Secret, Sins & Struggles by Kamini Kusum (Book Review-3*/5) !!!

Feminists are growing in population on daily basis in our country. Haha! Owing to which, there are many books that are based on women empowerment these days. Even Chetan Bhagat's latest release "One Indian Girl" also portrayed the same theme. I am just done reading with the book named "Secrets, Sins & Struggles" written by the debutante authoress, Kamini Kusum. The book is the journey of five women and how they fought against their internal and external demons. Do not get confused that these 5 women are friends to each other in the book but it is 5 different stories in the form of an anthology. Each story is of 50 pages or something and speaks about a certain character's ups and downs. 

The SSS is a nicely written book with a very smooth narration. The narration is very simple which makes reading this book a good experience and you will end up reading it in a single sitting within few hours. The characterization is also very good of each of the 5 main protagonists and other characters associated with them. You will not feel a single character out of place. Even when all the stories are short, author have managed to explain the backdrop of the story very nicely in the initial few pages itself which builds the premise very beautifully. I also liked the climax of each of the stories as it sounds quite realistic and doesn't end up being a dramatic fairy tale. In my personal opinion, I liked the first story of Priya a lot which describes how she stays in hell and every time she gets a ray of hope, it turns out to be another disaster for her. All the other stories are also nicely woven but as they are mostly about love tales, it didn't touch me the way the first story did.

Talking about the drawbacks of the book, the only thing that I felt underwhelming was the theme of the stories excluding the first one. All of them almost had the same premise where the girl wanted to do something but because she was in love with a boy, she sacrificed everything for him and after getting hurt in love, they bounced back by achieving their ambition and falling in love with that best friend who stayed with them during their break-up phase. This problem lies basically with the 2nd and 3rd story which sounds almost same. The story based on rave party is also nice and has a different theme all over about revenge. Overall, this book is a light read and specially for the readers who have just got into the habit of reading. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU!!!