The Symbol – Book Review
Author: Varun Gautam
Paperback: 230 pages
Publisher: AuthorsPress (20th August 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 8172738897
ISBN-13: 9788172738891
About The Book:
A perfectly written script goes awry when Arjun encounters the unexpected. His belief in occult injustice solidifies when he, on one hand, fails to clear the much coveted IMS entrance exam and on the other hand, his friend Mohan gets more than what he deserved in life. Unable to cope up with this unfairness, he becomes directionless. With no way forward and some strained relations, he reaches the peak of monotony in his life and has nowhere to draw his inspiration from. One day suddenly he gets hold of a device called The Symbol which promises to solve all his problems.
Can The Symbol help him come out of his woes?
Will he be able to rise above the so called injustice and prove his mettle? It is a journey that takes a peek into finding a new perspective and chartering inspiration from unknown territories, where none was thought to have existed.
About The Author:
Varun Gautam makes his debut as an author with his book The Symbol: the story that is an amalgamation of fictional and factual experiences. After completing his engineering from Pantnagar University, he started working as a computer professional in one of the India’s prominent IT Companies. He is currently settled in New Delhi and married to Anjali. He was fond of writing since his early days and has never let this creative bug of writing go away from him. The journey that started with casual school board articles has taken a new impetus with the advent of his first book. Through his stories, he wants to spread a message across to bring about a change in the mind-set of the people. He is fond of watching movies. Lately travelling has become his newest passion. Covering entire India is surely on his wish list.
My Take:
The story is simple to read and connect. The story is different from the regular love stories available in the market. It follows a teenage boy who struggles through his failures and ego to understand what Life is and What real Success means. Even though the story revolves around the teenage boy, it still brings out the reality of the society like peer pressure, parental expectations, loneliness, dreams, aspirations, our varied perceptions about success etc.
Characters of the story are straight out of our real lives, the ones who behave and think like us and the ones to whom we can easily relate.
Though the story is relateable and a bit different from the regular, its slow start and repetitive description about the protagonist, make it tough to continue. The story take quite a long time to set up and gains speed only in the last 100 pages. There could have been more dimensions to the story. The start of each chapter which compares the life of the protagonist Arjun with that of Indian Cricket team seems interesting in the start but fails to keep interest in the last. The readers who are philosophical in nature might like few philosophical life related paragraphs. Moreover, the cover of the book could have been much better and the cost is considerably higher for the targeted readers.
My Rating:
3/5
And now I’ll leave you with a few lines from the book.
“The brigade for whom the voice of the heart was at times more important than the voice of the brain.
“Success may not come in the form that you like. It may not at the time you want.”
“Mobile phones have killed all the excitement in life. The information now flows in no time.”
“Fear is a very inherent feeling. If you fear something, then it is totally fine. there is no harm in fearing something.”
“Every feeling has an expiration date associated with it.”
“It is important to get over your past, if it is painful. But you cannot shut it out.”
“When it is not going right for you, take a left.”
“You don’t have to win everything. It is more about enjoying what you do.”
“It (human mind) travels a lot in almost every direction and sometimes even to places which you can not even think of.”
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