#IAm16ICanRape – Book Review

Author: Kirtida Gautam

Paperback: 593 pages

Publisher: Read Out Loud Publishing LLP; 

Language: English

ISBN-10: 8193136020

ISBN-13: 978-8193136027

About The Book:

To destroy great EVIL, GOOD has to shed tears of blood.
Rudransh Kashyap is a self-made billionaire and man of high moral fiber. His life is shattered when he returns home one day to find that his prodigy, his 16-year-old grandson, Aarush, has been arrested and accused of a brutal gang rape. It is easy to say, “Kill the Rapist” but what if the accused is your child?
This case takes an unprecedented turn when Aarush’s identity is made public on social media. Rudransh finds himself living a nightmare as he fights against tremendous odds to get justice for Aarush, to save him and to bring him back home… But what if the unthinkable is true? Can Rudransh save his grandson, or will he end up fighting a different battle altogether?

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:

Kirtida Gautam is a post graduate in Clinical Psychology. She also holds a Diploma of Performing Arts in Dramatics. Later she joined the prestigious institute Film and Television Institute of India, FTII, Pune for screenplay writing course.
She worked for television shows such as Dharampatni and Jodha Akbar.
In December 2012, when a 23 years old paramedic student was brutally gang raped on a moving bus in Delhi, entire nation felt rage for the victim who was given the title Nirbhaya- the fearless, for the way she fought with the inhumane tragedy she was forced to endure. Her tragedy also brought in light the debate if a juvenile offenders age should be considered the primary criteria while determining his/her punishment.
Kirtida as a psychologist strongly feels that it is role of the state as parens patriae of its youth to give them right direction, and even while the intention of state might be right to give juvenile offenders care and protection and not punishment, there is a high possibility of this law being misused by people who commit heinous crimes such a rape.
The book written by the author revolves around this very premise, are we doing a sensible thing by not considering the competence and ability to premeditate while deciding the punishment for juveniles.
This is the first fiction written by the author.
She lives in Bangalore with her husband Mrityunjay Gautam and her daughter Agrima.

 

My Take:

 Even if you are slightly curious about how a human mind works, this is the book for you. The name is self suggestive about the bottomless of the story. This book talks about the least talked about topic in the country which should be given more attention as the high time rises.  But unlike anyone would guess, it doesn’t dwell over the tragic story of the victim. Rather it deals with the psychology of the rapist and the people around him.

Sudden twists in the story keeps the reader hooked to the story. The story is compelling and This book is totally unputdownable and even if one manages to do that then the characters of the story stay with him/her until the book is picked up again and the story continues. Author wonderfully paints the true picture of our society and brings out the hypocrisy that runs in our blood.

With its 593 pages, it takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster ride. There’s nothing that you won’t feel while reading through. Love, friendship,innocence, surprise, peer pressure, parental pressure, anger, hurt, guilt, shame, pain, hatred; there’s everything that you can ask from a book. Author wonderfully depicts the flavor of each emotion through her multiple characters. Though due to multiple characters, it is often difficult to relate with any particular one as none of it stands out, yet reader might be able to relate to someone at some part of the story.

As the story is told by multiple characters, the events often become repetitive and the story seems stretched. But then, this can be forgiven considering the story doesn’t waiver from the effect it seeks.

So, the bottom line is: if you are up for some unputdownable mind-blowing psychological thriller then put this in your reading shelf now!

 My Rating:

4/5

Grab your copy @ Amazon

And now I’ll leave you with a few lines from the book.

Self -pity is the worst form of poison. It kills a person without the person realizing it.
Guilt is the enemy of reason.

Any idea why people watch movies or read fiction and stuff? Homo sapiens crave emotional experiences. They need intense emotional experiences, but the fact of human life is that they don’t get those experiences in their real lives . They bottle up emotions, then they go out and watch or read something and their emotions come out, a process called catharsis.


And if people can see themselves for who they really are, they will know that every person has a dark side!


The connections human beings claim to feel for each other are creations of their fictional minds. They don’t exist.


“One of the most courageous acts of human existence is to accept we are where we are because we chose to take the roads we took. This acknowledgement requires the utmost courage.”


The human mind is capable of creating imaginary pain and experience it as real pain.


It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for; And if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool; For your values, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive…


The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.


“People become artists in hours of grief,”


Punishment is not something immoral. It is much simpler. The loss that the person experiences as a result of committing a crime has to be equal and opposite to the loss of the person who has been wronged.


What we consciously suppress, we unconsciously crave.


You think that you know loss, but you actually never understand loss until you experience loss.


You simply cannot stop loving a person because you know that he has committed a wrong action . But you certainly stop loving yourself for loving him,


Every human is not born with the extraordinary capacity to accept himself unconditionally, the kind of acceptance that helps him to survive when the whole world stands in opposition.


A society needs to know when to forgive, but it also needs to know when to punish. Forgiveness is not always a virtue. Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any better.


Parents have no clue how many things they never teach their children. Their children are simply born with those things.


Hope, my dear friend, is a good thing, maybe the best of the things.


 This is an unbiased review, done on request by the Author. For more reviews Click here. For Review Requests Contact Here.

 mysign

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