Book Name: And We Walked Away
Author Name: Subrat Saurabh
Format: Paperback
No of Pages: 188
Publisher: Notion Press (1st Ed- 2018)
Blurb: The blurb portion of the book is written vividly with highlighting the entire base of the plot clearly. Readers will get a specific idea about the story inside, which can be considered as a positive point, so it is good & compact I can say.
Cover: The front cover of the book is eye soothing as it contains the romantic aroma and it implies the theme of the book aptly. As per the genre of the book, it is catching indeed.
Title: The title of the book is touchy & thought provoking as well. Just because the storyline contains love, in this aspect this particular title is pretty much significant. Hence I consider this appropriate.
Language & narration: The language of the book is lucid enough to comprehend for any kind of reader. The narration of the book maintained a single and plain but uninterrupted flow till the end. Written in a ‘Diary style’ narrating style, it starts from 3rd person narrative and then changed to 1st person narrative and continued till the end. It is clearly strength of this book.
Plot: Author has developed a decent yet touching story from this romantic & love based plot. There are several sub plots (including the incidents with friend & family) as well that has made the base story potentially component and made the book worthy reading. This type of plot is termed as ‘Flashback’ plot and because it is a love story, that’s why it never lacks my attention throughout the journey. So, a well crafted story I must say.
Setting: Setting of the story is mainly in Bangalore. Beside this, it will cover Ranchi, Delhi & ‘Nandi Hills’ with time.
Characterization: Crystal characterization is to be considered as another positive point of the book. Author has portrayed every character (be it the protagonists, or any major / minor character) neatly justifying to their respective roles and all of them are significant as per the story needs. Let’s get familiar with the names of the character mentioned in the book- Abhimanyu, Bhuwan, Mr. Shetty, Abhishek, Aftab, Raman, Aarush, Mr. Rane, Naina (Chinni), Dev, Miss Desai, Nidhi, Charu, Reema, Kaka, Sumit, Amit, Radhika, Neha, Babita, Verma Uncle, Meera, Dr. Shiva.
Theme: Romance, Love, Friendship.
Story in a nutshell: The story revolves around the life of Abhimanyu and people around him because it is his story; his journey. The story starts at the present day when Abhimanyu (30), who, is now a successful, well known, popular bestselling author (and an engineer as well), returns to his Engineering college to attend a Induction Program, that too after a decade. Ever since crossing the entrance gate of the college, memories kept flowing on Abhimanyu’s mind. He noticed that a lots of changes happened in the college in those past 10 years. His mind brought him back to the old days of his college life when he himself was there as a student. Everything around the college made him nostalgic and some memories are in his mind like it happened just yesterday. He started reminiscing his past and thus we will visit his journey in the college and of course the most important phase of his life. Here we go-
Abhimanyu was a boy, hailing from Ranchi and from a stable and decent family background. He was good meritorious student, school topper, extrovert, jolly, and much likely frank with others. There’re other sides in his characteristics as well. After finishing his school life, he took admission in one of the top most reputed and prestigious college of Engineering in Bangalore. On the very first day of his college, he crossed paths with Naina. Naina was a beautiful girl with a charm of innocence in her personality; she was introvert type and quite reserved of a person. But she respects other’s feelings and she had her own point of view as an individual in respective matters (from the same Dept. of Abhimanyu). A head turner of the college with a determined mentality was Naina. Abhimanyu had fallen head over hills for her and he was in love with her deeply. He made two close buddies named Aarush & Dev in his college too, who were more like brother to him. After a little time, Abhimanyu made friendship with Naina, and his fondness, feelings towards Naina had not gone unnoticed by her. Actually, almost everyone around them was aware of Abhimanyu’s feelings towards Naina. With getting courage & support from his friends, he expressed his heart out in front of Naina. But Naina politely rejected him, because she was not a believer of love at all, and she was not having the mentality to be in a relationship with anyone, but respected and acknowledged his feelings and was accepted him as a close friend. It shattered Abhimanyu, (and hurt his male ego as well). But this was not the only time, with listening to the advice of his friends and also thinking about his grandfather’s life lessons, he persisted with all his efforts and left no stones unturned in trying to win her heart, but things did remain the same from her side every time he approaches her.
But then something happened, that brought separation between two brother-like friends. Abhimanyu & Dev parted with each other for a silly reason (well, that shouldn’t have had been any issues at all). Not only from Dev, but it affected the friendship bonding between Abhimanyu & Naina also…
What happened after that? What was the reason that two brothers had to part their ways? Why and how it affected the bonding between Abhimanyu & Naina? What was there to get hold of? Who was to blame and why things were getting complicated with time for Abhimanyu? Who supported him in those tough times? Will Abhimanyu & Dev ever get together again? Or two best friends parted permanently? Will Naina ever accept him as her lover or soulmate? Will Abhimanyu be able to make himself out of the misunderstandings? Will Naina & Abhimanyu be together or….they walked away forever…?
To get your answers, grab your copy now and dive in to this journey of love and friendship.
My Verdict: Author has beautifully penned down this saga of innocent love by writing his heart out. Each and every emotion was evident through the lines of the book. Love comes directly from the core of heart and it demands sacrifices as well. It needs persistent efforts and it never is in control of anyone. What is destined to you will surely be yours, with time, honesty and patience, sooner or later, but…only if it is destined to you then. Author’s reminiscence about his past days brought me back to my days of engineering. The days of college, friends, canteen, gossip, result’s excitement, campus interview, everything made me nostalgic. Hindi lines, Bollywood song lines, poetry lines and shayaris are the often in many places in the book appropriately. Sometimes the conversations (some part) was reminding me about the dialogues of old romantic bollywood films, Author anecdotes in the middle is written in bold italic to make them noticeable. Protagonist Abhimanyu’s thoughts were also written differently in the paragraphs. The shayaris or hindi lines were very touchy and romantic with deep meaning I admit. There are quite a lots of life lessons in the middle (especially the interaction with Grandfather touched me entirely). Light touch of humor was there that made the book a pleasing read. Author has balanced the phases between present day and past quite well connectively. The deep, genuine friendship bonding, the innocent love, the concern, the care, the brotherly support, the consistent effort, the dilemma, the ego, the inner thoughts, the hesitation, the misunderstandings, the pain, the desperation, the honesty, the touching lessons, the fun, struggle, each and everything was clearly evident in the book and all these elements made this touching plot turned into a story worthy reading. I liked this journey of Abhimanyu, Naina, Dev & Aarush completely. All the best to the author for his future endeavors.
Recommendation: I’d like to recommend this sweet touching story of love & friendship to every love readers, romance lovers and to everyone who is in fond of light emotional love story, especially teenagers will love this completely. Thank you.
Rating (Overall): 4/5 Stars.