Book Review: Fractured Legend by Kranthi Askani

 

The first book review this month is Fractured Legend by Kranthi Askani. The name was pretty interesting but after reading the book, frankly I did not see any relevance of the title to the book. Guess I was unable to read between the lines.

The intro about the book and the back cover reading seemed interesting but nothing prepared me for the disappointment I was to meet in the pages of the book. In fact, the back cover was the only thing that was interesting and of course the cover design.

Don't get me wrong. It is not a bad book and I am sure there will be some who would praise the book and its writing style and appreciate the author's eye for detail as well as his descriptive writings. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. I am the one who found it excruciatingly difficult to finish this less than 200 page short novel.

Right from the beginning, I noticed the Author's penchant for usage of 'so called difficult words' and peculiar sentence construction; both making the reading process difficult. Right from page 1, it made me think that I needed a dictionary around. The sentence formation, the grammatical arrangement as well as the 'difficult words' did not allow me to understand clearly what was being conveyed. Personally, I have never preferred authors who make reading difficult.

The writing style is very very very descriptive (note the triple use of 'very' which I 'never' do). The author would painstakingly describe each and everything in the scene including bystanders and their activities and the weather and the condition of the streets which have no bearing on the story. The author does have an eye for detail which assists him in this descriptive style of writing. The characters would often go into flashback and relive the scenes in similar painstaking details. The only problem being, I saw no connection of those 'flash backs' to the story. AND that brings me to the final problem.

There is a lack of plot / story line to hold you to the novel. The story/plot is non-existent which where my biggest disappointment comes from. I need a story. It is what I take away from the reading of a piece of fiction. The absence of a story meant that reading the book was a waste of time for me.  

Reading the book became so excruciatingly painful for me that after about 60% of the book; I was skimming the pages rather than reading them. I would read the first few lines and last few lines of the paragraph just to ensure that I had not missed the movement of the story. Unfortunately, there weren't many instances when I missed anything.  

The story begins with a statue which can convert to a living lady in the night but is confined to a life inside the temple. She decides to escape from the life of confinement (in the temple, inside the statue) to live the life of a human being with a family, getting married and so on. Cut to another story of a lady who is an assassin and she gets entangled into a strange turn of events; forcing her to flee with her son. Cut to a story of a lady who is writing a long letter to her mother. The author managed to link the 3 stories in the end in a manner which neither appealed to me nor convinced me; partly because I had lost interest in the book long before the end was anywhere near. I went on reading / skimming only and only because I had a review to write.  

I am not really going to recommend this to you unless you enjoy reading descriptive writing. If you enjoy that … well … this is for you. If someone asked me to rate the book … sadly my personal rating would be negative. I hope there are readers who find interest in Askani's style of writing and give him a very good rating. The author must be trying to send across a message to his readers … sadly, I missed it by miles.  

The only thing which I did like was that the copy I received for review from BlogAdda.com was signed by the Author along with a short note for the reviewer. It added a nice personal touch by the author to the book review process.

FYI - This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com ... Participate now to get free books!