Amit Sharma’s The Woman Who Saw The Future is a feast in its entirety. The plot delves into the lives of the Vaid family after they discover that their daughter, Sapna, has premonitions of impending doom. She gets nightmares about all sorts of disasters leading to people’s deaths around the world, whether they are terrorist attacks, accidents, killings etc. As time passes, the intensity and frequency of these visions increase to such an extent that it jeopardizes Sapna’s mental well being. In order to appease her frazzled mind, she agrees to do a reality show called Lucky People wherein she puts her powers to good use and saves thousands of people from imminent death. But as we all know, “with great power comes great responsibility”, and somewhere along the line, Sapna loses focus on the bigger picture. That marks the deterioration of a once innocent and frightened girl.
I want to give this book all the stars in the world. It blew me away, like winds on a dandelion farm. But it’s very disheartening that I can’t give it a full rating. So I’ll start off with the minor points that I didn’t really like. The writing style, although punchy and well articulated, had some repeated usage of word(s) that bothered me. For example, Sapna’s mother Kalpana uses the words “you know” way too often! Similarly, with Mehak, she says “Lord” as a way of exclamation too often. And it doesn’t really gel with what’s happening. So these two occurrences stood out like a sore thumb. Secondly, there are sections in the book where either Sapna or her mother or some other character recounts the various calamitous incidents that Sapna has helped prevent. Those sections weren’t seamlessly embedded in the narrative and felt a bit like they were being presented as bullet points. Finally, a couple of instances were a bit hard to believe.
Now, lets get to all the good stuff. And there’s a lot! So bear with me as I rave about how fantastic this book is. (This review is going to be a long one.) The plot is very unique, not because of the “premonitions” aspect, but because the author introduces a reality show as a plot point. This very fact allows us to glimpse how thirsty the society is to revere someone, to idolize a person and place them akin to God. And also, how fragile that belief is. The part that takes the crown is how this story unfolds. It is told from the perspective of atleast 9 characters; that’s something I’ve never encountered before. You’d think that it would get overwhelming, but it doesn’t. And even in those chapters, what every character divulges is carefully tailored so that bits of the story wonderfully unravel at a time. Moreover, the narration jumps back and forth between the past and the present, which adds more substance to the novel.
There’s barely any stereotyping or cliche. From a heartrending contemporary fiction with supernatural elements, this novel hurtles towards becoming a thriller. There’s a bit of sexual content and profanities used, nothing too extreme. One of the highlights of this novel, for me, has to be the characterization of Sapna. The arc is so impressive! You can’t help but be bewildered as you watch her turn from a stubborn, strong daughter to a scared, unsure girl and then a cold, pompous maniac. Believe me when I say that these aren’t just adjectives. These parts of her personality surface at different parts of the book. The ending couldn’t have been better. I just really wish that those tiny flaws had been smoothed out and I didn’t find anything problematic. Nevertheless, I’m certainly going to recommend this book to everyone. And hope that for the sake of such excellent plot execution, you can ignore the small issues.
Ratings – 4 out of 5 stars
What do you get out of it? Tears. Joy. A package of a book that highlights the suffering of a family burdened by loss, reflects Indian society, brings out interesting supernatural elements and is ultimately a really good thriller.
Thank you Writers Melon for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The Life Stories 