The Girl In Room 105 by Chetan Bhagat (Book Review: 3*/5) !!!

I had started reading fiction novels after getting my hands upon Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone as I had heard a lot about it from my friends who had read the same. I remember it was also one of the initial days in college and while an introduction session whosoever described their hobby as reading, on being asked which book they have read, everyone named “Five Point Someone”. Out of curiosity, I picked up the book and liked the fun in the story telling of Chetan Bhagat and read all his four books that had released by that time. And since then I have read around 500 books out of which 90% are by Indian authors. It is just a default setting in my reading habit that I compare all the fiction books with Chetan Bhagat’s initial books which were great combination and balance of storytelling and humour.

I am just done reading Chetan Bhagat’s latest release “The Girl In Room 105” which has released just today itself and along with office, I have managed to read 300+ pages in whatever free time I got. Such is the craze for reading Chetan Bhagat even today despite worrying about what people would say about my reading choice as most people pretend to hate CB as he has goofed up with the English language quite often. But that’s okay. He anyway does not portray or claim to be a literary expert and accepts that he is just a story teller and not an English teacher.

CB has gone the thriller way this time with his latest release and I must say, it was a fine narration throughout the book as it ensures that you are curious about knowing who murdered the protagonist, Keshav’s girlfriend. The book starts in CB’s trademark style where in the Prologue, a character meets and tells him his whole story which CB pretends to be writing as dictated to him. The book has lot of characters and author has again ensured the chemistry between each one of them is nicely described to make the background of the story clear. The bond between Keshav and Saurabh is very nicely portrayed. The tuning between Keshav and policeman, Rana, is also very intelligently portrayed. CB has again taken care that in order to sound too intellectual, the book does not lose the simplicity and hence, keeps the timeline and narrative simple.

The locality of Delhi and Kashmir are nicely described in the book and author has ensured that it is used in the story quite significantly to give the locale descriptions. The first half of the book is interesting as you get introduced to new characters and want to understand who the possible murderer of the girl could be. But it’s in the second half where the book becomes quite slow and does not give any kind of twists and turns which can astonish the reader. Talking about the climax, the way the revelation of the murder scene is introduced and described is very childish and as expected from a thriller, there is no moment where the reader would drop the book or jump out of his bed in shock.

In the sake of maintaining his trademark style of writing simple stories, CB could not do complete justice to this thriller which could have been written 5 times better. Though this book is recommended for the new readers who haven’t read great thrillers and are still stuck in the genre of college romances. But for the thriller lovers, this book is a sure-shot disappointment. The terrorist thing is brought into the picture but left just like that without going deeper into it. Similarly, the girl is shown as a Muslim whereas boy belongs from the family that supports RSS but this angle has not been used even once in the book whereas a lot could have been done with this plot. Similarly, the way police leaves Keshav and his friend in spite of finding them at murder spot is disappointing in the initial phase of the story itself. CB has also promoted many brands upfront in this book which is quite evident and sounds foolish and obvious. This could have also been handled little more intelligently. Overall, this is a light read rather than a suspense thriller as been described in the synopsis and trailer of the book. I rate this one an average 3 stars out of 5.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA!!