OnADriveWithLife
Publisher: Janaki Prakashan
ISBN: 9789381313541
Pages: 174
Price: INR 400

Ankit Kumar’s book ‘On a Drive with Life‘ is a collection of 13 short stories. It deals with a variety of emotions and themes such as love, tragedy, horror, separation, adventure, regret, happiness and desire. The stories revolve around the concept of how a small misunderstanding can have a tremendous impact in the long run. The stories are endearing, but the editing is not.

Of the thirteen stories, ‘Spicy Bet’ was my favourite, simply because it was fun and different. Apart from this, there are an overwhelming number of stories regarding horror in the book and each of them is has a different premise. But all seem generic and usual. The other stories revolve around son-father relationships, love and filial relationships. All the stories are morose and quite sad, each leaving you with a bitter taste in your mouth. But yet, the author has tried to bring in diversity with the settings. Unfortunately, all the stories ultimately seem generic and well-worn out. There is nothing new that the reader can look forward to.

The stories, though mean well are let down by the poor editing and obvious grammatical errors. These are glaring mistakes that are a let-down and could have been taken care of easily. Also, the are no stories with happy endings, which is quite sad considering the author wants us to experience the emotions akin to those of life.

Overall, it was a good effort but a lot can be improved upon, both the author and the editors.

Rating: 5/10

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