Review of The Truth About Elves

[Mandira Samanta]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Truth About Elves" by Ekta R. Garg.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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The Truth About Elves is a fantasy novella on Christmas by author and editor Ekta R. Garg. Though I completely abandoned reading of fantasy genre since my graduation, I tried this book as its unique name and cover attracted my attention.

This holiday novella centres around the former pilot Curtis Sanders who works as an elf for Mr. C or Santa Claus. Here, the author breaks the conventional ideas around Santa Claus and provides a modern touch to everything associated with him and his miracles. Santa Claus and even the elves are different from our traditional imagination about them. But this novella mainly depicts Curtis's trauma about the accident committed by him. This is a story of purification of a heavy heart laden with guilt, grief and remorse.

The author craftily depicts the mental anxiety of teenagers and their craving for acceptance by elders. Here, the author skilfully mixes happiness, anxiety, trauma, acceptance and love throughout her narration. She shows how family becomes the ultimate abode of peace and contentment despite all the loss and misunderstandings. Santa Claus's miraculous power to bring happiness and fulfilment is shown throughout the storyline.

I like how the author kept her plot simple and stuck to one simple storyline. Her use of flowy and comprehensible language quenched my thirst for simplicity.

However, I did not appreciate it as the author unnecessarily overburdened her novella with numerous characters who had nothing to do with the plot. The first half of this book seemed alienated from the actual events of this novella. Even the title of this book seemed quite inappropriate as there was almost no connection between elves with the main plot.

This book is praiseworthy with its professional editing without any typos. Despite some positive aspects, l would like to give this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars as it failed to satisfy my thirst for an engaging storyline. I would love to recommend this book to those who want to read a happy holiday novella on Christmas without much complexity in the theme.

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The Truth About Elves
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