Life is What You Make It by Preeti Shenoy

Abhi’s memories, gulit of cheating Vaibhave and Joseph kills her inside. She reaches to a mental stage where all her and doctor’s efforts are proved useless. She is not able to write or read, she feels lost in crowd, and she feels like killing herself. Steadily start doing silly things like boozing and dancing at the top of terrace, getting in relationship with Joseph to feel the love she had for Abhi, studying day and night, making poems through the guilt. She is being appreciated and gets success, friends everything but the pain she had been kept avoiding somewhere disturbs her. She thinks she has moved on and the happiness of work can get over the emotional trauma but there she makes the mistake. To come out from the pain and to overcome the feeling of guilt she devote her whole time to studies. Though a sentence said by Abhi’s grandfather ‘Never belittle love’ still makes her feel guilty like a whore.

She moves on and focuses her entire attention on studies after coming to Mumbai. Ankita takes it too practically and Abhi takes it to emotionally causing an accident death of Abhi in distress. Later Ankita has to break-up with Abhi which is an unbearable pain for Abhi. As Vaibhav and Ankita are in long distance relationship, Ankita easily gets closer to Abhi and Vaibhav is unaware of all these things.

Ankita’s changed practical approach is shown cleverly through the sudden events in which she is adopts a new life with different beliefs. She is smart enough for getting an art club secretary post in her reputed St.Agnes college. The story starts from her college life and newly born feeling of love for her best friend. From being too intelligent, matured, well-known she becomes mentally ill and gets lost in herself.

The story is about Ankita a young, intelligent college going a girl from a conservative family who faces a weird phase of life where she has no control over herself. Though it’s a work of fiction nevertheless it has not lost the hold over authenticity. I would appreciate the writer for not being too unrealistic but by presenting the real life story through her observant eyes. It could be the feeling of being loved or a feeling of determination, defeating everything that we face our everyday life. It’s a fiction story written by Preeti Shenoy who is a master in getting the readers attached to the story so strongly that they not only understand but feel the character’s ups and downs. Rating (Goodreads, Amazon, Flipkart – overall): 3.8

Life is What You Make It by Preeti Shenoy