Jatinder Singh

Everyone will get something from this story

Revisado: 12-26-22

A parable of our times, everyone who reads this book or listens to it, finds something unique to them. I resonated partially to all the characters. And I need to buy this book, then rip it and frame the pages. It is beautiful.
And Charlie’s performance is so beautiful- it is deep, emotional and comes from a place of empathy and love. I choked up a few times as he was narrating it.
Highly recommended.

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YA tropes, writing immature, wait for more books

Revisado: 03-13-22

I’m a fan of middle eastern inspired fantasy. Something like Arabian Nights (Alf Laylah wan Laylah). So I was very excited. The story is good but leaves a lot to be desired. The good parts is that this is great setting in a fairly well established world. It is a YA novel, so you’ll come across tropes, hormone heavy, sexual tension filled romantic scenes.

It is also very well read by Kate Reading (‘nuff said).

That’s where it ended for me. This is not a great novel … it is just good or pretty good.
I’m not an author, so I absolutely respect anyone who is an author. However, I do expect, as a reader, to have the authors I read to be good writers, that entertain me, make me think, sprinkle clues to intrigue me, and then give me a satisfactory ending, while leaving door open for me to read book 2 and 3.
Unfortunately, this is not that book (as much as I forced myself to like it).

The biggest challenge for any YA author is for their writing to become mature when telling an epic story. And that’s the biggest shortcoming of this novel. Tahereh stays within YA style (which is likely target audience for this) and does not get to the maturity the epic mess of this story demands. It makes it easy to read though.

As an example, there is an incident that occurs in the beginning of the novel. This scene has repercussions throughout the novel. However, when you read the scene, I never felt any seriousness and gravitas of the said incident. It happened, and then everyone kept talking about it throughout the novel. I never felt it was that important when I read it.

The other part is that author struggles with mysteries. Mysteries is spreading clues throughout the book, and then when you pull the thread in the end it shows how they are all connected. Yes, there are clues, it the writing never gave a sense that the reader is curious to solve the mystery. I felt like I’ll know when time comes. Novel lacks intrigue.

Fantasy novels have prophecies(yes it is a trope); I’m OK with it. And then there is a riddle which rhymes.
I was expecting it will be rhyme which has a meaning at the surface, and a deeper meaning when you flip it. Again shows the artistry of the author.
The prophecy is a short prose sentence. And the riddle has no deeper meaning. You just wait got the … … well wait for what and who from the riddle. Again no clues throughout the book to pull the reader in.

A good ending is that closes few threads, gives closure to the reader and leaves a few open. Then, the book ends. Yes I realize it is book 1, so the story continues in book 2. But there is a HUGE cliffhanger, with ZERO closure. Even the prose prophecy turns on its head, and no explanation is given of why that happened. And a new character is added conveniently during the last chapters.

A thoroughly unsatisfactory book to read. Every scene is written conveniently to move story forward, without intrigue, mystery, or gravity.
I may revisit this when more books are written, but for now, best to avoid.
Even as a YA, I’d recommend to go read Harry Potter or Mistborn trilogy.

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Pretty good, but performance takes you out of it

Revisado: 01-26-18

What did you like best about The Maurya Empire? What did you like least?

Good summary of the Mauryan Empire.

But the performance is very monotonous. And he pretty much mispronounce almost every name, city and other nouns. Yes these are Indian names, still there is way to say them based on their spellings among western historians. This is neither.
In fact his pronunciation would make you think that the spellings are different. He seems to add extra alphabets in some and removing them in other names.
I think he was given zero guidance on pronunciation, or didn’t care.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I could not listen to it. A consistent incorrect diction was really bad.

How could the performance have been better?

Pronunciation guidance to the reader. Or get a different reader.

Do you think The Maurya Empire needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

This is an hour summary of a dynasty.
So no need of follow up.

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