In God’s Wishlist
By Pradipta Panda
Review By Ila Garg
In God’s Wishlist, a novel by Pradipta Panda, is published by Frog Books, an imprint of Leadstart Publishing. The cover shows a girl who is surrounded by lights, seems like a spirit from some other world. A well conceptualised cover by all means!
The blurb reads as, “In Gods Wishlist’ is a fantasy that speaks of a whole new world order, where there will be no fear of death. Love and beauty will rule the world and spirits will interact and fall in love with human beings and propagate love. This love will transcend everything and be the panacea to all problems. God has a vision and a mission.
He invites humankind to join active politics as it controls their life. He performs experiments to induct his theory. In one of his experiments, he studied beauty with the mind, and released all the spirits to the world, except for twenty-one top leaders of the world, whose beautiful minds were not mapped and programmed. God’s theory is that the two main things that rule the earth are the ruler and beauty that remains true for all ages. Youth have different aspirations, towards their fantasy, the opponent, and society. To inculcate this God inducted a new theory of love, the love between the spirit and a human being. The love between the spirit and a human being will be the panacea of all and this love will transcend human behaviour. Read to find out how and what is in God’s Wishlist…”
The blurb did sound interesting to me and that’s why I decided to pick this one up and review it here for you guys. However, the book wasn’t as thrilling as it seemed by the cover and the blurb. Yes, looks can be deceptive.
So, let’s first talk about what I liked about this book. Cover – 4.5/5 and blurb is obviously good. The plot is well thought of and different from the league and yet it could not resonate with me. The concept is nice with God Himself as a protagonist but something goes amiss as the story begins to get a pace.
The author has definitely tried to write something different but without enough research. It could have been a great book to read but honestly, it failed to captivate my interest. So moving on to what exactly I didn’t like or should I say what was lacking in the book.
The book majorly lacked research – it belongs to the fantasy genre, so forget realism here. The readers will also find it difficult to relate to the story and therefore will find it uneasy to make a headway with the story. One of my friends borrowed the book and left it after reading a few pages as the story failed to make any sense to her.
Not giving any spoilers, I will quickly give you a glimpse of the plot to let you decide whether or not you should pick this book.
The story begins with God choosing a young and ordinary man, Sourav who had a breakup recently and ends up spending a drunken weekend. Next, God takes the form of a spirit, Cinderella and meets Sourav to gradually brainwash him and make him and take the place of his lost love. Further, the story sees Sourav working in coordination with God Himself. Sourav keeps moving from one beautiful woman to another and helps them, does something good for them in exchange of sex. Woah! Really? I mean what was the author thinking? So this one is a nay for me as it begins to get absurd as I moved further into the plot.
The language is simple and easy to comprehend, however who was the editor of this book? I wonder! So many grammatical errors – a sure turn off for me! I totally felt disconnected, skipped so many pages, was bored through most of the plot and found myself mostly yawning waiting for it to end.
Further, this 250-page book did give way to a different plot but when the execution fails, everything fails. It was an average read. I will also be reviewing the author’s next book Co-Wife, based on LGBT themes and claims to capture the pathos and problems associated with them. I am keenly waiting to read that since the theme does interest me. I hope the author has improved over time.
You may give In God’s Wishlist a try if fantasy is your genre, but do not keep your hopes too high.
Ratings: 2.5/5
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