Thursday 3 July 2014

Book Review- Metamorphing- Kunal Pancholi

Book trailer-
Title- Metamorphing- The Hunt Begins
Author- Kunal Pancholi
ISBN- 978-93-83562-99-2
Price- Rs 225
Publisher- LeadstartCorp.com
Pages- 250
Genre- Thriller/ Fiction





This review is a part of the book review program by Nimi Vashi's thereaderscosmos.blogspot.com.

Description:

28THAPRIL, 2000: Flight No. 9x4876 bound to Srinagar has crash landed into the Everest Base camp. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the flight mysteriously went off the radar for few minutes and missed its landing. All passengers are feared dead… except for three bodies that are yet to be recovered.
8THDECEMBER, 2050:This, without doubt is the most gruesome murder in recent times. Early this morning, an unidentified woman was found mutilated at the western gates of the abandoned Victoria Terminus Station in Mumbai. Authorities report her head was … well … semi-decapitated and she was drained of all her blood. The shocking part - the crime scene was devoid of any signs of blood spatter…
ROHAN: He was shorter than the shortest girl in school; he had to be ahead in the game!
RUDRA:A man without a past, coaxed into a murder investigation; will he ever grasp the true nature of the crime?


About the cover

The cover draws an eerie picture of a murder site with the marked area for a dead body and a half opened door which when clearly seen, turns out to be an endless maze. On the foreground there is a red butterfly silhouette which looks kind of out of place but had to be there to emphasize on the title of the book ie Caterpiller- butterfly, Getit? :P

The back cover draws introduction of the book highlighting four things- two incidents one happening in 2000 and the other in 2050 and two characters Rohan and Rudra.

The catchphrase of the book is- "A thrilling tale about two men bound by an untraceable yet undeniable fate. One running away from his past, another unaware of his own."

About the author



The author is the co-founder of Reado- an audio book publishing company and is into marketing. He has graduated from SRCC, Delhi in 2001 and has done MBA. There is not much information about him available on the introduction page but you can get into touch with him via email and twitter. Email- kunal.pancholi@gmail.com Twitter-@kunalpancholi

About the book

The book has two central characters - Rohan - a guy who is fired by competitive spirit which is at times borderline unhealthy which is born out of inferiority complex due to short stature. The topic could have been dealt with a little more delicately but the author goes for a more direct approach. I think that's the Indian in him speaking. We are not really sensitive about tackling emotional issues, we taken them on, head on; or perhaps, we're too sensitive almost to the limit of being too verbose. (Like I am being right now). The other central character Rudra is introduced in a plot that transpires in the year 2050. He is more of the 'hero' in the story.

The book has been written in a dual monologue style wherein in alternate chapters, Rudra and Rohan give their first person accounts. I warned against this style in my earlier review of the book Love Kills by Ishita Tandon where one might get confused due to frequent first person character switches. And the continuity is broken frequently. This book deals with that issue more elegantly and there will be no problem with the flow of reading as it was with the earlier book. One more thing I have to warn you about before you pick this one up is that you have to have an urban, open mind for it. If I explain why, it'd be spoiler but yes, the book is very urban in its feel in general. You'll get to see clubs, newer forms of relationships, coffee and basically all flavours that constitute an urbane life in the book.

The language is overly simple and lucid and there is no literary art, symbolism or figures of speech used to impress the reader. The characters are very relatable (except the paranormal vampire stuff) and real and that's the USP of this book.

The target audience for this book can be first timers, college crowd and serious readers. I hardly think that there is any spice in the book for the casual readers as the author has yet to learn the art of building-up which fuels the thriller genre. The author's penchant for Criminology is quite visible and those who share the excitement will like the book even more.


I'd rate this book - ***1/2 (3.5 out of 5 stars)

You might wonder that after the criticism I bestowed unto it, why more (or equal) stars to it than a book like The Emperor's Riddles which I praised highly. Well, the extra stars are for trying out something new in a popular genre (Future-Present -Past theme). The other book which was better in terms of research and treatment, was 'safe'. I should actually deduce stars for the title of the book which is not even an English word. I think the author meant Metamorphosing but, I am not a purist per se.

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