Fiction

Dying to live by Monisha k Gumber : Book Review

Title      : Dying to Live

Author : Monisha K Gumber

Genre   : Teens ; Motivational Book

Pages    : 242

I received this Review Copy from Half Baked Beans in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Half Baked Beans and Book Marketing Consultant Tanvi Jain!!

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. 

-Michael Jordan (Basketball Player)

Blurb

An honest, painful and often humourous narrative- a tale of resilience, courage and grace..when nothing matters anymore…

Megha, a young super-achiever with a perfect life has all that is needed to be happy. After all why wouldn’t she? A swimming champion, school topper, popular, good-looking girl with amazing friends and loving parents. What more could a girl ask for? A lot, actually.

Because even when she has it all; she sulks and does the unthinkable. A grave mistake that could take her to her own grave. But survivor that she is, she breaks through the wall of ‘perfections’ and accepts that she is what she is: sad, vulnerable and confused. Oh, don’t get her wrong, as she puts up a tough fight to reach where she is meant to be. And on the way learns some lessons that will take her through this amazing journey called life. A happy kind of life.

Don’t judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again. 

-Nelson Mandela (World Leader)

Review

Dying to live is the sequel of the book called “Sick of being Healthy” however this book can also be read as a standalone novel. This book, “Dying to live” is especially tailor-made for teenagers. Teenage is the phase where kids get to learn lot of stuffs and this is a very crucial phase which carves out their future. The author has explicitly focused on the issues face by teenagers – the pressure they face by their parents to constantly do good in their academics as well as extracurricular activities and complexities of relationships, right from family,  friendship to love.

This book has been divided into three parts. First part talks about the life of the protagonist Megha, who has it all but how she flunks up everything and slide down the ladder of success to the bottom in no time due to her mental stress and problems. The second parts talks about how she tries to learn from her mistakes and rectify them and the third part deals with how she gets her life back on track. The narrative style of the author was very different something very similar to a diary entry, this helped the readers to get to know about the character of Megha at a very personal level. There was lot of illustrations in between the book which was drawn by the author herself, it was nice and refreshing to see them while reading the book.

Dying to live is nothing short of a self-help or motivational books, but it’s something thing more than that. The way the author has blend the fiction and some life changing tips to become mentally strong and successful was something really great. This book covers all the issues a normal teenager would face – insecurities about their looks, their premature love-life, lack of emotional attention and over expectation from parents. The author has also spoken about problems in family at a greater extend, how damaged families could affect children. And this book also said how to deal with all these problems and rise above them all. This book would definitely be useful to kids these days.

The characterization of Megha at the beginning of the book was something extremely irritating because she is someone who keeps on judging people including her own friends, just because she is successful all-rounder she consider everybody as losers and the attitude she develops was annoying. But the way her character got developed through the due course of the book was assuaging and nice to read. The conversation between Megha and her grandmother was really eye-opening, spiritual and would be really useful for everyone who reads it. These conversations are the best part in the book, The resilience shown by Megha was astounding and the way she mends her relationships with all her close ones was magnificent. It wasn’t a fast moving book but this book should be read by every individuals on their own pace, something like a coffee table book.

At first opposites attracts but later, opposite attacks.  

-Megha Deshpande (Protagonist of the book)

My views

As a teenager I had never came across this kind of books, all we got to read was fairytales, romance, sci-fic, adventure and magic books. I never knew motivational books can be entertaining and be story like. With all these technologies around, the kids these days are exposed to lot of information, some are good and some aren’t their age. There is a plausibility that these exposures could rob off their Pre-teen and teen innocents but we can hardly do anything about it. But this book on the other hand would definitely help teenagers a lot, it would bring a lot more impact on them than you realize. This book has so much enlightenment, motivation and confidence to offer. My personal favorites are Megha’s swimming tournaments, it was very nervous and frightening while reading and the advises giving by Megha’s grandma was motivating and professional.

I would highly recommend this book to all the teenagers and maybe to their parents too. Parents, it might not be your content but it would definitely help you revisit your teenage and understand your kids from their shoes.

These kind of books should be encouraged and I guess it’s the need of the hour for the betterment of our younger generation’s future. And I really appreciate the author for coming up with such a sensitive topic.

I missed reading the first book in the series “Sick of being healthy” but I would definitely read it and will come back with a review.

My rating for this book would be 3.5 / 5 stars 🌟🌟🌟

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Do read this book and tell me how you feel about it on the comment session below!

Happy Reading Folks!!

~ Meenu