Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Book Review: The Name of this Book is Secret



The unusual name of the book though is secret (pun intended) and a 4-plus rating on Goodreads gave me the confidence to pick up this one. The story starts in an interesting way, where the author keeps warning you page after page to not read the book. At the start it feels exciting and gives a newness to the writing, but I wish I had paid some attention to it. Guess he was trying to play with the human psyche, and knew that people go ahead and do what they are asked to refrain from. Anyways, coming back to the story, after several warnings by the author to not read the book, which you happily choose to ignore, starts the plot wherein again the author tries to keep the thrill alive by not willing to talk much about the characters (though by the end of the book you realize it didn't make much of a difference anyways). He almost gets to a point where frustration creeps in with the constant 'I wish I dint have to tell you this', and 'I still warn you to not continue reading this' disclaimers!! And after so much hullabaloo about the dangerous secret, the reader would definitely expect something concrete and worth calling a secret, but the author fails to live upto his promise of delivering the same. 

What I liked about this book was the concept of 'Symphony of Smells' and the world of synesthestic people which I was exposed to for the first time. I knew this book was for children, but this one is strictly only for them. It gets very predictable as it reaches the end (though the author refuses to write a concluding chapter and wants us to do all the hard work for our own selves).

In fact while reading this book, I wished I had an adolescent daughter/son and also imagined myself narrating this story with all drama to her/him. 

All in all, I feel instead of announcing disclaimers about not reading the book, the author could have been more specific saying that 'If you are above 14 years of age, you read the book at your own risk, and don't blame me for the disappointment'. This way he could have shifted the onus of dissatisfaction on the reader, and this would have saved himself of some critically devastating reviews. 

But you now what, given a chance I do want to read the 4 other books in the pentalogy, somehow i'm still curious and am willing to take the risk of further disappointment. Funny but true!





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