happiness and food

This book’s cover page says “Is Revenge a Crime?” and throughout reading the book, I could not get my mind away from this question. As it happens with a well weaved thriller, I was urged to jump to the end to see who did what and whose revenge is the book all about. Good that I controlled myself. Ravi Subramanian’s “If God was a Banker” is his only book that I have read and it’s been quite some time now. When BlogAdda asked bloggers to apply for this one to review, I so wanted this one book to read and review. Well, as you can see – I wasn’t disappointed.

Plot & Storyline: Set up across cities and countries from east to west and a couple in between, the story takes you to the professional and personal lives of corporate honchos, political arenas, tries to give you a taste of an ATM heist, couple of murders and then towards the end brings every one back,closes all loops and answers all questions. Varun, Aditya’ son and an intelligent guy comes back to India to his father and gets on to help him with his gaming business. A few estranged encounters here and there with Sundeep who was earlier handling the gaming business seems logical as new generation’s risk taking ability is different from that of the earlier one. With that part of Aditya’s business doing well under Varun’s supervision, the other large and profitable BPO eTIOS runs into issues with the ATM heist that seems to rob off the client group and doubt the security provided by outsourcing firms. The big ATM heist and the murder of a senator in US gets the FBI into action and brings them to Mumbai, India in hope of connecting the dots with the bitcoins and the untraceable world of drug mafia.

The story is clean and even the minutest details have been covered. What I specifically loved was the way some concepts were explained – how a free network for online anonymity works, the way the blast that killed the Senator was masterminded etc. On these lines the reference to President Nixon – the pink elephant and towards the end Socrates and Keats are all brownie points to Ravi from my side. The chapters were not specifically named and they just revealed the location of the next part of story – this was good for a reader like me who keeps guessing what happened next from the name of the chapter. Some chapters were as short as half a page and this was a smart move to keep the plot tidy and not mix up many things.

The story is relevant to today’s times with a lot about how Facebook shows up the news feeds, how transactions may not always be secure, a bit of domestic abuse, difficult marital relationships and their complexities and trust me, this story has the potential to be turned into a Bollywood thriller.

What could have been better: Well, I could not find anything that could have been better in this book. It was the most “fast paced, gripping, unexpected with sort of two twists towards the end” kind of book I have read recently. Yet, if I try hard to nit pick – a lot of similarity between Townsville, the game of Indiscape and Candy Crush was evident. But looking into details, I would also say that these are market strategies and relating it to the way money is made over gaming is pretty common.

Tactical Details: The cover and back pages are well designed. The little gold logo of the bitcoin on the cover page adds to the glamor quotient of the book. The font is good-sized and legible. The writing style is simple and good for people of all generations and tastes.

Overall Verdict: If you like reading fiction and are inclined towards thriller, this one is a not-to-miss book. I give the book a rating of 5/5. It’s a great read and a perfect page turner. If I had nothing else to do – one full day on a reading marathon and this would be my pick.

Book Details:

Name:  God is a Gamer

Author: Ravi Subramanian

Genre: Thriller/Fiction

Publisher: Penguin

Publication Year: 2014

Number of pages: 310

Price: 299 INR

My rating: 5/5

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I am participating in National Blog Posting Month – NaBloPoMo, and this is Post #1, a pledge to write daily during November to hone my skills, challenge myself, and taking this blog to the next level. Wish me luck and share ideas that you would want to read 🙂