Book Review: The Bestseller She Wrote by Ravi Subramanian

“He stopped his lecture soon thereafter and they broke into Q&A.” That was how the first chapter ended and it had me frowning. First chapter over, eight pages done and yet no murder! It had me scratching my head, was this a Ravi Subramanian novel at all?

Sure, the cover and the back says “Love. Betrayal. Redemption.” But then who takes the blurbs seriously? Bankerupt mentioned emu farming on the cover, but it was an out and out banking thriller i.e. exactly the fare we have come to expect from Ravi Subramanian.

So first things first, if you are a die hard Ravi Subramanian fan hoping for a traditional thriller, you are in for a shock. This book for most part is a romance novel with some elements of a thriller dropped in right at the end. After doing some digging on the internet, I found out this article where he has made it clear that with this novel he is targeting a new audience. However, I am sure that like me, many others are going to pick this up expecting something else because, by the virtue of his creative marketing efforts for his previous novels and having often been described as the John Grisham of Indian banking, as of now atleast, he has definitely been type cast as a thriller writer in the eyes of the ordinary reader.

The Bestseller She Wrote begins with the lead protagonist, Mr. Aditya Kapoor, the author of five bestsellers meeting Shreya, an aspiring author at an IIM-B campus event. The middle aged author loves the attention he gets from the young MBA grad while Shreya enjoys her access to his inputs on writing. Aditya gets her on his team at the National Bank and soon it is inevitable that the mentor-mentees shall be lovers, nevermind the fact that he is married. Though Aditya keeps getting enmeshed further and further in his lies, we are kept guessing about the genuineness of Shreya’s feelings as she alternates between expressing her love for Aditya and milking him for his publishing industry contacts. As all affairs play out, the deception is uncovered and Aditya tries to call off the affair while his wife goes through a crisis, only to find that Shreya has left him no way out. Backed into a corner, Aditya uncovers some secrets about Shreya which help him ultimately reconcile with his wife. It is towards this masala ending that Ravi Subramanian tries to make the love story seem like a thriller. But at the end, the explanations seem barely satisfactory and I was also annoyed (as I often am) by the few pages where the protagonist has found a way out of the predicament and is acting upon it but the author/narration doesn’t reveal it to us for many more pages.

All in all the story by itself is rather predictable and the ending seemed barely satisfactory. If I had to nitpick, I would also point out that some of the relationship stuff is wayyy unlikely. For example, they flirt and sext on SMS! Yes SMS in the world of WhatsApp and Snapchat. And the girl’s bestfriend is particularly pally with the girl’s boyfriend whom she doesn’t even approve of much. Like seriously? I am sure many guys wish that girl gang loyalty was so easy to breach and be able to turn one girl against the other but I have never heard of this actually happening. The more intimate scenes could also have been a little more imaginative.

That said, despite the not-so-great plot, the book does have a super redeeming quality, that kept me turning the pages. The book is flooded with references to real life events and publishing industry inside info. The protagonist Aditya Kapoor who is a superstar author keeps giving gyan about how to become a super-star author. What makes it even more interesting is that Aditya Kapoor has several traits of the current super stars of the publishing industry. He is a banker like Ravi Subramanian himself, he is from IIM and gets an offer to judge a reality show like Chetan Bhagat and is heavily involved in promoting his book like almost every author these days. I once even heard Amish promoting his book on the radio. There is so much speculation about who the protagonist is based on that some authors have put out statements to deny that they are him. (Unless that is also merely another marketing tactic from Ravi Subramanian’s team.)

Ravi Subramanian knows a fair deal about marketing his books. I got the first email about The Bestseller She Wrote from the ‘Think WhyNot’ Ad Agency, almost a month before its launch and this book has animated trailers as well! So through his protagonist, Ravi Subramanian gives us a lot of information about how books are marketed today and how celebrity authors obsess over their portrayal by the media. He even mentions book reviews from bloggers as a marketing technique! Furthermore, the book is also full of references to real life events and personalities and many of these references also seem to reflect the author’s attitude. We find reporters being called ‘presstitutes’ while Amish Tripathi and Ravi Subramanian himself are named as Grishams of Indian Banking. Nirav Singhvi also finds a mention and Anurag Kashyap is a minor character in the story. The best digs though are all aimed at Chetan Bhagat.

“I don’t want a Chetan Bhagat quote. He might have seen today’s newspaper article and jumped onto the bandwagon for some quick publicity.”

So finally, do pick this book if you want a time pass one time read infidelity story with an opportunity to laugh at the famous celebrity authors but if you are actually looking for an unputdownable Ravi Subramanian novel, you would be better off picking God is a Gamer or Bankerupt!

You can buy The Bestseller She Wrote from flipkart here - 

I am reviewing ‘The Bestseller She Wrote’ by Ravi Subramanian as a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers.

Disclosure : I was supplied with a review copy by Blogadda.