Book Review of 'NEVER LET ME GO...'

 

BOOK: NEVER LET ME GO…

AUTHOR: SACHIN GARG

PAGES: 239

BLURB:

What made Samar abandon everything he had- an engineering degree and a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend- and flee to Goa instead to start life afresh?

On being kicked by life, harder than he could ever imagine, Samar had three options:

He could look life in the eye and fight back. He could succumb and do something that would haunt him forever. Or he could flee, to a place where there were no traces of the blow he had received.

So Goa it was. In search of solace, perhaps, by working in a small shack at an unknown beach.

Dealing with the local police, resurrecting a dying shack, and managing rowdy parties, risking having his bones and jaw-line broken, does Samar get what he was seeking?

 

MY TAKE ON THIS BOOK:

“SOMETIMES,  YOU JUST LOOK AT THINGS YOU KNOW YOU CAN NEVER HAVE”

The book begins with Samar being locked in his room.

The story is basically of Samar, Roy, Navya, Maansi and Kanika.

Based on my point of view, the beginning of the story truly doesn’t tell you what is there inside. You need to go deeper and deeper to unfold the reasons. And for me, I was truly satisfied with the story.

The way Navya confessed her feelings and asked Samar if he was too falling for her.  What Samar replied was a genuine one and at that one moment I fell for him :) . He compared what he felt for Navya to what he felt for Kanika. And he knew the answer. There was no comparison. He was definitely not in love with Navya and even though he barely even thought of Kanika, she was what would always rule his heart.

Samar made a promise to himself that whatever happens, for the rest of his life, he will take care of Navya no matter where he was. This girl was special. He felt the urge to tell her what the real reason was but then it would change the way she looked at him. He was happy being an outcast. And perhaps it was fine.

The way Samar turned and looked at Navya and his heart told him that she was special and she was who he waited for all the time, she was the one who he wanted to talk to, she was the one he thought about unceasingly. But she wasn’t someone he loved.  Samar was polite and knew his limits.But he was quite selfish, by wanting her to stay.

When Navya told that they should separate their ways if there was no future, and also when she told if he wanted her to stay or just tell her to ‘stay’ she might just stay and not leave. And the reply Samar gave is STAY.

If she left suddenly, quite frankly she was what Samar was living for then. He would have been clueless with the departure and being dependent of her, he had no other choice. He was being selfish for wanting her to stay. And he knew that it would be hard for her- to love him and know that he can never love her back. But he could not let her go. He couldn’t exist without her.

‘MAY BE SOME CHAPTERS SHOULD END IN LIFE, SO THAT THEY REMAIN A SPLENDID MEMORY FOREVER’

Navya leaving WoodStock Village was the moment Samar hated the most and the way things changed for him was so sudden that it began hurting him.

Thimappa’s character was also a strong one. The way he took up things on Christmas eve was commendable. And I pitied on him for his childhood bullying episodes. But where he was at last gave him satisfaction. What else do you need?  

Joseph, Zeeshan and Arshi too played a good role.

Go and read this book and know the reason Samar left Delhi and stayed somewhere else with zero penny in his pocket. How he stayed? What he did? What were the reasons? You have to find it out yourself.

Overall review: 4/5

Book Review of 'IKIGAI'

 

BOOK:  IKIGAI

AUTHOR: HECTOR GARCIA AND FRANCESC MIRALLES

PAGES:  196

BLURB:

The people of Japan believe that everyone has an ikigai- a reason to jump out of bed each morning.

Inspiring and comforting, this book will give you the life changing tools to uncover your personal ikigai. It will show you how to leave urgency behind, find your purpose, nurtutre friendships and throw yourself into your passions.

MY TAKE ON THIS BOOK:

“The things we love are like the leaves of tree: they can fall at any moment with a gust of wind.”

It is not a quote with which the book started off. 

I discovered this lines when I was almost on the verge of completing the book and it literally went deep into me. So, I thought of starting with this lines :)

IKIGAI is a book that talks about how to find the flow or the purpose of life. This book being a best-seller serves its purpose right. And to my opinion, whenever you feel low, whenever you feel distracted or a void in yourself, I guess this book is the best choice.

This book talks about psychoanalysis, logotherapy, happiness, longitivity and more. Psychoanalysis dwelves into the past while logotherapy looks into the future.

The process of logotherapy can be summarized in five steps:

1.          A person feels empty, frustrated, or anxious.

2.        The therapist shows him that what he is feeling is the desire to have a meaningful life.

3.       The patient discovers his life’s purpose (at that particular point in time)

4.       Of his own free will, the patient decides to accept or reject that destiny.

5.      This newfound passion for life helps him overcome obstacles and sorrows.

 

‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way’

If I ask you what is your IKIGAI? What will be your answer? 

Existential crisis is typical of modern societies in which people do what they are told to do, or what others do, rather than what they want to do. They often try to fill the gap between what is expected of them and what they want for themselves by numbing their senses.

Existential frustration arises when our life is without purpose, or when that purpose is skewed. And that is what we should overcome. According to logotherapy, discovering one’s purpose in life helps an individual fill that existential void.

And if you are in crisis, I think you should find someone to share with. Because in that way, you can make the crisis shallow. And that is the only escape.

In this book, the authors went to Okinawa and Ogini where they have interviewed more than hundred old people about their secret to longitivity because these are the places in Japan where men and women have lived for more then a century and some of them even held world record for being the oldest one in the world.

This book talks about the positivity, finding the purpose of life, being happy, the secrets of longitivity and more.

Some of the lines that I loved from the book-

‘We should never forget that everything we have and all the people we love will disappear at some point. This is something we should keep in mind, but without giving in pessimism.’

‘All things human are short lived and perishable’

‘It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters’

‘Worrying about things that are beyond our control accomplishes nothing. We should have a clear sense of what we can change and what we can’t, which in turn will allow us to resist giving in to negative emotions.’

Read this book and know the secrets which are shared by the authors.

P.S.- If you haven’t read this book, you should. I am sure you would love this piece of art.

 Recommended to you by ten folds ;)

Overall rating:  4.7/5