Book Review - 8 Hours (✩✩)

(Review Copy received from Writers Melon.)

Disclaimer: The views presented are only my own perspective of the book and should not discourage anyone from reading it. You may prefer apples, I may like oranges. Doesn't say much about the fruits, only about our choices.


8 Hours is officially my most difficult read of 2018 (yet). I could not, for the life of me, get through this book. Every chapter seemed repetitive, every hour felt like a lifetime. In fact, even though I was buddy-reading this with two of my other bookstagrammer buddies, none of us could motivate the other. Much contrary to that, I think we all just pulled each other down. This book, no matter how much I tried, just did not work for me.

The story explores the fate of a family-owned company, Arya, on the verge of its demise and the protagonist, a shareholder in the company and the daughter of the founder, Aratrika, is on a mission to save it anyhow. The book is titled 8 Hours, which is reflective of the last 8 hours of the company (from 1am to 9.22am, to be precise) before the said empire crumbles in its own mess, but it took me more than that to get through the book. While the first few chapters of the book are intriguing and did excite me initially, the boredom that overtook me subsequently enveloped me like nothing I have ever experienced.

I am not going over the storyline. You can read the same in the blurb.
I will just quickly go over what did not work for me.

1. Too many characters - It was, after a while, difficult to keep a tab on who was doing what, and related to which other character and how, and what they were up to and why. You get it? The entire book was as big a struggle as this sentence. I initially thought that once I got a hang of the characters and their relations, things would be easier (and maybe interesting?). No such thing happened.

2. Repetitive - If I had a penny for every call that each character made and received, I may be able to buy back my weekend that I spent on this book! Every chapter sounded the same, every 'plan' and 'trick' was same as the previous one and the plot just REFUSED to move forward. In short, nothing, absolutely nothing happened for the entire duration of 8 hours. (To be honest, I was only able to read till page 115; I mostly did not - could not - pay attention after that.)

3. The end was good only because it was the end. I had to suffer no more. (I would've apologised for being so harsh but I need to vent right now.)

Did not work for me, may or may not work for you.
The plus point is that the writing is decent and lucid. One of the very few error free books I have read in a while. 

*****
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