An Imperishable Promise: If Afterlife Is True, Will You Still Come To Me? by Sarathi Sabyasachi Sahoo
My take on the book:
It is the year 2054, Deepak Patel is shocked by his son and daughter-in-law’s decision to part ways less than a year after marriage. He then recollects the story that happened four decades back, in his younger days. Deepak is smitten by a beautiful girl Kashish whom he comes across in a cafe one day. With help of his childhood friend and roommate Raj, Deepak tries to befriend Kashish.
But after a couple of unexpected events, Raj and Kashish get married. Their fairy tale story flows dreamily until Raj takes a promise from Kashish — an imperishable promise in the event of death of one of them. What lead to Raj taking this promise from Kashish? Is after life a reality and is death the end of true love? Read An Imperishable Promise to know the answers to these questions.
The blurb with reference to immortal love and life after death is what intrigued me to pick this book. The story starts like any contemporary love stories but with a twist of possible triangle between Deepak, Raj and Kashish. Hanging out in cafes, befriending people on Social media — the story has modern love story elements with a surprise thrown by author once in a while.
The story gets more intriguing in the second half and the twist at the end is hard to foresee, so the reader will be thrilled to realize how the story took totally unexpected turns. There are very few characters — the story mostly revolving around Raj and Kashish. The author’s take on what happens when death separates young couples who imagine a lifetime of love and happiness when their dreams are cut short, is interesting.
The message on how love and relationships are perceived in current generation, the superficial emotions, the burden of bad lifestyle on health — the author inculcates so many contemporary topics into the narration and storyline. However, the major drawback for me is the writing style and language, which is fine for novice readers, but for regular readers can be a major concern. The language and sentences feel more like conversations in online chats and less like a novel.
Also, the idea of love and how the protagonists perceive it did not appeal to me at places. But the novelty of the story concept and the author’s way of presenting it deserve appreciation. With more focus on writing style, the author makes for a good storyteller. If you like reading contemporary stories and those with a fresh premise then pick this one and it will force you to brood about true and immortal love.
My rating:
4/5.
This review is part of Outset review program.