The Broken Shadow - Pavittra Kalyaan - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Pavittra Kalyaan

SERIES: Handwan Mystery, #1

GENRE: YA Mystery.

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: Sorry, but this indie YA mystery wasn’t my cup of tea. I loved the fact that we have enthusiastic young Indian authors exploring the YA genre, but I forgot the fact that I am not longer an enthusiastic YA reader. This might work better with the right age group.

Story Synopsis:

Fifteen-year-old Rohan Sharma is struggling to return to normalcy ever since his father died in a fire a year ago. His schoolmates and teachers aren’t making things easy for him. When he discovers that his father’s death might not have been an accident, Rohan realises that it is up to him to discover who might be behind the mystery, even if it comes at a great cost.

The story comes to us in the third person limited perspective of Rohan.

There was a time when I enjoyed YA novels, but lately, I feel like their writing falls in some familiar traps, with very few exceptions:

⚠ A main character who can get away with anything, and single-handedly carries the whole story.

⚠ Secondary characters who don’t have much depth. They come on the page, they do what they have to, and then disappear.

⚠ All adult characters are mostly idiots, and it is the YAs who save the day.

⚠ Bombastic dialogues that might work better on screen (the big screen, not the Kindle screen) than on paper.

I can see how these features work well for teens who want to see themselves powerfully depicted through fiction. But to readers of my age group (and of my grumpy disposition), these types of characters are mostly eye-roll inducing.

I can still tolerate all this if the plot holds my attention. But this novel, while interesting in its own way, needed some fine-tuning.

🚩 I didn’t find the adult secondary characters believable. It is farfetched that not a single teacher showed greater sympathy towards Rohan when he was grieving for his father.

🚩 Rohan and his classmates seem more concerned about winning the YLP scholarship than about their studies and exams. Hardly any scene is set in a classroom. And even when it is, most of the discussion revolves around the YLP.

🚩 It is also tough to believe that a top-league company would provide management training opportunities to 10th/11th graders (in India). Such programmes are usually open to college or management students. Similarly, it is difficult to accept that a school is more focussed on building corporate relations and having a carnival with corporate sponsors buying stalls for lakhs of rupees, all of which again indicates more of a college-based event as it usually leads to campus placement opportunities. I think the whole plot would have worked better had it been set in a college, with Rohan being a year or two older.

🚩 Grief could have had a major role to play in the plot, but it is quite sidelined. Except for Rohan’s mom who is briefly mentioned as coping with grief, Rohan himself doesn’t show any of the emotional signs of dealing with his father’s sudden loss. It made his character seem fake.

🚩 Most of the story proceeds ahead through conversations, which makes me zone out regardless of genre. Scene settings and descriptions should have balanced the conversations.

On the pro side, I appreciated the ‘zara hatke’ feel of the crime. Corporate misbehaviour is not commonly covered in YA fiction, so this made for a different experience. I also liked Rohan’s granny. She was quite cool! 

This is the first of the ‘Handwan mystery’ trilogy, so the mystery is not resolved yet. The ending isn’t exactly a cliffhanger; I guess you can call it a ‘To Be Continued’ ending. The story ends at the right point, where you have some important threads resolved, and yet enough of a hint to know where the sequel will venture. So the ending is decently satisfying, though it leaves many plot holes to be filled up in future.

All in all, a different kind of YA read, but will work better for its target age group as they won’t be so nitpicky. The young author does have plenty of imagination and intelligence, and I am sure she will be able to take the trilogy to a satisfying culmination with more writing experience as she has the right attitude.

My thanks to author Pavittra Kalyaan for providing me with a complimentary copy of “The Broken Shadow”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.