Book Review - Life is What You Make it by Preeti Shenoy

Book Review - Life is What You Make it by Preeti Shenoy

Published - 2011 by Srishti Publishers and Distributors 

Rating- 2.5/5

Over the weekend, I bought 4 easy, cheap and light books as I needed to get over the last 2 heavy books I read. Trying to learn how to strike a balance between serious and light books Out of the four, I picked Life is What You Make it by Preeti Shenoy first. I assumed it would be some light soppy love story, which is what I needed. But it was not! I was very surprised…

Preeti Shenoy belongs to the current lot of Indian Writers that are churning out books after books at a great speed. It’s very impressive and also a good news for people who love to read and who want to get published. Not very high in literary quotient, these writers nonetheless write easy-to-read & understand books. Preeti Shenoy has authored 4 books, Life is what…being her 2^nd one.

Life is what.. is Nikita Sharma’s story, set in the 80s. Nikita is young, vivacious and an achiever who makes it to an esteemed MBA institute on her own merit. Not a stranger to attention, Nikita knows what exactly she wants and emotions/love doesn’t get between practical choices in her life. 

Things are hunky dory at the beginning, until Nikita finds herself checking in a mental institute within 6 months. After meeting multiple doctors and several trials and errors, the cause of concern is identified. Nikita’s diagnosis reveals she has Bipolar Disorder. The story traces Nikita’s struggle with Bipolar and her path towards becoming ‘normal’ again. 

While I was expecting a typical romantic story, the twist in tale caught me off guard. It doesn’t offer an in-depth analysis about mental conditions and Bipolar in specific. But still the book is a great way to introduce this topic to the masses who might not read about it otherwise. Sidney Sheldon, who is a very popular bestselling author, also suffered from Bipolar about which he wrote in his semi-biopic book ‘The Other Side of Me’. 

There is little awareness about mental conditions in India as there is still stigma attached to it. Considering that, Preeti Shenoy has made decent attempt at making people aware about Bipolar in the most  engaging way (i.e fictional story) through Life is What You Make it. Thanks to its language, which is basic, it has a higher reach but not an ideal candidate to become a classic. Strictly a one time read, pick it if you need something to distract you from a long queue.