Book Review : The Turning Point

The Turning Point, is a compilation of short stories from Indian Writers. This includes the work of Nikita Singh, Parinda Joshi, Atulya Mahajan, Shoma Narayanan, Harsh Snehanshu, Judy Balan, Meenakshi Reddy Mahadevan and Durjoy Dutta.  Every story here has a different flavor, but they are bound together by a common theme – as the title indicates—a Turning Point.

When I was initially asked if I was interested to review this book, I was more than eager to do so, because I found myself reading more and more of short-stories these days and I was interested to see what this book had to offer. I probably had way too high expectations from the book; naturally, since the book is a collective work of well-known authors in India. When I started reading, initially I was disappointed, but with each story it kept getting better and better and by the time I was done reading the last story, I started asking Google for the other works of the authors whose story I liked the best.

The book had stories ranging from mundane conversations to a crime thriller; from a subtle romance to hoping for the good. So every few pages the reader could dive into different genres altogether. The best of these stories would undoubtedly (according to me) be ‘The Unlikely Accomplice’ by Parinda Joshi and ‘A Whispered Prayer’by Nikita Singh. The first story revolves around a Brigadier who tries to uncover the mystery behind his niece’s murder. This was a brilliant plot, and equally well executed. It was a fast paced story and had the reader hooked on to the book, till the end.  The second story talks about how a young wife deals with her insecurities from the past events in her life and how she tries to overcome her fears and lives in hope that one day things will be better. This resonates with the current scenario in our country where women are being horribly treated and it tells that there is still hope for a better tomorrow. I loved these two stories. They were brilliant. Hats off to Parinda Joshi and Nikita Singh.

‘Summer Showers’ by Harsh Snehanshu is a breezy story of how two people met and realized they were in love. The emotions were not overdone and with a few miracles (what’s wrong in miracles, I believe in miracles too!) it made for a good read. I equally liked ‘X Boss’ by  Shoma Narayanan which talks about how Sanjana resented working under her boss (Sigh! Tell me about it.) and then the extraordinary events that occur, which comes to haunt her, in a funny way though. I enjoyed reading this one. Atulya Mahajan’s ‘The U-Turn’ deals with how a dad-to-be tries to overcome his fears of becoming a dad and worries if his fatherly duties would affect his career, being the workaholic that he is. Again, this is something which every husband might go through. It was nicely done, but the transition could have been gradual. But keeping with the theme of the book, the one scene witnessed by the dad-to-be was enough to melt the heart of any workaholic.

The other three stories by Meenakshi Reddy Mahadevan, Durjoy Dutta  and Judy Balan were perhaps not suited for my taste.  In ‘Insert A Carrot’by  Meenakshi Reddy, the entire story was in the form of a conversation and  after a point I lost track of who said what.  Perhaps the conversation could have revolved around more topics than just one. In ‘The Return of the Vampire’ by Judy Balan, where the Vampire mocks the Twilight series, I did not quite like the theme. Others would have liked it probably. I did have high hopes for Durjoy Dutta’s ‘The English Teacher’ after reading the title. The plot was good but the way it was taken was again not something that I would like reading. Again, my opinion, others might have liked it.

Overall, the book was almost like a roller-coaster, with its highs and lows. But at the end, the highs overpowered the lows. Just when I was about to give up on the book, the book gave me wonderful stories with wonderful plots and most importantly –nice turning points. At least for what I felt was great, I would recommend the book for some light reading.

Cost :  Rs 88

Available at  : Flipkart and Amazon.

Published by : Wisdom Tree

No of Pages : 201