Author: Vikas Swarup
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
First published: 2013Setting: Delhi, India
Read in October 2013
My Rating ★★★ 3.4
My Waterstones Review
From the author of Q&A which became the hit film Slumdog Millionaire, winning eight Academy Awards in 2009, we have a third book which is perhaps destined to also become a film. Sapna Sinha is an ordinary salesgirl in an electronics shop, a graduate without an MBA. In a temple she meets Vinay Mohan Acharya, the owner industrialist of a conglomerate worth ten billion dollars. Mr Acharya is about to offer Sapna the chance to become the CEO of his empire and make herself immensely wealthy.
Vikas certainly comes to the point quickly, and we are only on page four, we will soon find that Mr Acharya has satisfied Sapna that he and his offer are genuine as long as she passes seven life tests designed to gauge her mettle and potential to be the CEO. Vikas also gives a clue to the end or near end of the story, the Prologue starts with making the reader aware that six months later Sapna will find herself stuck in Jail facing the death penalty. But what sort of game is Mr Acharya really playing?
Written by a man in the first person voice of a young woman, and successfully so, this is a fast paced easy reading book suitable for a long journey or holiday. It is neatly sectioned into the seven tests with a prologue and epilogue and from this point of view could be serialized. From the thickness of the book at just over 400 pages we can guess Sapna is unlikely to fail the first six tests and something dramatic has been signposted for the end, consequently it feels predictable, nevertheless we do get a glimpse of bustling Delhi and rural India
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