TWO RIDES IN ONE TAXI!

Two reviews, one negative, one positive

The received wisdom about negative reviews is: leave ’em alone! Ignore ’em!

But I have never been wise. So I’m wading in here, by posting both reviews (they’re the only ones I’m aware of, for my recent novel, TAXI – links: AMAZON INDIA and AMAZON USA (Kindle Edition only)), one extremely positive, the other, much less so.

Here’s the negative review first, published in Frontline – LINK to the piece – by Latha Anantharaman. There’s a firewall, which is why I’m posting the screen-grab below.

You may wonder why I’m happy to post this review, which frankly suggests that readers may prefer not to read/buy the book? Well. It’s because, in an odd kind of way, it promotes the book – by saying that it’s not my usual horrifying, skin-rippling, doomsday material!

And that’s perfectly true. It isn’t.

Of course, I would never call it “chicklit” since there are no “chicks” (the protagonist is in her mid-thirties) and certainly no romance, (not in any conventional sense, anyway). But it IS light-weight. A quick read. Those of my friends who read it right away said so, almost with surprise. So the reviewer is exactly right to describe it that way.

It’s also the reviewer’s prerogative to call it whatever they wish and to prefer my SF output. That’s a surprise for me. Most of my friends and family tell me that they detest SF in general and my SF in particular, because my characters look and speak like people we know.

So this review, while dissing the current book is a welcome change! There’s actually someone who has read a couple of the dark tales, and prefers them!!

Here now is the second review, by Rahul Singh, in The FEDERAL: Manjula Padmanabhan’s ride through lanes of gender, class in New Delhi. There’s no fire wall, but I made a few screen grabs, for all those who prefer not to click …