Shadow of the Past by Mayank Manohar (Book Review: 4.25*/5) !!!

Well, you can only thank yourself or the destiny when you pick up the right book to read or movie to watch at a particular moment of your life. I just got done with my birthday and I don’t know how people actually celebrate it as I feel very lonely and isolated on this particular day of my life. Just after my birthday ended, I picked up this book named “Shadow of the past” written by the debutante author, Mayank Manohar, knowing that I am at my vulnerable self and this book shall trigger lot of emotions which it did many times. The book is published by Fingerprint Publication in around 167 pages.

Beginning with the writing style, I must say Mayank has written this book in the most perfect way it could have been written. As people like me who have been reading new Indian authors since a decade can understand how painful it is to pick up a love story or romantic novel because of them being too cliché and cheesy due to the treatment of characters and story. But I am glad that I can say I am finally writing about a common love and break-up story written in a very spectacular manner. I could feel the sense of reading a Bollywood script with every sentence and scene. This is how much possible author makes it for you to imagine! And what more do you need from a book, isn’t it?

The story of the book is almost like the stories of movies such as YJHD, KKHH or you can say from Karan Johar’s genre but the treatment given to it with beautiful language, conversations, emotions etc. is way too commendable. I liked all the letters in the book as it really made me feel lump in my throat while reading them. They are damn too emotional. Also the book and story tells and focuses majorly upon the decisions a human being takes, the way friends don’t understand your priorities if you don’t belong to the herd, how you lose your best person due to that, how then you stay in its memories throughout life, how you find a new person yet can’t understand what to do when your best person returns back at the same time etc.

The pre-climax is very well managed by the author which actually moves the story tremendously. Talking about the climax, the last paragraph is too open for you to be surprised and shocked for some time. I just couldn’t believe what I read which made me read the paragraph multiple times which made me realize that it’s an open ending and there’s a chance we can find its sequel soon. I would request author to bring it out soon as the way he is writing romance right from his 1^st book itself is very promising and I would like to read him more.

Talking about the drawbacks of the book- I feel author should have included little more quality time between Rehan and Arpita as somewhere I felt this beautiful relationship didn’t get the importance it deserved. Also, I felt the story gets too filmy at times where important events are postponed or cancelled just like that which takes the story away from reality. Author could have also made the protagonist little more powerful in terms of the maturity in taking decisions but I won’t say much on this because few characters are meant to be imperfect for making the story it is. This book is definitely the Kabir Singh of romantic books. Lastly, the cover page is beautiful but I would have appreciated it more if characters looked Indian rather than Foreigners. Indians look great- only if we, ourselves, stop considering ourselves inferior to Whites. 

Overall, this is truly a very beautiful book and as all of us have gone through break-ups, we shall relate with it somewhere or the other. Before providing my final rating, I would say that author did a great job my not adding intimate scenes just for the sake of making the book juicier. Now, finally, yes, I am giving this book 4.25* out of 5. I am myself surprised that a love story is being rated so highly from me but who deserves- deserves completely.

Thanks.

WRITING BUDDHA