have to read it more than once to understand what’s exactly being said. But to her credit such instances are few and far in between and each time you are scared things may go down, the story picks up.

As far as the content goes, she has a winner on her hands with stuff like gender discrimination, the economic recession, starry celebrity life etc. thrown in to take the story forward. Many of the instances seem as though have been picked up directly from her life or stuff she has seen around and it shows in the attention to detail like the honeymoon in South Africa or the description of the recession in Dubai. The flow is pretty pacy throughout as the story moves across time zones and years.

When so many characters are present in the story, you wonder whether the author would be able to give justice to all of them. But she manages to do just that. The male characters are obviously a bit sidelined but then you realize that this is a story of the three female friends and all of them get the best screen space.

All in all a big thumbs up!!

Rating – 3.5/5

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2 Comments

  1. Abhishek

    Good review. I guess you show have a line at the end stating “Must read” or “Read” or “Avoid”.
    Kind of like a rank. – Just a suggesting even though you give marks like 3.5/ 5.

    Never the less a nice review.

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