Sunday, June 01, 2008

Book Review: The 3 Mistakes of my life


‘The 3 Mistakes of my life’ is the third fiction from the well known Chetan Bhagat’s stable. Much alike it’s predecessors, this one is again based on friendship. It’s a story of 3 friends (Govind, Ish and Omi) from the industrial town of Ahmedabad.

Any writing could be evaluated on two broad parameters. First the content and second the writing style.

Starting off with the content, the script is a normal sort of. It’s certainly not an outstanding one, if we rate it with the debut one; Five point someone. Actually Chetan had set extremely high standards for himself in his first fiction. Thereby raising the expectations from the readers. As well setting the floor high enough, making it harder to outperform the previous ones. Besides this the depiction of incidents like Bhuj earthquake, Godhra riots, 9/11 attack on twin towers have dramatized the story a lot. Someone may counter argue here that, Chetan has used these as props for the story. I won’t disagree with that. However, I do feel that it’s an overdose of such real life incidents for a fiction.

Moving to the writing style, I would give 10 of 10. Much alike the previous two, it’s an easy going and casual reading stuff. Infact that’s one of the USPs that the writing is for the masses, not for a niche segment of intellectuals. Chetan describes the story in an easily understandable expressions. Besides this he uses a waterfall model in telling the story, wherein the events follow a freely flowing chronological sequence. Thereby not stressing your mind. Also I found the prologue too catchy and beautifully composed. It creates a solid foundation for the story, enclosing it in a fixed time frame, adding a curiosity factor, as in what would have happened.

And I liked the way, character Vidya has been portrayed. It has been so well explicitly described, that I could effortlessly craft a real picture of her in my mind.

Overall it’s a good reading for youth and people in age bracket of 15-30. I would say one should read this book, you will enjoy the overall package. Also it won’t burden your pocket, being nominally priced at 95 bucks, as always.

Rating: 3.5 stars
Goof Ups: Mobile phones were not so prevalent in early 2002, incoming calls were paid and the concept of SMSing caught somewhere in 2003. However, Chetan has shown extensive usage of SMS between Vidya and Govind.

17 comments:

Sandeep Balan said...

hey...good review...the best part of this was the goof up that you captured!! Had not thought of tis one yaar..excellently brought to notice...the way Govind has been depicted in the novel, it wud be highly unlikely for him to spend tht much on SMS'es!!

Its gud to have someone who notices the minutest details as a regular visitor to my blog...hope my posts will keep u entertained! cheers!!

Pilot-Pooja said...

What a coincidence..
I was browsing this book yesterday.. and there i see Piyush has already analyzed this..))

Blog backgrd has also changed..with pleasing colors!
Great!!

Piyush said...

@ sandeep
yes frd you are right, that the character Govind wont be spending so much on mobile. But he can be given the benefit of doubt for being in so called love and the so called love being blind.

Your posts are a real change from a regular stuff and I enjoy reading your writings. Keep the good work flowing.

Best


@ Pooja
yes pooja, my blog deserved a long due makeover....and i beleive i cud do atleast a little justice to it.

Looking for a newer post from you.

Chandni said...

a review i see :)
I don't think the book deserves a 10/10 but maybe a 6 would suffice. And ya back then incoming calls were paid! It was such a pain. Well written review.

Pilot-Pooja said...

Life is so busy in Gurgaon..

Wish i get time + net (coupled with electricity) to post some...)

Piyush said...

@ Chandani

Thanks for the feedback. Keep writing and keep visiting.

Best



@ Pooja
yeah right life in Gurgaon is very busy.

sanju ayyar said...

hey piyush,

Quite accidentally, I read your comment on chetan bhagat's 3, and that drew me to this post on your blog.
You write well dude. I think there was another error in the book besides the ones you pointed out.
Govind gets into the sms mode with vidya during the 9/11 event. and he promises to get a cake for her on her birthday. However her birthday is somewhere in november! Strange, isnt it?
And there were a few spelling errors too. bad proof-reading i guess.
hey you can visit sanjuayyar.blogspot.com and read some of my stuff. and better still, leave a comment on how you liked it, or didn't. waiting for your comments.

Cheers,

SANJU.

Beauty and the BEast said...

I like the way you categoricallys anlaysed every aspect of the book.

The content, the style and the hiccups.

my inner world said...

a good review of the book. though i did not notice the "sms" thing , i did find that the story did not match his earlier two books. but all in all it is a good one to read and i found few sentences to be quite hilarious :)

Sandeep Balan said...

@piyush...

hey..late in thankin you for ur take on my writing...bt seriously bro..that means a lot..n gives a lot of encouragement to go on! For a newbie blogger who is barely 2 months old in blogdom, confidence boosters like this do mean a lot! I had no clue you would be praising my writing in your comment book...just accidentaly opened it..he he..i was checkin fr new reviews...post the next one soon...cheers!

Sandeep Balan said...

in the meantime when you complete another book, you could do a blog review of the blogs u like....it wud be a different thing from what others do...just a food for thought...

AV said...

oh i loooooved vidya's character. i believe that a person's love for some1 is calibrated not by the extent of love one expresses, but by how much one is able to get in return. govind would never have dared to fall in love with vidya if she hadnt loved him sooo much, enough to make him love her back as much as he did. hats off to her.

n thnx for having visited my blogs.. :)

ZB said...

very good reveiw, but i disagree on the style. there is hardly any writing style here, its more like a plain narration. take care

Arnab said...

Hi, Havent managed to read the book as of yet, as I am not a great fan of Chetan Bhagat after his lil disaster book named "One Night @ Call Center".
But have liked his flow. Never too fast nor too slow.
But def I can say, you do have a keen eye for details. Also, you do have a gift my friend for writing. Keep up the great work!
-Luv 'n' Luk
Arnab

Piyush said...

@ Arnab:
Hey Thanks for the feedback...
Piyush

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