Among The Stars by Enakshi Johri

Summary

‘Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal’. ‘Among the stars’ is a collection of short stories that answer several questions that keep popping into our sub conscious mind. These questions are generally related to love, death, memory, escapism, past-present-future, time, distance and relationships. The book showcases the thin thread that separates fantasy with reality. Everything has a theory behind it and to unravel and understand the essence of that theory, it is important to bridge the abyss between the thoughts and conscience. ‘Among the stars’ is one such book that contains intertwined stories but as you read you can decide for yourself whether or not are the stories related to each other. The protagonist of the story is a young boy ‘Arjun’ who loves to listen to the stories, narrated by his father. The book throws light on their relationship and the bond they share.

My opinion

‘Among the stars’ is one such book where the connectivity with the reader is maintained all throughout. The title of the book is apt because it is in the solitude when one realizes the untold truth. The book is about a young boy, who calls his father, a magician, because his father has the ability to steer a normal real life conversation to the one that portrays ‘Utopian’ world, where there is clear cut answer for everything. The cover of the book is mesmerizing.

The best part of the book is that every story is left at a Cliffhanger, leaving the readers in suspense and anxious not to miss the next one. Also, the titles of the stories are the answers to the questions posed in the preceding story. It is more like a web. The more pages you turn, the more entangled you become. The style of writing is commendable. The font size used is not only attractive but also makes reading easier. The story, the present narration and the dreams have been presented in different fonts. Another plus point is the inclusion of Quatrain in the end of the book. The narration is simple and lucid. However, there are several syntactical errors, typos, missing words and incomplete sentences and interrupt the flow of reading.

Drawbacks

There are several syntactical errors (punctuation, grammatical, vocabulary). Time and again sentences have been left unfinished. Also, the description is quite repetitive.