When you read an engrossing book, the first thing you want to do after finishing reading that book is to spread the word. I believe people who read books believe that the real knowledge lies in sharing what you know and that’s why everyone does the same. They go and talk about the riveting story they just finished reading.
But what happens when you read a book which didn’t appeal to you at all? What would you do? What should I do? I consider it as my duty towards all of my readers to share about the books I’ve read. The main reason behind that is reading takes up a lot of time and if you end up reading a wrong book, you waste some precious hours which could have been spent reading a better book. So, reviews are important.
But what if the book is specially sent to you by the author himself for the review? Should you write a negative review about it? Yep, I was in a big confusion whether to write this review or not. But as there was no agreement about not posting the review if it’s bad as per the review policy of my blog, I decided to go on with it.
The book I am talking about is And Thereafter They Changed. This book is the first book of the author Aditya Rai who is currently pursuing his graduation in law. Getting a book published at such a young age is an achievement and when I read this introduction, I really built up high expectations from the book.
There was one more reason behind that. The cover page. Yep, I never really judge the book by its cover page but this time I did. The cover seemed really interesting.
What’s in the book And Thereafter They Changed?
And Thereafter They Changed is about a boy named Addhyan who hails from a very small town and a middle class family. He is very determined to realize his farfetched dreams until love happens to him. The story is a love story of this innocent and nice guy who falls in love and goes through some rough time.
My Review of And Thereafter They Changed
The back cover says a lot about the book but all of that is seriously crap. The book has been written in a way to dramatically enhance the goodness and purity of the ‘hero’ of the story. Addhyan falls in love but he makes wrong choices. The women in his life cheat on him and didn’t recognize his deep, pure and extreme love.
The subject is extremely nice. Yes, the story talks about how women cheat innocent guys and I have been perfectly fine with the storyline for I have seen that myself in my college life. What I didn’t like about the book is the way book is narrated.
As I always say, if the person in your story is good, you don’t need to ‘tell’ the people that the person is good. Be the story teller and let people discover who is good and who is not. But obviously, the writer never read my blogs 😛 He couldn’t realize how cheap and irritating it felt when I read words talking about how ‘nice’ Addhyan is.
The plot and locations of story seem to be picked from the life of writer himself and maybe that’s the reason why Addhyan had to be so good. With an irritating narration style, it became a nightmare to read the book.
But still, I had to go on and with every page I turned, I could see how bad writing can go. If anyone had suggested the writer to write in first person instead of third, the book could have been bearable.
And from the cover this seems to be a self published book which explains why self-publishing doesn’t and shouldn’t work in India. I wish people who love writing would stop inducing pain to the people who love to read.
What else I can say about the book? This doesn’t really seem like a review but this is how it is. Never go for And Thereafter They Changed.
Rating: 1/5
Hello Manpreet!
I completely agree with you. Not everyone can be a writer. People think writing a novel or a book is so damn easy. It isn’t. One has to write in a way to carry their readers into a world where they feel it’s their story. The writing skills were poor. Read your views on book, got the curiosity to read because I see these days youngsters feel its easy to be writer and see how they spoil the mood of a passionate readers.
Thanks for giving an overview. You’ve described the book so well.
Hello Ridhima,
I really wish that there were more people like you who can understand this very important thing. Writing is awesome and I would say, everyone should write stories. But then you have to make extra efforts on the story to make it a good experience for the readers. Right?