Blurb (from the jacket):
What do you do when you try to commit suicide, and end up discovering you have superpowers?
Kabir faced this question just when he had done enough to get rid of a life he couldn't get along with.
Foolishly encouraged by his new-found abilities, he decides get even with a cunning boss at work; win back his colleague Nat's love, and be an admired superhero.
So starts his crazy journey – a clumsy rescue act for a girl called Riona; a dramatically rigged introduction at the Qutub Minar; mathematical manipulations at flying; use of Facebook as a weapon, and surreal encounters with a wily Russian, and a mysterious monk.
Just when he thinks he has a hang of it, he runs into the Devil - a manic ringleader of kidnappers - who is clearly more than a match for him.
As he stares at the barrel of the gun that the Devil has pointed at his head, he realizes how terribly inappropriate being a superhero has been.
My take on the book:
All the books we have yet read by BecomeShakespeare.com were pretty fascinating. Let it be a unique plot or a appealing narrative. Everything was striking about the books were received from them.
One read through the blurb, I knew it was a book for me. Especially for me. I felt that I had to read it, or else the whole world will come down crashing on me. So tempting was the plot. An Indian superhero is one kind of story I always anticipated. A superhero, who is unlike Krish and Shakthimaan, is more reasonable and real, which only a novel can provide. So here it is. Finally in my grasp and only a read away.
After reading the book, I am utterly disappointed. The author could have done miracles with a plot of such possibilities. But, no. He decides to stomp it, kick it, punch it until there is further traces of it to exploit it. Seriously, I never knew someone could mess up such an appealing plot.
The story started off listlessly with Devil (come on, can't you come up with a better name, using some creativity?) pointing gun at the superhero protagonist, which was probably a prologue. The very next chapter starts the protagonist's strive in his job, which is pretty cliched. To the most part sprawled the ordinary story, the hero and his love story, where the girl doesn't reciprocate the feelings, yet drops in signs every now and then that she does, clearly giving encouraging vibes to the protagonist to carry on. If it did, it could only gave the impression that the girl was just a tease.
Then the superhero part. I believe it is a cheap combination of Spider-Man and Kick-Ass, where the hero stumbles to settle upon a name for himself, uses online networking to save the needy and the list is disgustingly long.
The narrative got at times funny, but not exactly hilarious.
With so many mixed feeling, mostly negative, I end the review with the rating given below. Believe me, I seriously want to laud this book for its uniqueness and the author's bold attempt at self-publishing his book in the hope of displaying his attempt at rarity, but I can't help it.
We sincerely hope that the author achieves success for his writings...
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Title: Faceless
Author: Nizam Ahmed
ISBN (edition I've read): 9789383952007
Rating:
Read between: 09-05-2014 to 10-05-2014
Reviewed for: BecomeShakespeare.com
Publishers: BecomeShakespeare.com
Pages: 255
MRP: ₹ 195 | $ 9.99
The best deal for this book could be found here: 
Completely Agree! Just one superpower was revealed in this book, he could have done a lot more.
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Faceless....by Nizam Ahmed
ReplyDeleteFirst of all i would like to thank becomeshakespeare.com for sending me books to read and review them.
Its really like that I deliberately and seriously want to criticize the book "Faceless" and its author. Whatever I am posting and writing here in this review after reading the book, is completely based on my personal opinion. The writing, the language, the plot, the narration & every single thing of this book is abrogating & nugatory. Leaves a very amatory impression about the author and his thoughts.
1. Faceless - what kind of a name is this ? Such a depressing and negative title. Cover page of a book with such dark feeling. I strongly felt it would have been much better if the writer would have given some adventurous name analogous to the plot.
2. The language is very mediocre.
3. Though the plot or idea of a superhero is really exciting but the author have killed it himself with his writing skills. He could have managed to bring this plot so beautifully but just bobbled and bumbled the whole creativity.
4.When we are talking about the superhero thing, it has to be interesting, full of surprises, action, power pact with rainbow of super powers creating some chain of events but here in this book no creativity, originality, inventiveness and imagination is shown in this context. Can anyone ever imagine of a superhero with only one superpower throughout the book while its told that he is a defender with excessively heroic powers.
5. From the start of the book till it finishes, it seems as if i have been watching some "C" grade movie which is a mix concept of South Indian, Bhojpuri and Bollywood cinema with abstracted ideas from various boring sources like mix of quotidian flicks and low-cost novels & stories where superhero protagonist and the main antagonist both are so predictable. The overall idea is a complete cliche. A depressing love story where the female lead never ever expresses anything properly. Instead she is a kind of conundrum to everyone.
7. The superhero section is also not very out of the box thinking. I felt its a depreciated mix of stolen ideas from various superhero movies.
I definitely would not recommend this book as a must read. Its very disappointing and I personally feel is totally a waste of time. I author is very kiddish and need more maturity in his writing. I am sorry to say but I seriously did not liked this book at all. I generally don't write reviews like that but this book is literally an exception. I rate this book 1/5. Overall one of the most pathetic book i have ever read.
We greatly appreciate your effort of honestly criticizing the book, Tushar ji.
DeleteKeep up the good work...