Title : Teen Trilogy
Author : Monisha K Gumber
Genre : Teens ; Motivational
Pages : 638
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
Does love really matter so much? And what do you do when nothing matters anymore?
Go on a roller coaster ride with Tara, Megha and Dolly. Three friends in their teens. Close enough to know those little secrets. Not so close to know everything.
Tara, blessed with a bit too much of health for her own good. Desperate to get the guy of her dreams, she ends up playing a very dangerous game. A game, that could cost her friendships, her peace of mind and even her life. Well, that’s an exaggeration but she does make some serious blunders to impress her one true love.
Can she do it and is it all really worth it?
Megha, Tara’s best friend, a super achiever with a perfect life has all that is needed to be happy. After all, why wouldn’t she? A swimming champion, she is a good-looking girl with amazing friends and loving parents.
What more can she ask for! A lot actually. Because even when she has it all, she does the unthinkable. A grave mistake that could take her to her own grave.
Finally Dolly, second best friend of Tara…if that’s even a thing. A part of the same group but kind of dumb to be taken seriously. Real love of Tara’s love interest Karan. And loved (a lot unfortunately) by her love’s dad—Uday Uncle, who is her mom, Mona aunty’s best friend. Now that’s complicated. Wait, there is more. Dolly’s handsome brother Sandy gives Megha a hard time. More complications, misunderstandings, controversies, and entertainment galore!
But don’t forget the life lessons. About making a comeback. About staying true to yourself. About friendships, dealing with low self-esteem and facing break-ups.
Twisted stories of abuse, learning difficulties and illicit relationships in a depraved messed up world. A world the young generation is meant to change. Do you still want to know? Do you have what it takes?
REVIEW
This book by Monisha K Gumber is an amazing trilogy for teens. This book consists of three super impressive books Sick of being Healthy, Dying to live, Dolly won’t play all of them revolves around the respective lives of three teenagers, Tara, Megha and Dolly who are just dealing with their adolescences and learning the ways of the world by doing some little big mistakes that would make an impact on their personalities forever.
The first book is written from the perspective of Tara, who is utterly insecure of her body and tries some dieting which is not completely good for her health. She also nurses her broken heart which was caused by her one-sided relationship with the most good looking and famous senior of hers.
The second book is about Megha, the over achieving kid who does extremely well in her studies as well her swimming tournaments. Even though everything seems perfect from the outer world, she is extremely injured from within. She is over-pressurized by the expectations from her parents, teachers and coach. She goes to this irreversible stage like that of an overly stretched rubber band which breaks after an extend. On the verge of breaking, she decides to take a drastic decision which will end all her pain and stress.
The third book is about Dolly, the most good looking girl amongst the three friends. She is a child with ADHD and she is slow bloomer in the aspect of her education and so she is always regarded as a beautiful girl but utterly dumb. She has this charming and beautiful aura around her and she loves to flaunt her beauty. But appearances are deceptive, though she seems like a carefree happy girl, she is the one who has been affect the most. Dolly has been sexually abused as a child by a family friend and she never seem to get herself out of the trauma inflicted upon her.
Each of these three girls are battling their own demons at a very young age. Will they fight it bravely and get out of it or succumb to their problems ? That is the story of this trilogy!
This is one brilliantly written book for teenagers. This book will help them get some clarity in whatever they are dealing with in their life. The writing style of the author was really smooth and easy. The simplicity of the language will help the readers read it without any interruptions or breaks.
Author had efficiently included some of the key subjects like being comfortable in your body, importance of mental health, following one’s heart, saying NO when it is required and about the sexual assaults, relationships and so on. These are few of the issues which has to be addressed to kids these days without fail. But on the contrary, most parents and teachers don’t pay much attention to these kind of topics because they consider teenagers are too young for these kind of conversation and neglect them but that’s definitely not the right approach. Teenage is a stage when children are exposed to lots of information and they do not have experience or the mindset to see things clearly and that’s the responsibility of their teachers and parents to guide them in the right path with lot of patience. If parents and teachers aren’t comfortable with discussing these kind of issues with their kids, then they could definitely suggest this trilogy to their kids, it will help them a lot. This book is more or less like a self help book which will give some clarity to the kids.
The characters of these three main characters has been beautifully portrayed. It is very normal for teenagers to compare themselves with their friend’s features, positives, talents and abilities and feeling bad about their short coming and feeling jealous of their own friends. And most of the time approaching the world like an adult and behaving like one when they are clearly not. All these kind of silly traits makes these characters real and their age appropriate.
Each of the book in this trilogy is narrated from the perspective one girl. And the author has effectively brought a distinct and unique voice to each of these kids. The best thing about this book was the parents in the book. Though parents being parents, the drastic change from being a strict parent to a cool and friendly parent when they find out their kids are battling bigger issues than they have anticipated was really heart-warming and amazing. This book could give more than one lesson for the parents as well. It will actually help the parents in dealing with adolescence kids, especially girls much more better.
The way the plot has been planned out was amazing. The three books were interlinked and one couldn’t possibly find any plot holes with the trilogy. The flow of the story and the writing style was tremendous, it was smooth and moving flawlessly. The narrative style and the voice was so real and you will feel like a teenager is sharing her story with you on her own voice, that’s how authentic the voice was and that’s a very great talent of the author.
The book is filled with so many illustrations done by the author herself and those are one of the best features about the book. The author is a very talented artist in the aspect her illustrations as well and not just with her writing skills. These illustrations will make the readers connect with the books and the story at a greater extend.
The book also had interesting addition to it like the articles written by Tara for her school monthly newsletter. Amazing advises given by Megha‘s grandmother who acted like Megha‘s makeshift shrink. And Dolly‘s story was narrated in free verses format and was very unique. All these factors made the book even more interesting to read and absorb and take in.
This is a very great trilogy written for teenagers and it is utterly necessary for teenagers and their parents to read it without fail. This will be a life changing book for all the teenagers who are reading it. There are so many things they could learn from this book.
MY VIEWS
I read the second and third book in the trilogy last year and I loved it so much that I wanted to read the first book as well and now I got the opportunity to do it. These books can also be read as a stand alone novel. I loved it more when I read all of them together this time.
This is such an amazing trilogy and I loved it some much. I’m going to suggest this book to every teenager I know of. I wish I had read books like these more when I was a teenager.
My rating for this trilogy altogether would be 4 out of 5 stars
Clicked here to buy the Trilogy
I have already reviewed a couple of books, click the links to read them!!
Do Read this Trilogy and let me know how you feel about it!!
Happy Reading Folks!!
~ Meenu
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