Book Review: Cafe Latte by Amit Shankar

Engrossing. Intoxicating. And I can write many more alike adjectives for this book.

 Cafe Latte by Amit Shankar.

18 stories – each having different people dealing with different events.

 The book Cafe Latte has been written by a national bestselling author Amit Shankar whose previous books include Flight of the Hilsa, Chapter 11 and the Love is Vodka – A shot ain’t enough.  While I hadn’t heard about the former two books, I definitely got a tones of recommendations for the latter book and yes, I never got the time to read that book.

But when I was contacted to review this newly released book Cafe Latte, I couldn’t say no. Yes, I had a very busy schedule due to campus placements, my social media marketing projects and my dreams but still, I went on to give my consent to review this book.

Another reason which compelled me NOT to review this book is my last experience with short stories. Remember The other Side by Faraaz Kazi? It was a compilation of horror stories and I really hated the book. I kinda decided not to read any book consisting of short stories from then onwards. Despite of this fact, I went on to give my consent to review Cafe Latte.

I received the book last weekend and at the first look, I liked it. The cover page of the book doesn’t have anything deep in it but the colors green and pink look adorable. In fact, this book is the most eye catching book on my book shelf right now. And the reason is colors.

As I always say, “Never judge the book by its cover.” So, I went on to read the book. Logic, if any is like a prologue where writer has told how he came up with this idea of writing short stories and that really grabbed my interest. I wanted to read what was there in the book.

So, I started with the first short story in Cafe Latte, Temple of The King and what should I say about it? When the story ended, I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe it has ended. Isn’t it the sign of a good story? You just feel so empty when it ends. Right?

Now was the time to read the next story. And next and so on. I kept reading the stories and each one of them were good. I especially liked Let me help you die. Each story in Cafe Latte has a different plot and would try to tap different taste buds of a reader (If you’re a foodie you would understand this line ;)).

I think I have already said what I needed to say about the book. If you’re looking for a direct answer for whether you should read the book or not, the answer is definitely yes. This is a good book and you would enjoy reading it.

I would suggest you to read the stories slowly like one story a day and you would enjoy it more. And once you complete reading a story, you’re going to find it difficult to continue because each story is so engrossing that you just cannot get over it in few seconds or minutes. You need time for that.

Cafe Latte, well they say take a cup of coffee and read them but I would say read one story a day and read them before you sleep. Though, the kind most of the stories end won’t really please an emotional person (spoiler alert!!) but still, I enjoyed reading the book most before my night’s sleep.

If you’re going to pick up this book, tell me which time did you enjoy it the most? In the morning, in the local bus, in the canteen, or before your night’s sleep?

 And don’t forget to look which more books are there in my bookshelf 😉

Book Review in association with “The Bookaholics”