Colourful Notions: The Roadtrippers 1.0

Colorful Notion by Mohit Goyal is a first of its kind of book I have read till date. It is not such that similar books have not been written in the past but I never came across a fictional travel novel yet. Yes after reading Colorful Notion I plan to read more similar books to it.

My Personal Experience

Reading the novel Colorful Notion made me nostalgic about my own two months travel covering entire Gujarat, Maharashtra and Assam in a bus with a group of six couples. Of course ours was free from any kind of adventure or misadventure. It is almost five years ago. Today if someone ask me to recall anything about the trip all I remember the kind of delicacies we ate throughout our trip.

But surely three characters of the book Ab, Sasha and Unnati had many crazy experience some good and many daredevil, some heartbreaking and life changing experience in their 10,000 kms journey all across the country.

Something which I could guarantee  about the book is that there is not a single dull moment in the book and you will surely read up to the end page of the book. Or even like me, would end up reading the book word to word.

The Plot

The story revolves around the life of Ab and love life of Sasha and Unnati with travelling as the background. Hadn’t it for roadtrip angle, the plot could have been very average and repetitive. Their story and journey was going hand in hand and I must say both synced well. Never once I felt that the author has thrusted the two together.

A Road Trip Based Novel not a Travelogue

The travelling scenario was portrait convincingly but it is not a travelogue. The author did not put much effort behind describing the places trio visited. All the description were general that personal touch was really missing. 

Some mindblowing description would have taken the novel to a completely different level. So for readers who are passionate travelers as well, will not find this book interesting but yes casual readers won’t miss it much, as intriguing and engrossing story of the characters was also running in parallel. 

The author writes effortlessly and seamless. It is difficult to believe that he is a first time author. And his writing is bound to bloom with each book. As I am having a feeling that there will be more books in this series.

Great Characterization

The author has also given a lot of attention to the characterization. The characters of Ab, Sasha and Unnati were well demarcated and evolved throughout the journey. They became more mature by the end of the journey. Ab managed to rest his inner demons and found peace, Sasha re-discovered his love for food in different way and Unnati found her wish fulfilled.  

Alcohol and Spiritualism

There is a growing trend among the authors to include both alcohol and spiritualism in their novels. On one hand characters trashes in-countable amount of alcohol into their system and then try to clean their inner self with spiritualism. Both don’t gel together at least in my views. Why can’t health conscious characters features in the novels who shun alcohol or is it consuming alcohol even while you are self-driving has become a cool-factor in our country.

The Verdict: 

It is not a travelogue written in fictional style as I was expecting it to be. It was more of a triangle love story which was wrapped up with the roadtrip.

In spite of this it was fun reading this adventurous road trip novel. Looking forward more such exciting books by the author.

I won a review copy from The Tales Pensieve as part of Reviewers Programme. Register on #TTP for lots of #book fun and activities. But views are my own.