Book Review: "Bestseller She Wrote" by Ravi Subramaniam

When one picks up a Ravi Subramaniam book, the expectations are high. Please read this book review with that pinch of salt. 

The blurb calls it a thriller and the cover calls it a thriller. It is not a thriller in the conventional sense of the term. Or, maybe I am not reading the right thrillers. It is a pageturner, but many of those pages are turned without fully reading. 

The book picks up pace in the second half though, as knots are unraveled and secrets revealed. 

When you publish a book, editors and publishers tell you to increase the word count - as if the book is a per word product that the reader is buying. Ironically, people buy longer looking books, but dont have the time to read them. I think authors need to stand up for themselves. Ravi Subramniam is a taut storyteller and that is one of his strengths. So many passages in this book are unlike his style (yes, i have read most of his books). So much of this book is passable (literally and figuratively). 

When one read that RS has written a book outing the underbelly of the publishing industry, hopes naturally went up. But the weak plot and the irrelevant story telling (no, we don't read RS books for seduction scenes or how each peg of whisky is downed). 

All in all, not one of his best works, but definitely a page turner, especially in the second half. You can speed read the first half, and it will still make all the sense in the world. 

A good editor would have struck out the bulk of the first part and much of the second part. (I have listed these parts below, but thats a plot spoiler, so read only if you need to). 

The book has the following parts: 

A. Aditya is seduced by Shreya. 

B. Maya finds out and all hell breaks loose. 

C. Shreya blackmails Aditya and he is forced to comply. 

D. Aditya does some investigation, outs all the villians and comes out on top.