Ramona | A Book By Manoj V Jain | Personal Review

We came to know about Manoj V. Jain when his marketing team approached us for his book Dystopia. Then we got a chance to read a few more books by him. And, reading each of them is a unique experience in its own. He is a businessman who loves writing books. His books are always thoughtful and mostly fall in the inspirational/self-awakening categories.

• Dystopia | A Thoughtful Book About Parenting
• A Man From Mandu | A Book About Self Realization
• An Interesting Author Interview With Manoj V. Jain

His last book we read was Balraj. In our review for the same, we shared with you that we are curious to explore Ramona‘s side of the story which the author has written in the same year as a sequel to Balraj. And, fortunately, I got a chance to read it from our team.

Book Cover:

Let us take a look at the cover page of this book.

As the book title rightly suggests, this book explores the story of Ramona. You can see an illustration of a lady standing in front of a glass window looking outside. It actually represents the thought process the female protagonist goes through when Inder disappears. The illustration could have been better, but it remains faithful to the story and title both.

A moderately interesting yet simple book cover.

Book Plot:

It has been long since Inder has left his home. He, of course, arranged everything so that the lives of Ramona and Shourya move ahead smoothly, without any financial worries. He has also arranged money for Ameeta (his sister, who is taking care of his parents). But, can money replace the warmth of a person?

The days are introspective for Ramona and even Shourya. They started realizing where they were wrong. Sometimes, the absence of a person makes us realize his/her importance and even gives us a chance to revisit our behavior and actions, provided you have a wise and rational person within you. If you are a brainwashed soul who doesn’t look at things with open mind and hold prejudice for your actions v/s others action, you may never have this phase in your life.

Not that everything wrong was done by Ramona only. Her early days when she fell in for Inder, how they got married, how the environment was changed suddenly for her, how she was still immature and wants to get pampered and was not ready to behave with the maturity expected from her, how Inder needed to spend more time at work and how the life has changed for her,… is revisited in the book through her memories and we come to see her side of the story.

Telling more than this will include spoilers, but, I must say that Ramona changed positively during this self-realization period. And her friend Aditi played a small yet important role in it.

Views And Reviews:

It is not easy to explore incidents from someone else’s perspective. The author has tried exploring the incidents form Ramona, Inder and their family’s lives (of course, all of them are fictional characters) from Ramona’s perspective, very sincerely. I often wonder, if it would be tough to explore something from a different gender’s perspective?, but then I think, the creative people study everything available in their surroundings with utmost sincerity, including relations. And, we all live in a society where we are entangled emotionally with people from different genders, castes and even creed. So, when you love an imaginary character you’ve created (or even someone else has created, Harry Potter is loved not only by J K Rowling, for example) you can feel his/her pain and happiness equally.

As I have mentioned in “The Plot” segment that this book is about Ramona’s introspection, don’t get it wrong. In fact, the author himself dedicates the book:

To all the women, who have been mothers, da

Manoj is really good at exploring human emotions and psyche. His understanding of human nature is at par with that of a psychiatrist. You will find some words of wisdom in the book that comes as a result of a deep thought process. For example:

It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on. Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.

Manoj is good at wordplays. Here is an interesting line from the book that I like very much.

The train moved at a rapid pace, like a metal animal racing towards its food.

Many lines in the book are so intriguing and thoughtful at the same time that they force you to think about them quite seriously. For example:

How little do we actually know our spouses and their thoughts? We know their schedule and routine but what they are thinking or going through?

The book actually inspires a thoughtful reader to initiate a process to introspect him/herself periodically. This exercise can make us better human beings.

Sometimes at least you need to look inside yourself and be answerable for your thoughts.

The book, like all the other books I got a chance to read so far, has some fantastic oneliners. Here are a couple of them.

Eyes are the windows to the soul …

You can find great truth in fiction.

The characters in the book are developed gradually and progressively. You get a chance to witness many attributes from the people belongs to your family, your friend circle, your colleagues and coworkers in the fictional characters of the book. And, that plays a vital role in connecting you (a reader) to the book.

The incidents are imaginary yet not far from the reality. Actually, it shows the reflection of what we see in the society. That’s why the author says:

We think of our life in narratives and in stories we tell and those stories become the reality … We repeat those stories and we believe that is the truth, as our memory has wiped out those elements that do not fit into our story.

The following line holds the essence of the book. It actually is a wisdom message we all need to believe in, and if we do, I think a large number of problems can be interpreted and thus resolved in a better manner.

Different people interprets facts differently.

I enjoyed reading the book thoroughly.

Summary:

A small, thoughtful, realistic yet interesting book that reflects our environment in a convincing manner.

At least 7.5 to 8 out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy Book From Amazon India – Paperback
• Buy Book From Amazon India – Kindle Ebook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Paperback
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle Ebook

Over To You:

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