“You Raise Me Up” by Arjun Hemmady – A book about hope and destiny !

“You Raise Me Up” by Arjun Hemmady is about Aalok Sharma, a 27 year old Chartered Accountant. Aalok is an introvert person who lives in Mumbai and leads a very simple life. He has his own aspirations in life but his actions are controlled by women surrounding him – his mother, twin sister Isha, Tanvi and Priyanka. This romantic fiction makes you believe in serendipity. Whatever happens in our life happens for a reason and if we fail at times we need to ‘Raise Up’ is the motto of the book.

The story begins when Aalok is returning from Moscow to Mumbai via Delhi. He choose to take a flight from Delhi to Mumbai instead of overnight Rajdhani train just to make sure he can take rest over the weekend and have an energetic start from next week. Well as the destiny conspires he meets Priyanka in flight, a Dehradun born girl who lives in Delhi and works in legal department of Mahindra and Mahindra. This is where conversation begins between them. As rightly said the opposite attracts, same happens here as the story unfolds. The first part of the book is about how a closeness grows between Priyanka and Aalok but something is holding Aalok back whereas Priyanka is quite open about her love through her gestures. In the second part the reader is taken ten (10) years back where Aalok is staying with his parents and twin sister Isha. He meets their family friends Tanvi who comes to Mumbai to have her internship in KPMG as a part of CA education. Aalok looks upto her, as he had failed his PCA exams four times whereas Tanvi was an ace. Their friendship grows and then the twist comes. I will not reveal Part 3 of the book where actual climax is and the curiosity of the reader grows to the highest level.

Things that I liked: (a) The book is written in simple English and easy to read. This is a good read for younger generation or anyone who is looking for a light read or simple story. (b) Close to modern living and circumstances. (c) Although I have read many love stories before but this book had an interesting plot. I loved Part II of the book where grip of the story grows stronger and the way curiosity grows in the Part III as what will Aalok do now. (d) The book gives a motto not to lose hope and raise up every time you fail and sometimes we need to leave things on the destiny to decide.

Things that I did not like were, story was losing the grip sometimes and hence becoming very predictable. Secondly, conversations were dragged too much sometimes.

Overall a nice read over the weekend and I enjoyed the fact that the book could keep me away from all the screens till I finished it. I will advise my blog readers to hold on your reading till the end, you will get curious, to know what Aalok did finally!

I feel honored to receive a copy of the book signed by author himself. Would like to thank Blogadda for selecting me to review this book. I wish Arjun a very good luck with his book – “You Raise Me Up” and his future endeavours.

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