King of Hearts - Book Review

Prassant Kevin’s novel King of Hearts is a novel about a writer Ayan. Now Ayan is no ordinary writer. He can sell more than ten thousand books in just pre-booking and bed hundreds of girls. He is in love with his friend Misha. The day he confesses his love, Misha leaves him. She gets married to someone else. Needless to say she returns in Ayan’s life. Ayan is diagnosed with Alzheimer. His writing career is going to end because of his disease. He marries Misha.

This premise sounds good. But its execution is terrible. Ayan is shown more of a movie star than a writer. He goes to a radio show and gives long unsolicited advice to the caller. This scene appears to be a straight lift from Lage Raho Munnabhai. Again there is a fiery journalist called Poonam. She asks Ayan questions about his love life rather than his writing. She is even carrying a video of Ayan with Misha and asks him about their relationship status. Even these scenes would have sounded credible if Ayan the writer had been given more space. Instead Ayan is made to appear like a film star. It doesn’t appear convincing. Paparazzi are chasing Ayan. When did that happen to a writer the last time? TV channels keep on running special shows on his love life. He becomes an icon of love. Why can’t Ayan avoid questions asked by Poonam regarding his love life? Why can’t he just say “No personal questions?”

The last few pages relate to his disease Alzheimer. Now this is not novel idea. We have seen it in movies and read it in novels umpteen times. Nevertheless it could have added an emotional touch to the story if executed properly. But the writer keeps our writer Ayan busy in either giving speeches or interviews. So even the Alzheimer twist fails. I wonder when was Ayan getting time to write, when he was busy giving preachy speeches and insipid interviews all the time.

Now speaking of the grammatical and other mistakes. Page 58 While Ayan talked about his struggle days in Delhi, her (Ayan’s) mother told him (His father) everything about Misha. The word her should have been his. Our star writer Ayan when telling that he follows his principles says on page 65, “The idea was simple; to follow my sole principal.” It should have been principle. Page 70 “This is what she do for living.” It should have been does. What do you understand from the following long sentence on page 10?. “It was around midnight when Misha was leaving for her home, when Ayan’s father who as a father didn’t want to get weak, doing his best to keep himself strong and trying hard to hold back his tears came to her and held her trembling hands within in his grips, “I don’t know where you were gone and I will not even ask you but here’s something I want to request you....,” he folded his hand and said in his broken voice, ‘Don’t leave him this time around.”

Lines like “She didn’t try to hide her tears and let them come out happily. It was one of those tears which she had waited for a long time,” make your head whirl or you feel like banging your head on the wall.

Now you must be thinking that why I am criticizing the book so much. The following line on page 87 of the book summarizes it all

“And one other thing which I always felt that it’s the readers responsibility to find a great writer coz if they don’t raise their voices and make an effort to find good stories then this is what they will get.”

Unfortunately everything about Kind of Hearts – its story line, language, writing style and the tacky cover makes it an unreadable novel.