The Bestseller She Wrote

The Bestseller She Wrote is another novel in the Banker series written by Ravi Subramanian. His novels are known to be thriller and fast paced but this time I felt that he should get done with his Banker theme books and its high time to move forward and think beyond Banks and Bankers.

Plot

This time the story revolves around Aditya Kapoor who is a banker and also a famous writer. He is smitten by a young energetic girl Shreya who also aspires to become a bestseller author. She clings to Aditya to get her book published. 

One after another such incidence took place due to the plotting of Shreya or this has been assumed which makes Aditya’s life a complete hell. How he comes out of this mess forms the climax of the book.

Fix Format for Stories

I have read a couple of more book by Ravi Subramanian in his banker series and all of them are written in fix format. The protagonist has to be banker. Life is good. A series of event takes place and protagonist is in deep soup. Readers wonder how protagonist will come out of this mess and in climax everything is sorted out. All his books are written in this way.

Character Inspired by Chetan Bhagat

Aditya Kapoor’s character kept reminding me of Chetan Bhagat. Both are IIM alumna, Banker, lives in Hong Kong, famous authors, trying hands in Bollywood, invited to judge a dance reality show, expert marketer etc.  In fact at times I felt that Aditya is a fictional take of Chetan Bhagat carved out by Ravi Subramanian. Though Ravi himself is also an IIM graduate and Banker as well.

Such is the effect of Chetan Bhagat. People love him, hate him, get inspired by him, criticize him but in no way could ignore him or get over him. Ravi seems to be another addition to this list. 

Unexpected Climax

Story line is not fast paced as it is normally expected and it remains predictable throughout the book. Many a times chapters would end abruptly which clearly indicates that the author was saving all the real action for the climax which made the middle part of the book slightly boring to read.

As expected something unexpected took place at the end. Climax of the book was not as I was expecting and also schemer turns out to be a different person. What seriously lacked in the book is thrill. The author’s banker series is famous for thrill without any murder. But The Bestseller She Wrote is not his best when it comes to thrill.

Weak Link

The book starts with a bang. With Shreya openly commenting and arguing with the rockstar author Aditya while the latter was giving his speech. I thought that the book will be about their rivalry and Shreya appeared to be a fiery character. But that was my misconception.

Shreya’s weak characterization destroy the plot of the book. She was intelligent and headstrong which were not used properly by author. Also in the middle her being a Naxalite angle also popped up but nothing happened. She had a disturbed childhood but again author failed to capitalize on it. Shreya’s characterizations was disappointing.   

The Verdict

It is a decent one time read but keep expectation real low or the book will disappoint you.