Book Review: A Cupful of Aha by Anandaa

 

Book: A Cupful of Aha

Author: Anandaa

No. of Pages: 54

Genre: Fiction, Philosophical  

Publisher: Become Shakespheare   

 

An extremely interesting premise of a guy meeting death – who instead of being a moustached heavy-set guy on the bull … turns out to be beautiful lady; and the after-death experience, is not at all what the man expected it to be.

The book is philosophical … about how people live their lives and how the things people give importance to, are pretty much meaningless.

I liked the writing style of the author and the way the two characters were portrayed, the touch of humor and the discovery of the ultimate truth over a series of assumptions.

It could have been a fantastic philosophical treatise … but it did not manage to reach there. It turned out to be pretty confused piece – frankly, at the end of the novella, I wasn’t quite sure what was the ultimate message from the book. There are times when the book makes you think but the questions it raises are not really impactful.

All the while I reading the book, I was reminded of the book ‘God’s Debris’ by Scott Adams – it was a super awesome book which makes you think… really think … by raising some seriously hard hitting questions. You have to literally stop reading and keep the book aside – to think about what just happened in the book, wondering how the book is destroying the basic assumptions of life and philosophy. Sadly, ‘Cupful of Aha’ was not even 10% thought provoking as ‘God’s Debris’ …

I am sure there will be readers who would like ‘Cupful of Aha’ and for them ‘God’s Debris’ would be the next step. In fact, I would even recommend that the author also read ‘God’s Debris’ …  This will give the author a better perspective and hope the next book has more gray-matter scratching content packed in it. And who knows, Anandaa may chose to loose anonymity and reveal the true identity.

Before I close, I would like to mention that I did like the format of the book – it’s actually a very thin and tiny pocket-book size (almost kinda cute) – as well as the cover design – a steamy cup of coffee with a smiley on top and the steam rising in the shape of the person. Nice artwork I would say. Good work Mayur Garud.   

 

Ratings on Book Review Parameters:

Cover Design: 3.5 / 5

Writing Style: 3.0 / 5

Characters:     3.0 / 5

Story / Plot:     1.0 / 5

Climax:            1.0 / 5

Overall:           2.0 / 5