Legend of Suheldev: The King Who Saved India by Amish TripathiMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Hooter: A medieval Indian king fights against all odds to repel the invading forces.
First of all this is a group of ghost writers writing this book under Amish's guidance as per the foreword. Not quite clear what is each one's contribution there. But clearly not the magic Amish Tripathi had put in with his debut. I had no clue about Suheldev prior to this book so that was a great eye opener into Indian history which surprisingly never made it to our history textbooks. All through school always naively assumed Mughals were the only rulers in that time period. So identifying such stories is a great way to reclaim complete knowledge of the country's history.
That said, Amish Tripathi sticks to his formulaic writing hence the novelty has rubbed off from his initial series. Also feels like he is angling towards Bollywood script adaptation inspiration type of writing. Token representation from various faiths to symbolise a secular India fighting together against an invader implies a lot of random characters thrown in randomly to keep the story going. There also has to be a love interest. There are also a lot of modern day references like Gandhi's quotes, the current prevalent political climate and a forced LGBT angle to hopefully trend with the current affairs but not helping the storyline at all.
It's a light read with extremely simple English to cater to the wider population from a commercial perspective and it shows as you find similarities to Chetan Bhagat's style of writing. Am sure we will see a masala potboiler from Bollywood on this soon so you can decided whether you want to read this over a day or watch the same in 2 hour format.
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