Song of a flying sparrow by Rajeev Pundir: a review

Whenever you have read and liked the work of an author, you always tend to form expectations from the next work that they write and that is exactly what happened when I came across the second book of Rajeev Pundir. Having read and liked his first book Even God Doesn’t Know, his second book titled “Song of a flying sparrow” had a lot of expectations riding on its shoulders. I am glad to say this that the cover of the book and the blurb of it, did not disappoint. As far as if the book as a whole stood up to the expectations or not is concerned, we will come to that later. But first, here is the blurb of the book for you.

According to the blurb- Chiya is born and brought up in a wealthy business-class family. When her mom Rini, a highly ambitious woman, tries to fix her marriage with a millionaire divorcee, quite senior to her in age, she refuses categorically. As a result an ugly argument ensues between them. Chiya’s life turns upside down when Rini reveals an unpleasant secret pertaining to her life during the heat of the conflict. Then she embarks on a mission- The sole aim of her life. What was that secret and the mission thereupon? To find, explore the novel “Song of a flying sparrow” – a tale of emotions, love, betrayal, ambitions, greed, cynicism and twisted relations.

I will start with what I felt about the cover of the book. The cover, for me, compliments the title to the core and also to the story of the book. The first attraction to the book happens because of the cover and that is a feat not all cover designers can achieve. For me, the cover should speak volumes about the book and that is what this cover does successfully. Now, coming to the characters. The book, very much like his first book has very precise characters and it seemed that the author knew exactly what the characters wanted to do and had to do at what stage. The precision of the characters is what the plus point of the book becomes.

But this time somehow, the characters did not attract me like the other time. Even though they were very precise, some characters had much potential which was not explored while some characters were unnecessary additions. Some were added but were not justified while the main characters could have done much well than what they did. The story comes next. Well, to think of it, the story was a very interesting tale. Though it seemed to be Chiya’s story, after a point of time, I felt that the story is of her mother, Rini. A pleasurable read, story wise.

If you speak of the ending then I would say that the ending was nice. Again, the turns and twists along with the exploration of the relationships could have been better. The narration was better in the first book of the author and has somehow gone down this time. The story was the only flicker of hope and the fact that the story, even after all this was not a boring one helped and will keep on helping every reader to read the book. If maybe the style was a bit altered and the characters a bit more explored, the book would’ve hit the mark.

Speaking of the cons of the book, apart from the ones that I have already mentioned if there was one thing that was constant stoppages throughout the book then it has to be the spelling errors that the book had. The book is a smooth read nonetheless and that is what makes me look forward to the next one from the author. Apart from that, since this is the second book I am reading of the author and I would like to read more, I hope that the author up’s his writing style. For me, this book is 3.25 out of 5.