This was definitely one of the most unstoppable read that I had in a some time. This book was good enough to stop me from playing video games, or watching Netflix, or even scrolling memes. Although it had the undertone of an adult conspiracy theory, I resonated well with the overall message of optimism and the belief that thoughts can alter reality. Regardless of what science says, and however “realistic” it may be to stick to statistics, a bit of optimism always goes a long way. IMO at least. Not the blind optimism, but somewhere on the lines of - it is better to believe that you have a chance to win, and then strive forth to achieve the victory, even if all odds are stacked against you, rather than quitting early and not even trying by just getting overwhelmed by the odds that have been stacked against you. And to strive forth with pessimism? That’s like walking on a bridge while always preparing yourself that the bridge might fall. Does not works, does it?
I had watched The Da Vinci Code quite some time back, which is also based on Dan Brown’s novel, but I didn’t knew about it at the moment. But after reading this one, I am definitely going to read more of his novels and might read The Da Vinci Code as well, although i mostly do not like to repeat stories, but i just have a gut feeling that it might be a really good call to read that one as well (since i already have the paperback).
Now back to the novel.
The story unfolds itself in manners and layers that is actually quite unpredictable. When reading The Silent Patient, the plot was almost cracked somewhere in the middle of the read, beyond which it turned more into a psychological story rather than a mystery.
In this book however, the mysteries itself unfolds as you keep reading. And even though there have been clear mentions of everything, the wordplay made me ignorant to the details. More so, its the distracting plethora of real world fact’s, well known myths, rumors and references that made the read an even richer experience and took my attention away in each chapter to something else. A more linear narrative could have worked too, instead of continuous context switches in most chapters, but this really worked as well. It was very coherent, and googling every fact, reference, and mystery, and then learning just a bit more about it made the read ever so more amazing.
*Breathes out
I believe I should leave the reading to you. Not much, try just a couple chapters.