Review: Deaf N' Dumb Hilarious Punk

Deaf N' Dumb Hilarious Punk - by Deepika Singh

This book arrived after a long wait and it took me even longer to arrange for a copy. I had read some snippets over the web (that’s how I got to know about this book) and I was very curious to have a look inside somebody else’s school days and see if they were as good as mine.

Well this story of five friends during their school days certainly makes you remember your own but fails to recreate them.

The story focuses on the events and incidents in the lives of five school friends (though the cover shows only four)-An all girl gang. It takes you through a detailed narration of their daily hangouts, the new friends that they make, the guy problems that they face (very high frequency), the gal/guy problems that their class mates face (the gang has this undying spirit to help others), the fun they have during the practice of their Republic Day performance, their birthdays, late night parties, their first attempt at hard drinks (or was it??), making calls to strangers, mixing laxatives in drinking water, snogging sessions, studying.. did I say 'studying'? Nah that should be left for uumm school kids!!

The fun, the naughtiness, the punkiness, the spontaneity that the author is trying to create in the characters is not balanced. The characters sound extra cool and so much in-demand that it makes them look unreal and made-up. The only thing that brings a smile on your face is the closeness that the characters share ‘coz it will surely make you remember your own close friends and all that you have done together.

The author has tried to describe a large number of incidents to make the story more interesting, but all it does is deviate the reader from the main story. Also, at times in the hurry of writing about a new incident the author has lost track of the previous one and left it hanging (and the reader wondering).

The theme picked was very interesting but the writing style is too raw. Sudden pop-ups of heavy words make it difficult to comprehend a sentence and display an unintelligent usage of thesaurus feature. The biggest mistake on the author’s part is to not get the book edited by a professional. Spelling and grammatical errors are there on almost every page which makes it difficult for the reader to focus on the story.

But nonetheless good effort by Deepika Singh. This book is an excellent example (in its truest sense) to all the 'authors-in-making' because it proves that it takes nothing more than tones of imagination, enthusiasm and determination to write your first book. However, you need to be a little more careful and apply a tad bit of common sense, if you wish to make it a successful book.