37+ Grace marks: Book Review

Title: 37+ grace marks

Subtitle: Because life is beyond numbers

Author: Vishal Anand

ISBN Number: 978-9382665977

Total Number of Pages: 200

Format: Paperback (eBook is also available)

Printed Price: INR 175

Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors

Publication Date: 15 May 2017

About The Book:

What happens when you fall in love at first sight? That too in college, which is supposed to be the best time of one’s life. But is it the best place to find love too?

Viraj falls head over heels in love with his classmate Nimisha, who could make boys on campus go crazy. While his friends Punit and Sahil just want to have fun – despite poor mark-sheets, grace marks to pass, and other everyday adventures – Viraj wants more from his life and love.

Life has led Viraj to the edge of a cliff. He has a choice to make – to forget everything and jump, or fight.

What brought him here? An unrequited love, encounters with law, or the dilemma of grace marks? Where does Viraj’s story eventually end?

Welcome to 37 + Grace Marks, Viraj’s journey to discover that there is more to life than marks.

About the Author:

Vishal Anand is the author of a bestselling short story collection, Emotions Unplugged. His book has not just carved a niche in the readers’ hearts, but has also remained popular since its release.

Vishal works with a talent consulting partner to several domestic and international companies. Currently, he lives in Bangalore.

Review by Sohinee Dey—

As soon as I received the book, the first thing that I noticed was its title. When my eyes hovered over it, I was in a dilemma as to what the book would be about but at the same time I found the title to be very fascinating. The author did woo me with the book title.

Next, on scanning the book cover, I derived a superficial impression of the book. It had to be an young adult story. Well, I am not into young adult books much but I thought of giving it a shot because I was quite impressed with the book cover. Yes author, you scored another point there!

On reading the blurb, I understood that the plot was of a college student and mostly focused on the problems and emotions that an individual of that particular age undergoes. On further assessment, I got to know that the plot was staged in an engineering college and mostly revolved around the college life, and of course with college life comes premature love and it’s consequences. 37+ Grace Marks is about a boy named Viraj and his life; the high tide of emotions, friendship, love and the most important of all…scoring good marks. The blurb though precise and written in a manner highlighting the overall story and leaving out any spoilers, I believe could have been written in a better way. It was um…how to phrase it…was not quite professional and adept in delivering the overall theme of the book; too much of questioning and less enunciation on the plot.

So, the book mainly focusses on late teenage problems, highlighting that life is not all about scoring good marks, which is indeed true. I would give a thumbs up to the author for bringing up such a theme and writing a book on it.

As I started reading, the first chapter, ‘Lets begin’ acts mostly as an introductory chapter, leaving out the details yet offering a base line  of the plot for the readers, the location of the plot and period or time it is based on. Also, there was the entry of the ‘heroine’ of the story and the rest is history!

Viraj’s life goes tumulting down the cliff with his new found attraction towards the college girl, Nimisha. As described, almost every boy in college and particularly in the class, had the hots for her. Viraj too fell into the same category. The only characteristics that the author allowed him to have that made him different from the rest was that he was not so vocal about his attraction towards Nimisha and kept that piece of discovery to himself.

The sub-plot mainly revolves around Viraj’s friendship and the unrequited love. With the company of his friends, he starts getting himself into trouble, starting from being chased by police officers to ending up in jail. Also, it is shown that he has a hard time keeping up with studies with his growing attraction towards Nimisha followed by endless sleepless nights. Viraj is shown to be an average student while his friend Punit was better in studies and well Sahil, the third member of their group depended on the microxerox version of the answers! Yes, the sub-plot was cliché but coupled with the narration and writing style, the author kept up with it and gave a depth and was able to create a new dimension in the story.

I found the book to be a good read though I was a tad bit hesitant at first. But as the story unfolded, I found that my interest in turning the pages kept increasing with each chapter. I would say that it was quite gripping. The language was very easy to understand and lucid. It didn’t have tough looking words that would make you run to your dictionary! Though the language is easy, it’s not at all amateurish. The flow is quite good and the chapter connectivity was proper. The pace was appropriate; neither hurried not too slow.

The narration was in first person and was maintained throughout​ the book. The tense used by the author was past tense but I found some fluctuations between past and present tense. Grammar and punctuations were proper and I didn’t find any typos which is of course a good thing for Grammar Nazis like me!

Author Vishal Anand had approached the plot in a very friendly manner and the same is evident in his style of writing. The flow was really good and wasn’t frigid at all. The dialogue play was very lively and expressive but some of the adjectives used to depict a scene or describe a character or a personality that the character exhibited could have been skipped or could have been replaced with well-fitted adjectives, like the use of the word ‘white’ to describe Nimisha’s skin colour could have been replaced with other well-suited word. There were certain plot holes in the book that could have been avoided with better editing or with better development in ideas. Other than that I enjoyed my time reading this book. I loved the ending; it was a complete end to the story leaving no questions in my mind.

My final verdict—

This book is definitely worthy of a reader’s attention. Though there were certain plot holes and didn’t really address on the theme directly, the narration makes it a good read. I would say this once again, it was not one of my best reads but it was definitely not one of my worst. Overall it is a very light read and the tell-tale sign of humour adds a refreshing touch to the storyline. One thing is for sure that once you start reading it, you’ll be engrossed into the book completely and would resist leaving it unfinished! But once you have read it, you might not be compelled to give it another read. So, if you are looking for a book that you can re-read again and again without getting bored, look elsewhere because this one might not fall into that category.

I would recommend this book to all. Yes, everyone can read it, especially young adults and people who are looking for books that deal with college life and the problems one faces during that course of time. Teenagers out there, give this is a read!

My ratings:

• Book title: 5/5 (It couldn’t have been any better and most importantly it wad relatable to the storyline)
• Book cover: 5/5
• Blurb: 3.5/5
• Theme: 4/5
• Plot: 3.5/5
• Sub-Plot: 3.5/5
• Language and Vocabulary: 3.5/5 (could have been a bit better)
• Narration: 4/5
• Grammar and Punctuation: 5/5
• Characters: 4/5
• Style of Writing: 4.5/5

Overall, I’ll give this book 4 stars out of 5.

A few quotes from the book—

 ‘A few things in life are beyond profit and loss. And, love is surely one of them.’

‘True love is one where you don’t care whose mistake it is, but take the first step to save your relation.’

‘How complicated is the heart? We could have the entire world’s love from a person, yet, we don’t fail to look for something that we don’t have.’

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This book was provided to me in return of my honest review.