IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS: BOOK REVIEW

​Title: In Search of Happiness

Authors: Sushil Kr. Rana, Shivangi Rawat

Total Number of Pages: 44

Language: English

Publication Date: 12 July 2017

Format: Kindle eBook

Digital List Price: INR 49

ASIN: B073X2YV78

Book Description: 

Today, when social media is full of scandal, heartbreak, revenge and full of unsocial activities. But there is something a beautiful relation is going to spring up in between Arohi and Aakash. Most of all you are thinking it as a love or something alike that. But it’s not a love tale, their relationship has no name. Their relationship is more than a friend, relatives. Their bonding is pure and perpetual. Did this type of relation exist in this savage world. If yes then how and when, to know more about it go through the story. Some relation has no names, but that doesn’t mean that relation didn’t exist.

Love never is wrong its the person who always. Love has its own positivity and can alter a person completely. After breaking up with his girlfriend Sunil completely drowned in sorrow and grabbed by depression. There is no hope of returning to his normal state, at once he is a famous write with full of positivity and a motivator to all. So what miracle happens in his life that change him a different soul.

Everybody thinks that happiness is lies with money, what if it is totally wrong. We spent thousands of rupees in pub, bar multiplex and shopping mall but did we ever draw the inner happiness? Inner happiness is long lasting and not like with today’s temporary happiness.

So where it lies, or this is just a myth in the form of a book. Friends it really exists and you can’t buy it with money and power. You gain it by serving some good deeds. What change a selfish person into a selfless. To know more we have to go through Madhav life story.

Review by Sohinee Dey

‘In Search of Happiness‘ is an anthology co-authored by Sushil Kr. Rana and Shivangi Rawat. It’s a collection of five short stories, each written based on different themes and gives a lesson to the readers. Love, happiness, struggles, distress, pain, anguish and contentment are some of the components that are potently marked by the clear-cut narration and the way of storytelling.

In the chapter titled ‘Divine‘ the authors brewed a divine relationship between writers who are not really lovers but they hold a relation that is above any romanticized relationship. They were able to create a significant titular reference via this story. It describes the happiness that a writer feels when his/her work gets accepted for the first time for publication.

‘Transformation of a Lover into a Writer‘ holds a plotline of a man who gets inspired from a novel and sits down to pen his own love story. I’ll appreciate the expression and the idea but the narration, the sentence structuring and the overall language kind of failed to enhance the theme and ended up being a little bit on the rougher side.

‘In Search of Happiness‘ weaves a tale focusing on the true meaning of happiness and how money isn’t all about happiness. Happiness comes from having your loved ones by your side. Happiness lies in servitude, a person may forget that you helped him/her but that one good deed will be forever etched in your memory.

‘Nitya the warrior‘ is the story of Nitya and her struggles from the upheaval in her life and finally finding the person she can truly trust and be happy with. The plot was fast-paced and I believe it would have been better if it went a little slow. Also, the were many errors that I spotted and the narration needed some work.

The anthology ends with the last chapter titled ‘The Last Hope’ which is a portrayal of Madhav’s life and how an unexpected encounter with a little child changes his life forever. That little child is painted as God and is made to believe that the unexpected encounter was God’s own way of helping Madhav from his melancholic life.

Overall, the anthology ‘In search of Happiness‘ is a good attempt at debuting into the literary field but for me this particular attempt would have been far better if the authors took out some more time and concentrated on getting their first book edited thoroughly. The sentence structuring, the language, the grammatical errors, the frigid narration, the continuous shifting of the tenses and the misuse of words (especially the verbs) were a huge turn off for me. This book was more on the rougher side for me. It lacked the polished professional touch and bordered on more of an amateurish attempt at publishing a book.

With a good shot of editing and two to three doses of proofreading, this anthology could have been a better read. Nonetheless, I truly appreciate the hard work and the time these authors put in to craft this book.

This is not one of those eye-catching novels but support and a little bit of appreciation can go a long way and help these authors to gain more knowledge and may they be able to pen down bestsellers in the near future. There’s no harm in giving this book a read.

I’ll recommend this book to all especially to those who are new to writing.

I’ll give this book 3 stars out of 5 (★★★☆☆).

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