With You; Without You – book review

With You; Without You, the debut novel by Prabhat Ranjan, has been released for the national audience on 29^th of October, 2017. The author belongs to Patna, Bihar. However, the imagination of the author has taken him to various places like Lucknow, Goa and many other places in the novel. The narrative of the novel is moving at a pace which you might consider worthy of a pleasant read and you will certainly enjoy that.

The story of the novel, in short, is all about the love and friendship and confusion and the emotional chaos which emerges inside the hearts of the people when they feel like being in love! And in the case of With You; Without You, the characters who are involved in this confusion and peculiar experiences are Nishind, Rami, and Aditya. There are two parts of the novel and one is in retrospect and another is in the present. Nishind is the narrator and we get to learn the story from him. And by him, we also get to know the perspective of the author Prabhat Ranjan on many different aspects of life.

Critically, the novel With You; Without You can be seen in the light of youthful overwhelming emotions which can compel us to do the unlikely things and also in the light of wisdom that we get to get with the development in our age. The readers feel like playing with the characters when they are in their childhood and growing up with them when they are doing so. Prabhat has created a ground for the readers where they can involve in the plot of the novel and get the special insider’s feel without feeling that they are being told a story with a certain proportion of detachment involved. The novelist, in his debut, does his best to include the readers and indulge them with his novel and this is surely a successful ploy because With You; Without You does not seem to bore the readers at any instance!

The language used in the novel is far better than sophisticated but yes, the cult-readers of Hindi literature might find the English phrases included in the narrative at times which, to me, becomes the necessity of the modern writing because a person cannot convey things entirely in Hindi. Otherwise, the words used, the stylistics employed and the sentiments aroused by Prabhat Ranjan are just wonderful to read! This will surely be a fun for the readers of Hindi literature and they will acknowledge the efforts by Prabhat Ranjan as they tend towards finishing the novel.

Without taking it too far, I will simply say that readers should give the debut author a chance and read his first Hindi novel – With You; Without You not because this is his first novel but because this novel certainly has some merit! You will know it once you read it. Get your copy from the Amazon link below and do let the author know how did you like it!

Prabhat’s With You; Without You on Amazon