All the Names They Used for God - Anjali Sachdeva

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AUTHOR: Anjali Sachdeva
GENRE: Short Story Collection
PUBLICATION DATE: February 20, 2018
RATING: Can't decide!

This has to be the toughest book to review from my reads of 2021. I'm at a loss about how to rate it.

Ever read an anthology where you know something is missing and yet you can't stop reading it? That's what happened to me with this book. I simply couldn't stop myself from going ahead. The writing is impeccable. The build-up of every story is outstanding. The pacing is fabulous. The language, flawless. Where the book failed miserably was in the endings of each tale. Many stories left me feeling befuddled at the way they abruptly came to a close. You can't even say that the endings were open-ended. Even in open-ended works, there are some clues that make you predict the possible paths the story could continue on. It turns into a challenge to your mind and is fun to figure out. But in many of these stories, the ending just jarred. It was sudden, without warning, and felt incomplete.

For a debut work, I think this is a fabulous collection. The author definitely knows how to write. Now she just needs to make sure that she ties up the ending in a better way, either by giving closure to the reader or by stopping the story at a more appropriate point. I'm definitely going to read more of her works in future. She has talent, no doubt in that.

The stories are from various genres such as sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, etc. There's nothing to bind the stories in a common thread. So it's quite a motley collection with an underlying darkness.

Here's my story-wise rating where 😍 indicates my level of enjoyment with the plot and 😕 indicates my level of disappointment with the ending. as you can see, my feelings are all over the place, so I really don't know how to rate the book. All I know is that I enjoyed every single story until just before its last para.

1. The World at Night :
Story: 😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😕😕

2. Glass Lung:
Story: 😍😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😕😕

3. Logging Lake:
Story: 😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😕

4. Killer of Kings:
Story: 😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😕😕😕😕

5. All the Names for God:
Story: 😍😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😍😍

6. Robert Greenman and the Mermaid:
Story: 😍😍😍
Ending: 😕

7. Anything You Might Want:
Story: 😍😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😍

8. Manus:
Story: 😍😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😕

9. Pleiades
Story: 😍😍😍😍😍
Ending: 😕😕

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