Samsara by Saksham Garg - Book Review

Books that transport you into an alternate universe, open your mind to possibilities and a sense of endlessness. They teach you that new ways, ideas of life, and thoughts can always be practiced, even within this rigid world. Saksham Garg’s debut novel, Samsara – the first from a YA fiction trilogy series, gifts the reader these magical sensations.

Samsara builds the dynamic location of Vanyasa within which the real and imagined worlds of mythological Hindu power come together. The present-day modern children are placed in a centre of ancient practices. Many authors in recent times have attempted and succeeded in doing so but Saksham has proved that yet another fresh and original voice can always be adopted in the literary world.

This mind-stirring book has literary merit to it. The writing is fresh and signature, it doesn’t remind you of any one particular author but a beautiful mix of many. It is detailed, descriptive, visual, and one that takes your emotions on a ride along a graph that keeps rising and falling. The style takes care of the reader’s moments of realization, surprise, anger and more, to accordingly support with a rhythm that helps build these. There is no boring moment in the book. It starts of slowly, building characters – plenty of them, in the most appropriate manner and stretch. Along with each of these characters, the story of Vanyasa unfolds one step at a time. The use of multilingualism gives it as much of an Indian feel as the story required, providing authenticity and a strong foundation to lay the vivid scenes on.

You can expect a storytelling experience that you used to get as a child from your grandparents – it is as immersive. There is history that we can relate to, mixed with scenarios and places and people that can come alive in our world as well. It is packed with action, comedy, slice-of-life moments, drama, and teachings. From spirituality to magic, it waves between different frequencies to provide a fulfilling reading experience.

The last few pages of the book are what makes it a great read. The story turns around in such fast movements that you are breathless trying to keep up. The adrenaline rush is met with the speed of the scenes and uncovering of the major turnaround moments. This itself will be a big motivation for the reader to nail-bitingly wait for the next book in the series.

***

For the love of art,

Charuvi