Review: Like It Happened Yesterday by Ravinder Singh

January 16, 2014
Author: Ravinder Singh
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 2013
ISBN: 9780143418801
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
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Ravinder Singh‘s Like It Happened Yesterday is the story of his life, described in minute detail. Our reviewer feels that an experienced author like Ravinder should have come up with better content; his writing style is as good as ever. Read on to know more on why this is not one of the author’s best works. 

The story in this book is about those days when mobile phones, Internet and ATM cards hadn’t yet invaded lives. It is of the time when Doordarshan was the only available channel on Indian Television sets…

Sounds a little clichéd, right?
Read these lines somewhere? Yeah, me too.
Almost all the articles about modernity revolve around this theme.
Doing a write up on this topic is something, but writing a whole novel around it surely takes some nerve.

The story encapsulates the life of the author, from his birth to the time when he enters college. All his childhood experiences and memories are captured. The pranks of adolescence and the peer pressure experienced by a teenager are portrayed well.

The author’s writing style is undoubtedly flawless, as you would expect from Ravinder Singh. The book also addresses social issues like child abuse, peer pressure, and the importance of their role in developing one’s personality. The book is swift and the story keeps moving with every chapter.

However, the book lacks its soul, the main plot! There is absolutely no story behind the book, and it thus baffles me as to why the author would have wanted to write this. Considering the success of his previous two books, this one really turned out to be a jolt. I did not expect an author like Ravinder Singh to pen down such a book.

Certain parts, like the scene where the author finds an adult magazine in his school, are really exaggerated. Events like a first crush take up too much space. All in all, the book fails to make a connection with the reader. After finishing the book, I was neither happy nor sad; I was completely frustrated over the waste of my precious time.

In all, Ravinder Singh’s fans can go for it to proudly acclaim that they have read all of his books; but for the rest of us, we have better things out there.

You can find the book’s Facebook page here, and read up other reviews of Like It Happened Yesterday by Penguin India and Stories in Moments

Pratibha Jain
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Pratibha Jain

Editor and Writer at IndiaBookStore
Having an insatiable appetite for books, she is always loading her shelves with more books than she can read. An irregular blogger, she loves to google about anything and everything. Apart from reading and writing, she enjoys solitude and poetry and when time permits her textbooks on finance!
Pratibha Jain
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