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Sunday 20 March 2016

A thing beyond forever by Novoneel Chakraborty: a review

The debut book of Novoneel Chakraborty. Period.  Trust me; I couldn’t come up with a better starting line for the review. You know what reading the debut of a magician feels like, especially when you have read all the other ones except this? It’s like opening a treasure and having a peep into it to see how was it all like. You get to see the rawness of the writing, the innocence of it. The beauty of it and the satisfaction of it. I always believe that even though the subsequent or follow up books of an author show the progress of him, the debut one shows what the author is actually like. And I was numb after reading A thing beyond forever...

According to the blurb- What happens when life plays a trick on two innocent lovers? What happens when your first love much against all possibilities comes back to you in the most bizarre and astounding manifestation ever? Dr. Radhika Sharma, for the world outside, is an aberrant and arrogant feminist. But inside, she resides in a far-away world like a vulnerable first sketch of an artist. One might an innocuous enquiry by a nine-year-old patient coaxes her to one’s personal diary. And, as she reads on, a bygone era comes to the forefront taking her through a cavalcade of exclusive events that life, love and friendship offer at the noon of adolescence. By the time she finishes reading the diary, it’s already morning. And by night time she finds herself face to face with a question that defies logical explanation. Is falling in love a random act or a planned coincidence? Is attraction the missing link between souls? Will the light of true love outshine the dark shadow of destiny? Even when Radhika gets the copasetic answers there are still two more chapters to go...

Tell me honestly, what are your first reactions after reading the blurb? I know! You are taking it to be a normal story. A love story. But what if I tell you the story is much more than what meets the eye? I would like to quote the tagline of the novel here “The reward for every true love is not love...” and rightfully said so. I’ll start with the cover of the book. The cover, thoughtfully done, matching the book to the T. It gives a wonderful description of what we are going to encounter in the book but what I felt was the book wouldn’t catch much attention if kept along with a few more books of the same genre at a bookstore if a non-reader visits because the other books would be more attention seeking.

Now, coming to the characters! Radhika... Oh wait! Dr. Radhika is the very first character you would encounter in the book and I fell an instant liking towards her. Whatever she does, however she does, everything was written in such a wonderful way that sitting to describe it would be impossible. Next, Raen. The male protagonist of the book. It seems that the author has given all that he has to the character and it couldn’t have been better. And finally the most important character of the book, Raen’s diary. Well, it is for the first time that I am in love with a non-living thing inside a fictional book. Do I even make sense? That is how the diary of Raen affected me. Savera, Deepali and all the friends of Raen were beautifully etched.

The feelings, the simplicity, the love, it is so beautiful that all you can do is fall in love with it. And fall in love so hard that the climax will tear you into pieces. Am I exaggerating? No! Am I giving spoilers? Hell no! Read the book to find out. That is all I can say. The book answers a very important part of life- “A thing beyond forever...” The wonderful flow of the story made me wanna re-read the book again and again. Especially the thought of the story. The lump in the throat moments left me with a lot of mixed feelings at the end. As a debut book, this was one of THE BEST I read.


For the cons of the book, apart from a few grammatical errors and apart from the fact that the cover could’ve been a bit better there is nothing that I can call a con of the book. For me, this book is by far the best Novoneel Chakraborty book I have read and keeping in mind that it is the debut book of the author I am looking forward to all the other books that are yet to come from him. This book is 4.75 out of 5 for me.

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