I would be lying if I said that I read award-winning books objectively. Sometimes, my reading is tinged by, Oh, it won this award; I’m sure it’ll be great! And sometimes, by Okay, let me read this book and see what’s so great about is.
Especially when I approach a book with the latter, I find myself overly critical. I recognise that and apologise for it. Yet, Unbroken affected me enough to write about it, and I rarely, if ever, write about books I don’t like much.
The first thing that annoyed me about the book (I read the Kindle edition, so I don’t know about the others) was the number of typos. I cringe at typos. So when Ranjith suddenly becomes Ranjit and Preethi suddenly becomes Preeti, there’s a shifting of gears in my head.
Oh, s/he’s temporarily North Indian!
The worst of all is one of the pivotal lines in the book – where Akriti reveals what Ranjith wrote on the Get-Well-Soon card he gave her. ‘P.S.: I that you can do twice as much …’
I do know that to err is human.
I also know that my books have typos too, and I hate those even more than I hate typos in other books. (In The Duronto Adventure, I have ‘Varun Uncle says goes further …’. And that’s just an example.)
But typos do create irritation for me.
Coming to the story, there were parts I absolutely loved. I was in tears more than once, and Akriti is such a complete, complex character that I think it was an act of courage just creating someone like her. Also, when I found out how young the writer is, I was amazed. It’s an excellent story.
There were, however, other parts that seemed to fall flat for me. Moments that were overdone or underdone – which become all the more upsetting when there are parts that are so brilliantly written.
All in all, what I liked is how unusual the book is. I can’t say I’ve read anything like it before. It’s pacy, modern, and a quick read.
| Title | Unbroken |
| Author | Nandhika Nambi |
| Genre | YA |
| Rating (out of 5) | 3.5 |
| Age-group | 13+ |
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