I Wish I Could Rewind | Dheeraj Thareja | Book Review

EMOTIONAL APPEAL: 3.5/5
WRITING STYLE: 2.5/5
LANGUAGE: 2/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 2.5/5

My Musings

I Wish I Could Rewind has a cover that makes you nostalgic. The eye appealing cover takes you back in time to the days where people still used ink and quills.

Though I haven’t really used quills, ink pens are something that I still lovingly associate with my childhood. If there is one cover that portrays poetry it is this one, and it would be a massive understatement to say that I was captured by the cover of this book.

Not only I was intrigued but also spellbound by what the cover was conveying to me.

Read on to know more about my thoughts on the book that this cover so beautifully graces.

Readability, Styling, and Quality

As is the case with every Notion Press publication that I come across, I Wish I Could Rewind scores well in terms of the quality of the book.

The physical aspects – the cover, quality of the pages, quality of the bind, typeset, font size, font style – are just perfect. In other words, the book makes for a comfortable read.

What to expect?

The blurb of I Wish I Could Rewind chooses the philosophical way to describe the contents of the book. It won’t be wrong to say the blurb is mildly vague but I guess when it comes to poetry, the poets really don’t have much choice in this aspect.

The book is a collection of 31 poems which cover a wide variety of topics, subjects, themes, and emotions. To give you a little idea, there is a poem on section 377 of the IPC and there is also a poem on betrayal in love.

The theme

As stated above, the book doesn’t follow a particular theme. A reader will come across poems that cover a wide variety of subjects.

From a father’s love to the beauty of rain, from the pain of betrayal in love to the childhood memories of school, from a lonely night ride to the dream of an ideal nation, this book has something to offer to every reader who decides to give it a try.

One thing that I missed was content planning. I would have loved it if the author had categorized his poems into different sections. That way I wouldn’t have had to experience the sudden and rather undesirable switch from romanticizing the monsoons in “Yeah, It’s Raining” to the throes of a sour relationship in “Angry Birds”.

What I liked?

What I liked the most in I Wish I Could Rewind is that Dheeraj Thareja has this clarity of thought which is sometimes very difficult to find in somebody of such a young age.

It is really commendable that he has decided to seriously pursue his passion at the age of just 19 years, an age when many of us are hardly sure about the next examination, alone our future.

I also liked that Dheeraj is able to write about such diverse range of topics. It not only shows his emotional intelligence but also his concern for the world that we live in today.

What I did not like?

There is one thing that is very difficult to ignore in I Wish I Could Rewind and that is the poor editing. It takes away almost the entire pleasure of reading the book.

Even though I appreciate the thought process behind the poems, the writing is amateurish at best. That is a major issue because a lot of melody and meaning gets lost in the complicated wordplay that the poet makes use of extensively.

I am a firm believer of the fact that beauty lies in simplicity, in fact almost all of my favorite writers are the ones who use simple and easy to understand English.

In I Wish I Could Rewind, beauty does not lie in simplicity as the complicated language often results in poor interpretation of a chaotic rendition.

My Favourites

I want to talk about two poems that touched me the most in this book – Liar Mirror and I Dream of a Place. In Liar Mirror, the thought process of the poet is appreciable. Though the was not much to my liking, I really enjoyed the brilliance of this short poem.

“Lost in dim light,
Where Left appears right
And right appears wrong.
There is a liar among us. 
A liar of truth.”
 

I Dream of a Place is the poet’s attempt to define an ideal country where he would like to live someday or rather it is an attempt to imagine what he would want his country to be like someday.

Both the poems managed to win my heart.

It all comes down to the entertainment quotient

Overall, this book did not turn out to be a great read for me. Still, I really appreciate the passion and fervour that Dheeraj has shown in his poetry.

With the right kind of effort, experience and skill, I am sure he will go on to create some amazing poems.

Pick up the book

• If you appreciate passionate poetry about varied themes.
• If you don’t mind unpolished writing.

Skip the book

• If you don’t like poetry.
• If you don’t like books with poor editing.
• If you prefer simple writing as opposed to complex wordplay.

Can’t wait to read it? Buy your copy of I Wish I Could Rewind using the link below.