Faith and the Beloved – Kocheri C Shibu – #BookReview

Faith and the Beloved – Kocheri C Shibu – #BookReview

Title: Faith and the Beloved
Author: Kocheri C Shibu
Format: Kindle
Link for purchase: Faith and the Beloved
Price: Rs 171
Genre: Fiction

Synopsis:

Naithy Cherozil is a rich and successful business woman from Mumbai who marries the young and handsome model Tony D’Souza after the death of her spouse. Little does she know that the ideal sex slave of her husband is the sleeper cell of a terror outfit. Events in her life take unforeseen turns as the male Mata Hari is activated.Prem Rollands is a ‘Kalari’ exponent and a brilliant student whose world revolves around his brother Arun. Things go awry when the police kill Arun under mysterious circumstances. Prem kills the inspector in retribution and is on the run. He is on the lookout to find the dark secrets leading to Arun’s death. Prem must avenge those who have plotted to kill his brother.Eighteen year old Alice Cherozil knows more about computers and mystery games than a girl of her age. Her life falls apart when her mother is hospitalised and in a coma. She is playing the ultimate mystery game of her life as the web of secrets surrounding two precious diamonds and her stepfather threaten to destroy her family. She overcomes the moral dilemma to kill her stepfather. Alice must outwit the underworld and stay ahead of all to save her mother’s life or the guilt of her failure will haunt her forever.As the lives of Naithy, Prem and Alice cross each other they must retain their faith and protect their beloved ones, even at the cost of their own lives.

My Take:

This book has been written using a modular design. Nowadays most of the books we come across are written with a linear design in which events move forward with time or in other words they are unidirectional except for flashbacks. Before discussing the merits and the demerits of the book I would like to briefly let you know what modular design is. MD or modular design is a way of writing a book such that the events and plot do not simply move ahead with time. In books written using such a design, events are presented in a jumbled manner and there is no linear movement of the plot with time. The events are presented as modules and vectors and when the reader puts together the pieces the overall story and plot are supposed to emerge clearly to the reader.

Coming to the positives in the book, the plot is a good one. And I wonder if it would have been better for the author to present the story in a linear format. But the over-dependence on modular design confuses things. Coming to the characterisation, too many details are provided about each character who plays a role in the book. The family tree of every character is described in detail. This kind of takes away from the pace of the book. Other than that it confuses the reader. Another thing is, because of the modular design each chapter starts at a point in the timeline which is earlier than the previous chapter’s timeline.

And towards the end we are brought to the point where events that occurred in an earlier chapter are described briefly and another piece of the jigsaw fits in. But the process is so confusing that the reader is unable to comprehend what exactly is going on. Each time I read a chapter I found myself going back to a previous chapter to pick the threads and join them. I am not providing any examples of where this happens since I don’t want to spoil the suspense for people who are yet to read the book.

I wonder how this book would have turned out if the author had written it with a linear design. I appreciate the author’s effort to write the book with a modular design. I have never tried writing anything that way. Then there are too many terrorist agencies playing a role. The LTTE, the ISI, the ISIS are all playing a role or suspected to be playing a role. I liked the ending scene a lot when there is a lot of action. I want to confess, I have not read the author’s earlier book which is supposed to be really good and is a best seller. I am planning to read it soon. Overall this is a book in which the author has attempted to write in a way that is seldom tried out and that has spoiled things in many ways.

Conclusion:

This book is not an easy read. Pick it up if you like suspense and are fond of books written in the style I have described.

Rating:

I am going with a 2/5 for Kocheri C Shibu’s ‘Faith and the Beloved’. It may appear to be a bit harsh but there are a lot of confusing elements in the book and I had to re-read the chapters several times to get a good grasp of the story.

Rating Scale:

                 1  Poor

                 2  Fair

                 3  Good

                 4  Excellent

                 5  Outstanding

This review has been written as part of Blogchatter’s Book Review Program

4 thoughts on “Faith and the Beloved – Kocheri C Shibu – #BookReview”

  1. Thank you for this honest analysis! I did not know about modular design in books. I may have read such stories but I didn’t know it was called this. I don’t like complicated plots or those that keep going back and forth so I may not enjoy the book.

    1. Mostly it is only short stories that are written this way. But some authors also write full length novels using this technique like in this case.

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