Official Review: To Desire by Vatsal Surti

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MrEmDash
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Official Review: To Desire by Vatsal Surti

Post by MrEmDash »

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "To Desire" by Vatsal Surti.]
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This book is a tough one for me to review because I feel so conflicted about it. I suppose I'll give a quick synopsis before going into what made me conflicted about the book.

The book begins with Meera, who is contemplating love while looking out at nature at night. It then switches to a male character whose was Meera's partner. Meera has died and he is devastated by this and like Meera, contemplates love and life while looking out during the night. He believes that love is bondage and holds him tight, and he desired nothing more to be in bondage again. He later declares himself free after contemplating how death relates to love. He finds a new partner named Sonia and the book goes on with their experiences and talks with each other. He had kept Meera's journal and often refers back to it while commenting on love, life, and death. Overall there is a lot of symbolism and deep thoughts regarding love and world around him.

Firstly, I thought that the writing itself was very good. The language was fantastic, almost zero grammar/spelling errors, and flowed very nicely. The characters were believable, the emotions were raw, very powerful, but relatable. There was great description throughout, decent voice, and it was overall very consistent. I think the author did a lot right in the book.

However, this itself is what made the book that much more painful to read for me. The synopsis I provided is what I believe to have happened. I'm honestly not exactly sure if I'm correct even after reading over some passages multiple times. The biggest critique I have of the book is that it's incredibly confusing to read. When the character is reading the journal, the journal itself obviously is first person and has "I"s and "me", but the rest of the book is third person. Normally there is something to distinguish that it is a journal, however, there's nothing there. That was incredibly confusing to me the first few journal passages but I would just italicize the journal entries or something like that. Also, the time from his grief of Meera to his relationship with Sonia is just so fast. One passage he is sad, next passage he's free and suddenly Sonia is introduced. I initially thought that Sonia was an imagined person because at the end of the passage where he meets Sonia it says "When he opened his eyes to see the air he was feeling on his face, he saw streets getting longer, the night darker, passing through dark sleeping pictures of nature". So I thought he was dreaming of Sonia then woke up. I'm not exactly sure how the author can remedy this. What I honestly think is that when the author was planning out the book, it was planned out well in his mind. But a trap that a lot of authors fall into is that it makes sense to them, but not to the reader.

Overall I'm going to give this book a 3 out of 4 stars. I would give it a 4/4 but the plot is just too confusing. I really had to read passages 5-6 times and I still don't fully understand what happened. It pains me to do so because the book itself was beautifully written and the characters well developed. It was a very thought provoking book and the ideas regarding love and life were well thought out. But all the good cannot overcome the confusion of reading the book. If the author goes back and restructures the events that happen I would easily bump it up to a 4.

***
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ROBBIESMOMMY
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Post by ROBBIESMOMMY »

To Desire by Vatsal Surti is a distinctive and thought provoking piece that delves into the meaning of existence and how two people perceive events around them. Do feelings lead to appropriate actions or do our actions take the place of experiencing emotions? More a collection of thoughts than a story with a beginning and an end, To Desire reflects the thought processes of the characters and the realizations they arrive at together. As with a good poem, re-reading illuminates nuances of thought that may have been minimized previously and provides more of an opportunity to reflect and compare personal feelings and experiences with those of the characters.
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