CHARACTERS – 3.5/5
WRITING STYLE – 3/5
CLIMAX – 2.5/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT – 3/5
What is a trip asks the author towards the beginning of the book itself, and he gives us five dictionary meanings of the word.
- A journey, especially for pleasure.
- A stumble due to catching one’s foot on something
- A hallucinatory experience by taking a psychedelic drug.
- A device that activates or disconnects a mechanism.
- A light, lively movement of a person’s feet.
The reason why I am mentioning all these meanings is that the author has this uncanny habit of looking up meanings of ordinary words and by the time I was done reading the book, I totally became a fan of this habit.
“The Trip” in question here is a trip which Ravi (the protagonist) takes with his friends.
Ravi lives and works in Mumbai and is bored with his life. Siddharth is Ravi’s friend who is coming back to India after having completed his masters in the United States. Gaurav is a civil engineer and lives in Pune while Akash is a guy whose parents recently got divorced.
Rohit Bandri’s “The Trip” is a book about these childhood friends meeting after a very long time.
To make their get together an unforgettable one, the friends decide to go to the place where most of them first met – Ratnagiri, before finally vacationing in the happening state of Goa.
Little did they know what time and luck had in store for them.
By fate, the gang is accompanied on this trip by two girls Pooja and Prajakta.
Pooja is in love with Gaurav and has been relentlessly trying to make him commit to her while Prajakta is Ravi’s crush from his college days, but is now married to a Navy officer.
Amidst the pristine beauty of Ratnagiri, and under the crazy sun of Goa, the group becomes a perfect cocktail of confusion, romance, broken hearts and new beginnings.
“The Trip” is a light read, and is relatable to the current lifestyle of youth in our country. It is precisely this aspect of the book which will make it quite relatable to its young readers.
It is well written and has been very well organized into chapters. The characters are a fun bunch and they bring the necessary element of entertainment to the story.
On the downside, though the book just like many other authors of our times is unfortunately quite predictable.
In the end, the book feels like just another read; strictly one time and surely ordinary.
In its defence, it’s not supposed to be a moral story but with so many books in the market especially by new authors who write stories of friendship and love, and about how messed up all these things are, I expected a bit more out of it.
I would again like to state that the book isn’t bad but it’s nothing extraordinary too.
The story is simple, the characters are relatable, the problems which the characters are dealing with are what we see today in our real lives generally.
In that sense, “The Trip” will find readers in people who don’t mind a simple one time read.
But for it to be a “recommended” read, it had to do more than just simple. It had to be different which sadly it wasn’t.
My final word – A light read, can be picked up while travelling or when one has time to kill.
Buy your copy at the link below.
Watch the YouTube review below:
