I Will Meet You There by Esha Pandey #BookReview

When Esha reached out to me on twitter, many things about her intrigued me. First, she is a lady IPS officer. If you look at her current twitter DP, she kills it with the Dabbang look – Her uniform, aviators and that tiny little nose pin adds to her swag! Second was that she was posted in Lakshadweep – home to one of the most beautiful beaches in India and a place on my top 5 list. Third was that she has published a book… You know me guys, a person like that has to catch my interest and then first books are special so I had to agree when Esha wanted me to read and review the book.

Plot of I Will Meet You There

I Will Meet You There is a collection of 23 stories. 23 love stories at that. The Foreword is written by Muzaffar Ali and to quote him

I Will Meet You There takes you through maze of love and longing to a place of no wrong or right doing, where no one sits on judgement as in the garden of a Sufi

I Will Meet You There – What I Liked

The one thing that strikes you in the book is its simplicity. Esha explores a variety of characters, settings and emotions in the book. Yet, simplicity is the underlying theme in all stories. As an avid reader and a wannabe writer, I understand the complexity of simplicity, the urge of not giving in to big words and layered emotions and yet making the characters likeable. Esha has done a good job with this! Each story is different. Some are like a slice of life, some like a lifetime. The characters in the stories cut across age, location and religion. Having read Esha’s profile at the end of the book, I felt she has drawn inspiration from her own life heavily. Her Alma Mater, JNU often finds a mention.

A thing worth mentioning here is that the characters and the settings are extremely believable. Even when a devastatingly handsome millionaire meets an innocent young girl, it does not feel Mills & Boonish. It feels like, yes… this could happen. Across all the stories there are many characters and many conversations. The dialogues were all spot on. Be it the anguish of a pregnant wife whose husband is missing or the passionate left wing JNU student, the dialogues were great.

I Will Meet You There – What I Did Not Like

Now this is strictly personal. I don’t enjoy reading a collection of short stories because there is very little scope of elaboration. I prefer stories where the writer eases into the story with a build up. In a short story format there is very little scope. I am left wondering – what was the author thinking here. What would have happened next? What before? I read the book at a much slower pace than a novel. I would finish a story and read the next one later. This is not the book that kept me awake at night.

I Will Meet You There – Overall Thoughts

If you like reading short stories you should give this a go. If you like sweet romances, then this is definitely a book you should pick up. A book like this is good for days when you are busy and can not read long novels but still want to read a few pages everyday. The book is well written, the grammar is spot on, the characters are good and it is definitely enjoyable!

You can follow Esha on Twitter or Facebook.

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Disclaimer – This is not a sponsored post and I was not compensated by the author or the publication for it. I was however sent the complimentary copy to read and review.  The link below is the Amazon associates link for this book and if you use it to order the book, I stand to make a small commission.