Title : STONED! The Untold Story of CO-Weed-20
Author : Gautam Mayekar
Genre : Fiction ; Sci-fi ; Dope; Drug
Pages : 89
I received this Review Copy from Half Baked Beans in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you Half Baked Beans and Book Marketing Consultant Richa Saxena!!
BLURB
Amar- the man from the future, is narrating his story into the Voice Data Recorder of Time machine through which he has traveled back in time. He is alone & stuck in the machine with no expertise or knowledge to operate it. With Mohit – the one who built this Time Machine, having tested CO-Weed-20 positive and gone to sleep permanently, just like the entire population of Mumbai city; Amar is left only with a stash of weed and wait of twelve hours until the machine disintegrates.
Before it does, Amar will reveal the secrets behind the production of the deadly drug – CO-Weed-20 and how it all went awry.
Who is Amar?
Will he survive & eventually save the world? Or will he get beaten by the mysterious Thakur from his dreams again?
REVIEW
The story starts with Amar being trapped in a time machine while traveling to the past, in order to rectify a mistake he did in the past which lead to catastrophic pandemic situation in the country. His friend, Mohit was the one who designed this time machine, since Mohit was tested positive for CO-Weed-20 which is caused by Marijuana he is not in a position to assist Amar. Being stuck in a time machine, Amar knows his end was near because the time machine is designed in such a way to explode after 12 hours. So he hopelessly takes the stash of weed stored in the time machine and starts to meticulously weed out the unwanted seeds, roll it into a perfect slim joint and starts smoking up. As he gets high begins ranting about about his life and Co-Weed-20 in random and clumsy manner onto the Voice Data Recorder present in the time machine. And that’s how the story begins.
This is a perfect dope story which has the capacity to even make a sober-reader fly high in the sky. It kind of gave an insight about what are the kind of things that runs in a person’s mind when they’re high. Throughout the book the lead characters are stoned which made these characters pretty unreliable though this unreliable storytelling and characters seems to be the key factor of this book and it was also quite interesting to read up to certain level. BUT, it could have been writing in a much better manner.
This book was actually published as blog posts by the author. Since it was received well by people he decide publish it as book and that was a wise choice. The narrative style of the author was funny and satirical. His voice was quite distinct.
How Amar and Mohit bonds in the first place was very interesting and funny. The author had vividly spoken about things that are very crucial for a stoner and that one being “Dope Tracks” He emphasized about how connected stoners are towards music and making Nucleya do a cameo role in the book was pretty fun actually. The author has spoken about drugs and weed, reading about them was extremely engrossing. It would’ve been even more interesting if he had spoken about them in a greater detail, it felt kind of incomplete without focusing on these parts.
The character of Amar’s girlfriend in the book felt like an unnecessary inclusion to the book. If the character had been developed properly and if a purpose was given to this character, it would have been really nice. The best thing about this book was, how these Stoner lovers celebrated their valentine’s week together. It was enchanting and fascinating to read. The uniqueness of that celebration was the best.
Everything in the book has been told very hastily. An addition of clear depth and clarity to the plot, the characters and the situations would have been an ultimate game changer. Lot’s of sequences in the book felt unrealistic but then since the characters were stoned, they are allowed to think and act stupidly and unrealistically.
The way in which the author correlated with weed and the current pandemic situation was the major factor that held the attention of the readers till the very end. There were certain ideological problems in the book which might affect the sentiments of some people and there were certain unpopular political comments as well which wasn’t much appreciable.
There were lots of references from super hero movies, Bollywood movies as well. These references were fun and nostalgic. The writing style of the author was effortless and smooth. The language was simple and it was beginners friendly.
MY VIEWS
Just because there was a presence of a time machine I cannot make myself call it a Sci-Fi 🙈 lol. Rather I might call it a Dope Fiction 😛 Is that even a genre 😀 I totally loved the basic idea of the book. The first thing that attracted me towards this book was the title of this book and then the blurb. It was so unique and literally charmed me into picking it up. But to be frank, I kind of felt like I was let down badly and that was extremely disappointing. The author majorly focused on the after effects of drugs and weed. If he had given more attention to the entire process like how it started and other stuff, it would have been really nice, And that would have acclimatized any kind of reader to get used to this unlikely topic and made them as much involved as the characters themselves were in the plot.
Obviously, I had certain ideological difference with the things that has been written in the book. And there were certain things that the author had said on the go carelessly, which could have been avoided, those parts felt like a loose talk. Which included talking about feminism ill mannerly or being opinionated about people who are politically aware and taking a stand. These factors actually made me quite repulsive of this book.
I literally loved the Valentine’s Day Celebration, like more than anything else. It was the best!
My rating for this book would be 2.9 out of 5 stars
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Take Care!!
Happy Reading Folks!!
~ Meenu
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