Book Reviews

Chasing Life

Story Statistics

Name: Chasing Life

Author: Nitisha_57

Number of completed chapters: 3 +prologue+character sketch

Number of chapters read: 3 +prologue+character sketch

Genre: General Fiction

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In 2014, I had the pleasure of reading Gillian Flynn's terrific thriller novel, 'Gone Girl'. I had a rather interesting conversation with my sister immediately after.

"Rumi didi, why do you think the author used two different narrators in the novel rather than opting for a simple third person narrative?" I asked, munching on some French fries.

She smirked slightly in response.

"Isn't it obvious? To maintain a degree of partial exposition that a third person narration could never achieve as effectively." She said, stealing a few fries from my plate.

"What do you mean?" I asked curiously.

"Reading a novel in the first person...it's like looking through someone's eyes, empathizing with the characters. However, sympathy, apathy or antipathy is all a character's going to get from you in the third person, for you're just looking them in the eye..." She said with a wink.

As I read your story 'Chasing Life', the memory of this discussion popped into my head involuntarily. I'll do my best to explain exactly why through this review.

So, let's dive right in and start with the cover. The picture used in the cover is rather intense, but the filter (if there is one, that is) and clarity make it seem slightly blurry. The title of the story is relatively unclear on the cover. Moreover, since this story is a general fiction with Parth and Niti cast as the lead protagonists, why does it say 'Manan FF' in the title? It's quite misleading and Manan fans will definitely feel like they've been shortchanged once they start to read your story and discover that it doesn't have Manik or Nandini in it. I'd actually advise you to make a new cover with photographs of Parth and Niti outside of their roles as Manik and Nandini, so that the cover remains true to the story and doesn't suffer from a Manan hangover.

Coming to the blurb, it offers a good overview of the story. However, I do think that dialogues from the story should only be included right at the beginning of the blurb, instead of the middle. Furthermore, the dialogues should be in a different font. I'm not certain if Wattpad allows it, and that's why I refrain from putting dialogues in my own blurbs.

Moving to the character sketches, I've expressed my disapproval for the concept in earlier reviews, so I'm not going to repeat myself by bringing up the same points again. However, after reading the two sketches of the leads, I was very easily reminded of the popular Star Plus show, 'Kahaan Hum Kahaan Tum'. The only difference being, the sexes of the characters are swapped. Piyanshi's character resembles that of Rohit's and Aarav's resembles that of Sonakshi's. I don't know if the show was the inspiration for the story, but other readers might draw the same parallels. This is just a minor warning so that you can work towards differentiating your story from the show more effectively in the future.

Also, when I read the message to your readers at the end, I was a tad disappointed. 

Forget for a moment, that I'm reviewing your book. Even if I'm just a regular reader, don't I have the right to expect a story with as few grammatical errors as possible?