Book Review: The Liar's Weave by Tashan Mehta

Book: The Liar's Weave

Author: Tashan Mehta

Pages: 330 pages

Read: The hardcopy pictured above; kindly sent by Juggernaut

Read in: 5-6 hours

Publisher: Juggernaut

Plot Summary: Born into an alternative history of our world where birth charts are real and one's life is mapped out in the stars, Zahan Merchant has a unique problem: he is born without a future. This cosmic mistake gives him an unusual power: the ability to change reality with his lies.

But there is a catch, of course. How like the Gods to build a catch.

Zahan's older brother Sorab becomes the only one to share his secret, and help him keep it, while from afar, the Greatest Astrologer That Ever Lived (the Second), Narayan Tarachand, continues to quietly ponder the mystery of the child whose birth chart he couldn't decipher. But when Zahan's adventures with his best friend Porthos – who has his own secret – brings them to the attention of the hatadaiva, the ill-fated who must bear the brunt of fate's cruelties, his power becomes more dangerous to him and those he loves.

From a Parsi colony in early-twentieth-century Bombay to the urban hinterland of Vidroha, forest of outcasts, Tashan Mehta's debut novel transports the reader to an India both familiar and strange, where the consequences of magic on reality can be wondrous yet heartbreaking.

Things I Liked:

• The premise of this book is interesting. It is a sort of magical realism meets fantasy meets sort-of alternative historical fiction, which is a mish-mash that I find quite appealing. I went in expecting a sort of Murakami or Rushdie-esque style of writing. 
• The world building is competent. There is this alternative version of India coupled with the whole notion of everyone's lives predestined in accordance to their birth charts (a scary albeit somewhat comforting alternative, eh?) and some intrigue about a mysterious bunch of pundits watching over our protagonist's every move. There is sufficient intrigue to keep the narrative interesting. 
• The characters are decently developed. I can't say that I connected with any of the characters but the author does a good job of fleshing them and their motivations out. 

Things I Didn't Like:

•  This is a book that is fairly ambitious. The author has tried to pull a Rushdie (there is some eerie similarity to Midnight's Children and throughout the book I found it hard to shake off the foreshadow of Midnight's Children..). There is an attempt to meld the quirky dynamics of a Parsi Colony with early 20th century Colonial India and then this fictitious forest full of carnivorous ill-fated people, who need Zahan and his silver tongue to change their destinies. Now, all of this is a LOT. And even 330 pages is not enough to do all these storylines or contexts justice. Or maybe this book needed better editing to fit in all the different contexts in a more balanced manner. There is very little about India's freedom movement, which was a backdrop to all these other fantastical events, which is something I didn't like. I am a big believer in setting the context and letting your characters come alive within that context. So, in that regard, the book was a disappointment. 

• I also found this book to be tedious, which is quite tragic, given I love this kind of genre-mixing/ genre-bending type of fiction! The author failed to engage me.. the writing was stilted, the characters often spoke in a bizarre prose and there were no characters that I could connect with or root for. Every book, especially, fantasy fiction or magical realism needs one anchor character that can reel you in and make you want to follow his/her journey. Murakami has done it book after book and so has Rushdie. Perhaps it is not fair to compare a first-time author to these stalwarts but she did choose an ambitious space to start her writing career in....  

Rating: 3/5