The Insider by Bharat Choudary (Book Review: 3.5*/5) !!!

If you must have gone through the post regarding the last book I completed reading, you must be aware that it was in Hindi language which took around 18 days for me to finish. Hence, the next book that I wanted to read after that had to be a great motivator to ensure I carry on the last phase of my reading marathon this year with great energy. Hence, I decided to pick up a short thriller book written by a new Indian author named Bharat Choudary. The book that I am talking about is of around 150 odd pages and titled “The Insider”. The title of the book is very attractive along with its cover page with does its job perfectly for you to pick it up and read its synopsis; after that there is no chance that you would not give this book a try.

Bharat’s writing is very simple which makes it easy for any beginner to go through the book with very ease. The book is written in a thriller genre hence the expectations from the pre-climax or climax of the book is always very high due to several popular Indian authors. I must say that author tried very well and the way the whole story is executed says a lot about his skills as a story-teller. I liked the characterizations made by the author which makes it easy for us to understand the mindset of each and every character involved in the story. I liked the plot of the story of how a writer’s life is projected with so many layers to it that after a point of time, it becomes difficult to figure out what would happen next with protagonist and other characters involved in the story.

The first half of the book is more about the development of the story and most parts of it is about the story that author has written influenced by a real-life half-solved mystery. Post this, author wishes to give it his own ending but then in the real life, some developments take place which ends up ruining the plan of the writer’s thought behind what to do with the climax of his story. And from here meets this aspiration of the author with a wanted criminal.

The 2^nd half of the book consists of lot of actions and written with ultimate passion. You can actually visualize the whole thing with big action Bollywood actors. The pre-climax and climax is how the Race series in Bollywood is written where you find someone dead in this moment and then alive in the next and again dead and then again alive which keeps on going which keeps you on your toes. I had not assumed such twists in the story hence I had to re-read few parts in the end twice after making the notes in my journal hence I recommend everyone to keep on noting down the character’s relationship with each other in order to enjoy the climax.

Talking about the drawbacks of the book, I must say that author could have easily played with the story right from the first page if there would have been little twists done with the timelines of the story which could have given more opportunity to explore. Also, I feel that the conversational part between characters aren’t very appealing which sounds artificial on which author should work in his upcoming books. Similarly, the way climax is written is very confusing which could have been written in a bit easier manner. I feel that more genuine characters should have been added in the story to make it based in a larger world as currently, it involves only few characters and only moves around them.

Overall, this book is a light thriller which you can complete within 3 hours of time. I give this attempt 3.5 stars out of 5.

Thanks.

WRITING BUDDHA