Review: 03:02

03:02 by Mainak Dhar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While not exactly Dystopian, this book makes for an amazing read. I just finished reading this and I’m going to read the rest of his books too.
The main theme of the book is – All it needs is for each of us to realize that we should stop waiting for someone else to provide the spark; the spark lies within each of us. The story starts with Aaditya getting promoted to Vice President of his firm. But the happiness is short-lived as the world comes to an end. What happens next is something you wouldn’t want to miss. I’ve always wondered about how much we are dependent on technology and could we really survive without technology? Although we’ve been writing essays, debating and discussing the pros and cons of technology since our childhood, this book actually dwells into the intricacies of it all. How we’ve taken our lives for granted!
This book has quite a bit of philosophy and I found myself contemplating my own life at various points of the book. None of the emotions felt like they were superficial and it was logical. How often do you come across stories that are meaningful, logical and yet, make you bite your nails off doing so? Well, I did expect this to be fast-paced and interesting, but I never anticipated this book to be inspiring. It’s all over the book in bits and pieces and it will without doubt leave a smile on your face.
The biggest strength of any story is the characters and all the characters in this story are heroes. Aadi, Megha, General Lamba, Mahadev, Pandey, Ronald, Akif, Nitish, Rani, Nasir and all the others will stay with you for a long, long time. I loved the way Aadi’s character develops, especially when his conscience starts pricking him. The conversations that they have are really good and you know it’s logical when you have the same questions in mind. Some of the scenes move you to tears like the one where Mahadev asks Aadi to visit his restaurant in his next life and tells him he’s going to serve him the best falooda ever. Honestly, I want to write about each of the characters individually and that’s how much I love them.
The writing style is impeccable and Mainak Dhar has done a fantastic job in communicating the story in a practical way never coming across as senseless. The best thing about this book is that it doesn’t exactly have a happy ending and if it did, it would have ruined the book for me and I’d have blasted the whole book for it. Special mention for all the Goosebumps inducing moments especially the last two words at the end of chapter 10. I hope this book is made into a movie but movies are notorious for spoiling books.
Page turner – check. Inspiring – check. Some great philosophy – check. Heart-warming emotions – check. Romance – check. Trust me, this book has it all and I’d recommend this book to everyone. You wouldn’t want to miss out on this!
I received a copy from Writersmelon.com in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.


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