Book Review: Her Last Wish by Ajay K. Pandey

Her Last Wish

Author: Ajay K. Pandey
Publisher: Srishti Publications
Rating: 2.5/5

Love needs no season to blossom. Astha and Vijay fall into the clutches of love and cannot help but drink the love potion. For Vijay, who was once a total failure, who could not live up to the expectations of his parents, who always was a victim of ill-fate; getting married to Astha was a life turning event for him. The stars became in his favour and things started falling into place. But life is not a cake walk!

“Her Last Wish”, as predictable as it sounds, is a story that highlights the mental trauma and the solitude that besieges the person who is on the verge of losing a loved one. Astha gives in to HIV; she has only a few months to live. But this news becomes the bane of Vijay’s existence. The story showcases different emotions and how they govern the personality and behaviour of the person. It is a potpourri of emotional drama, guilt, regret, trust, sacrifice and love.

With a warm and pleasing cover, the blurb of the book doesn’t fail to impress. However, there is one major drawback that I would like to emphasize on- plagiarism. The pages (22-23) elucidate the details of the research done by the narrator about HIV. The author has violated the copyright policies and has copied the information, just as it is present on the Internet, in the book. There has been no paraphrasing done. This displeased me quite a bit. On the same lines, it is saddening to know that the publishers are also ignoring such copyright violation and are more focused on going ahead with printing and publishing the book.

The story is fast-paced and the conversations have been penned down in an interesting way. The predictability, however, could have been reduced by introducing twists and turns. There are editing errors which might irk the readers; the typesetting and font (style, size) are fine.

The characterization of the protagonists has been done nicely. There is a perfect balance in the roles of the characters and that is reflected all throughout. The narration is lucid and the dialogues are short and crisp. The printing quality is superb and the storyline is engaging.

Overall, this is a good book which loses its impact because of some negligence that was shown by the author as well as the publisher. (The rating is less as violating copyrights is unethical in the literary field)

Best wishes to the author!

Buying Link: Amazon