CHARACTERS: 3/5
WRITING STYLE: 3/5
CLIMAX: 3.5/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3/5
On the onset this seems to be like your regular girl meets the guy kind of book however once you go deeper, this book is just not a college type romance, it has much more to offer and has a very strong message to deliver.
When I picked up When The Heavens Smiled for reading, I had the same opinion but the second half of the book had me in for a very pleasant surprise and I ended up loving what I read, but more on that later.
Sarthak Arora is a regular middle-class guy from Delhi who having finished his engineering lands up a well-paying job with an IT company in Kolkata.
Luckily his friends are also in Kolkata and with the help of one of his close friends he gets to meet Sarangi Sen, a beautiful and bubbly girl who works at a luxury hotel.
They soon hit it off well but before things could move ahead Sarthak has to leave for an onsite job abroad. Once he is back from his deputation, their romance resumes again with even more vigour and energy.
The camaraderie they share is enviable and soon they confess their love for each other.
Planning to get married soon, their lives fall off the track with the discovery of Sarangi’s terminal illness. This coupled with the fact that she has only three more months to live, leaves Sarthak shattered.
However, he does not lose hope. He tries all possible avenues including the best of India and abroad but all to no avail.
But soon he discovers a very unconventional but promising way of rescuing Sarangi from the clutches of death; an old ascetic who claims that he will come and save Sarangi himself but only on one condition.
What is that condition? Who is the old man? Will he succeed? Will Sarangi survive her illness? Or will Sarthak find despair again?
To know this and much more, read this exciting new book today!
I liked the plot and the story of When The Heavens Smiled.
On the onset it starts as a very common story – boy out of college, boy meets girl, falls in love etc. etc. But as you venture later, the story starts picking up unique settings and plots.
I really liked the twists in the end. That definitely was worth the monotonous build up in the start. It does a really good job of leaving the reader perturbed.
Thus needless to say the end was undoubtedly great! Plus I also quite enjoyed the hidden message that the story seemed to convey – Happiness lies in giving.
The characters are all lovable and memorable. They are easy to connect to and leave the reader with a smile on her face.
At less than two hundred pages, the book proves to be an easy travel companion and that is how I read it too. Short, sweet and well written I give it a thumbs up and rate it three out of five stars while recommending it to fiction readers.