Blinded by the Lights By Jakub Żulczyk | Book Review

One of the best perks of being a professional book reviewer, and that too be associated with Team ThinkerViews includes getting exposed to new talents getting a chance to explore books from various genres and various countries. When you explore a book from a foreign land, you get a chance to witness its cultural and political setup through it.

When we were approached by Legend Press for exploring books published by them we were more curious to explore books from a different setup.

One of the books we’ve received is Blinded By The Lights by Jakub Żulczyk . From our team, I got a chance to read it, and here are my personal and uninfluenced views for the same.

Book Cover:

Of course, the book cover shouldn’t be the sole factor affecting your decision to pick a book. But, book covers influence purchase/read decisions, without a doubt.

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

The book falls in the Crime Thriller genre. So, the cover page is expected to reflect the same. The designer has decided to explore the psychological thriller genre on the cover. While the right side of the cover page has a black background the left one has yellowish-white. The face of a person takes over most of the space on the cover page. It represents that we are witnessing this entire tale through his eyes (or his first-hand account). When you read the book, you will realize this illustration’s faithfulness to the story.

An interesting cover page that reminds you of the cover pages of Robert Ludlum‘s books.

Usually, we talk about a book in two distinguished segments exploring its plot and our views separately. For Blinded by the Lights, we’ve decided to merge both these segments.

The reason is, the plot is quite complicated and we need to elaborate it in a little more detail. And, that is not possible without inclusion of some spoilers. For any book, especially for thrillers, spoilers are the most unwelcome segments in a review. It definitely affects your reading experience.

Blinded by the Lights, explores the story of a person involved with shady underworld activities, and how one of his unwanted action creates a chain of reactions leading him to some undesired situations. The story starts in Warshaw at 8:46AM on 19^th December.

The book remains true to its genre for sure. The exploration of “Warsaw” is very convincing. It reminded me of “Gotham”. It is not easy to explore a town or a city and its underworld. Jakub, the author proves that he has the potential to explore this genre and he is here to stay for a long race. The below-mentioned lines of the book affirm that t would not be wrong to say that “Warsaw” is a character in the book.

The city opens its eyes, eyes it kees shut during the day, walking silently, heavily, like a professional drunk.

The city is breathing heavily, trying to clear its throat of mucus, air coming straight up from its guts and veins, stale and heavy…

Blinded by the Lights, the title itself is very intriguing, unless you read the complete story, you may think that it is picked randomly.

Have you seen TV Series 24? It became very popular and run for many seasons and adapted into Hindi as well.

Why I am reminding you of it? Well, the story of the book is explored in 7 chapters, namely:

• Friday
• Saturday
• Sunday
• Monday
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Thrusday

The scenes in those chapters are titled with timestamps!

This way of storytelling is good for readers. In addition to giving thrills, it keeps them hooked with the book also. And, psychologically, it gives the feeling of “things moving at a fast pace”. Of course, the work of the writer becomes more challenging here, as he has to accommodate events only possible within those time frames. Jakub did it brilliantly. In some of the aspects of the book, you will find a touch of Robert Ludlum’s work. Actually, it seems the author himself admires work of Robert Ludlum, as you can find a reference to Ludlum’s work in the book.

A bookshelf greets us with a stack of pulp fiction already half pulped: Robert Ludlum, some Polish folklore fiction, …

An interesting way to admire the works of someone you look up at.

The way the author explores the psyche of the current generation is quite interesting. Here are some lines from the book where he has mentioned the influence of social media and TV soaps on the lives of people.

Facebook, smoke breaks, eating lunch, shitting or playing with yourself in the staff toilet, daydreaming and all that. …

“And what am I supposed to do?” she asks, sounding like a drunk actress in some cable TV soap opera who, having just come off set and caught a glance of herself in the mirror, realises she’s now well past sixty.

This is how he analysis the working environment of offices. Of course, there are exceptions, but you will surely agree that you witnessed at least a few people working this way in their offices.

In your average desk job, the time of actual work done in relation to time paid for working is 30% / 70% max. The rest is …

Here are some character defining lines diving deep into the minds of the respective characters.

Invisibility. If you do what it is I do, you have to look so that nobody, on the street, on public transport, in shopping centres, would give you a second look.

I really can’t ever stand by and watch when I see men getting violent with women. …

“Where you from, by the way?” the other one asks, suddenly getting territorial like all the local gangsters, who measure men not by who they are or what they do, but by which part of Warsaw they were born in and which crew they run with. For so many of them, being born in this dark city is all that matters – if you are not from here, you’re a nobody.

I found the following lines interesting, not only for the wordplay but they also carry interesting punches that you cannot ignore.

Human beings like to accumulate goods, wealth, back up their resources. Aggressive, territorial, stupid. …

Intrusion is nothing more than paranoid tendencies manifesting themselves as bullshit.

There’s a world of difference between being cute and being beautiful and smart and graceful and all that glam stuff to boo.

Standing over me, she looks like a prosecutor about to deliver a speech in court. Cutting the air before me like a blade.

She’s lost something, and loss always hurts, even if you lose something you didn’t really want after all, something you only kept around for a rainy day.

Money. It’s always all about the money. Nothing else. You could try and argue that it’s a fundamental motive. Which is not true. It’s the only motive.

To be sober in a place like this is worse than being hungover at work.

The quotes above must have given you a fair amount of idea about what to expect in the book, especially in terms of linguistics. If you love to explore “detailings” in a book, reading this book will be a pleasant experience for you.

What I don’t like in the book is excessive use of cuss-words and expletives. For target readers, it might not make a difference (or they may welcome it), but for me, it is a huge letdown.

Summary:

A good choice for thriller lovers. It is a very dark thriller. Strictly for mature readers.

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 7 out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy Book From Amazon India – Paperback
• Buy Book From Amazon India – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon India – Audiobook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Paperback
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Audiobook

Over To You:

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