Elephants in the Room by Suraj Laxminarayanan: Book Review

Title: Elephants in the Room

Author: Suraj Laxminarayanan

Publisher: The Write Place

Publication Date: 11^th October 2018

My Rating: 4 stars

Links: Amazon Goodreads Instagram Twitter

Nari, a pickpocketer and his five other friends planned to rob a bank in their vicinity owing to the cash crisis. Though highly inexperienced and being newbies in a bank robbery, they presumed themselves to be fully prepared. Dhantha, an experienced mugger, with his team of three others happened to choose the same bank on the same day after they had failed to arrange money being owed to the goon Ranga. On the day of the robbery, both the gangs encountered an absurd surprise which left them with only choice to fight for their survival.

Elephants in the room is a story of one such ridicule situation faced by the gangs trapped under one roof and what happens next is just similar to the metaphoric meaning of the title.

The book progresses at a moderate speed, it’s after two fifty pages that the suspense started to build up and I was fully occupied by the story. Earlier I was unsure of the volume of the book but later felt that it was somehow required in order to get the correct picture of the story.

The book has an ordinary theme of combative antagonists which is refashioned into arresting plot packed up with fresh turns. It’s a usual tale that you may have heard of but probably never thought of.

What was Good

Unlike few stories where more characters mean more muddle, but here in the book I was able to acknowledge each and every character with ease and could make note of their distinct personalities.

Descriptive writing of the author is imposing and has the ability to arrest the reader in the plot. I was hooked into the story even where such stories are rarely picked up to write on.

Nonetheless, the work is notable but I’m surprised why the author has picked up this topic as his debut work.

What wasn’t Good

I felt that the dialogues exchanged among the third gang members (Bambharis) discussing the intentions of the other two gangs were overemphasized and slightly overdramatic. Their brief reasoning was little annoying too. Moreover, the size of the book could have been cut short by the withdrawal of this avoidable reasoning.

Why to read this book

This book is creative in terms of recounting absurd life situations and how one’s fate leads to contrary state altogether. The story is experimental and the author did his fair job.

I had a good time reading this book and would recommend it to the ones who are looking out for the usual yet different book to grab. Besides, yes, if you could manage to read six hundred pages book.

 

“This is a snippet of my review been published in the final copy of the book”. 

 

Have you happened to read this book? or thinking of it lately?

Do share your thoughts in the comments below.

 

-Harshita