This is not you story by Savi Sharma

 TITLE- This is not your story.
AUTHOR- Savi Sharma.
GENRE- Fiction, Indian contemporary.
FORMAT- PDF
NUMBER OF PAGES- 139
PUBLISHER- Westland books.

About the book-

Sometimes you do not write your story, it writes you. You don’t choose your story, it chooses you. But would you believe it if someone told you , “this is not your story” ? Would you have the courage to rewrite it?

 Shaurya, a CA student. This is his story of following his dreams. Miraya, an interior designer. This is her story of believing in love. Anubhav, an aspiring entrepreneur. This is his story of giving life another chance.

My rating- ★★☆☆☆

My review-

This is the story of Shaurya, Anubhav, Miraya and Kasturi, how their lives crossed each others' and how each inspired the other to change their perspectives to live a fulfilling life.

The story introduces itself first through the narrations of Shaurya and Anubhav, both from Jaipur but unaware of each others' existence, where they go on their individual lives, Shaurya to fulfill his parents’ dreams crushing his own  and Anubhav, backed by his parents, sets foot to fulfill his dreams. Shaurya,next come across Miraya who is Kasturi’s (his neighbor, friend and love interest though he is unable to confess that) cousin. 

Shaurya and Miraya don’t start off well but later get along when they realize that they both are traversing the same path, both have hidden secrets,unfulfilled dreams and both dangling on the edge of hopelessness. Next they come across Anubhav who has shifted back to Jaipur following his parents’ death when they were on their way to meet him in Bangalore (since he was very busy in his work and was unable to make it back home). This tragedy brought down not only his personal life but also his career when he was at its zenith. Unable to cope with the sorrow he tried to commit suicide and that’s when our trio Shaurya, Miraya, and Kasturi save him and he becomes a part of their group.

Next the story evolves to reveal the lack of courage, indecisiveness and hopelessness of the characters and how with each other’s help Shaurya finds his courage to confess his love to Kasturi and pursue his dream of becoming a film director, Anubhav finds his will to live and again focuses on starting up a business and Miraya finds herself believing in love despite having a history of a broken heart and a broken marriage, falling in love with Anubhav.

All of them realize that the story they were writing were not their own, they needed to write a new one which was possible only with each other’s help.

The plot was quite good,rather encouraging; a story of going after your dreams and fulfilling them no matter what, a tale of hope, friendship, love, belief, courage and compassion, however the execution was below average. 

The plot was pretty much predictable, with less focus on Anubhav’s life in the initial part.

It seemed to be rushing through ,cutting to the next significant details, it just lacks any form of connection, neither to the reader nor to the characters. Perhaps the plot lacked proper structure.

The story has the same old scenes and monotonous lines that almost every Indian fiction has. The bollywood influence is just undeniable, it feels just like watching a bollywood drama, dialogues overdone, justifying every act in the name of giving another a hope to thrive on and the age old intermingling of a love story.
The only distinguishing feature is perhaps the message the reader gets.

This might be a good read for those out there loving mushy stories with no solid content, or those who love breezing through books without any actual thought provocation.

Characters-

Shaurya- a final year CA student, who had always aspired to be a film maker and wanted to move to Mumbai but due to parental pressure he continues with his CA course in Jaipur.

 Anubhav- a successful entrepreneur backed by the confidence of his parents reach new heights but only when he get hit by a tragedy does he realize that he has been alone throughout his life and is crestfallen, determined to put an end to his unfulfilling life. 

Miraya- a successful interior designer who goes through an unsuccessful marriage when her college sweetheart wants her to give up her job and settle down with a kid. This only results in her taking up her dream job more passionately and put an end to the abusive marriage.

Kasturi- the girl next door who has the role of playing Shaurya’s love interest and the reason Shaurya and Miraya’s paths are crossed as Miraya is her cousin.

Writing style-

The writing is pretty much predictable throughout, repetition of the same monotonous dialogues. It stresses a lot on the dilemma that the characters go through which definitely helps the reader to give them more importance. The writing is very simple, easy to understand but it definitely lacks the connection and the charm that language provides.

About the author-

Savi Sharma is the author of best-selling novel Everyone Has a Story - An Inspirational Story of Dreams, Friendship, Love & Life. She is also the co-founder of motivational media blog ‘Life & People’ where she writes about positivity, meditation, law of attraction, spirituality and other such topics.

She left her CA studies to become a storyteller. She self-published her inspirational novel "Everyone Has a Story", which went on to become a bestseller, making Savi India's first successful female self-published author.