Book Review – The Secret of The Nagas by Amish Tripathi

Again, I must begin off by saying that the review is a bit late but not too much! I finished reading this book over two weeks ago and ideally the review should have come then! But, what to do? Work takes up most of my time! I bought this book “The Secret of The Nagas“, because i was fairly impressed by the prequel “The Immortals of Meluha” by Amish Tripathi. This is the second book in the “Shiva Trilogy“. Again, the cover design was so good to look at and touch, that I could not resist buying it.

Image From: www.amazon.com

What is this book about? This book follows the journey of Lord Shiva who is the prophesied Neelkanth – the one with the blue throat. To understand what the first book was about, you can click here and read the review. I am not going to spoil the fun for you, if you haven’t read the first book yet. However, I should mention that the first book ends in a very action packed way and this book takes the it one step ahead!

Lord Shiva, is trying to find a solution for the root cause of the problem, faced by the Meluhans who belong to the Suryavanshi empire. The Chandravanshi empire (literally quite opposite to the Suryavanshi empire) are the suppossed cause of these problems. However, the problem and the cause of these problems is something much more, significantly bigger than what everyone had hoped for. The very foundation of India lies at stake if this problem is not taken care of. Its a fight of good against evil, or rather as this book puts it; “its a fight against the inner evil which rises from all the good and vice versa”. Both, the Suryavanshi and the Chandravanshi empire believe that the Neelkanth is their savior and hence, each empire tries to woo Lord Shiva on their side. The author has a very simple yet descriptive style of narrating the story. Amish, does a significantly better job in carving out the new characters and roles introduced in the second book and makes sure that the reader understands every aspect of the narrative. Some characters are loud, while some are simply extravagant.

The different  storylines intermingled together to form the ultimate story make this book an excellent read. The author does a great job of combining all these stories together to raise the scale of “awesomeness”. The courtship of Parvateshwar and Anandmayi add to the humor and romance quotient of this book. The book should have been a bit longer to explain some very important aspects like, the story of Parvateshwar, history of the Chandravanshi empire and a bit more insight into the Nagas – the self-made empire of banished and godforsaken people.

True to its description, surprising alliances are made and unbelievable secrets are revealed. There are two very interesting charcaters revealed in the book, which add to the fun and make it a page turner. These two characters are the life of this book and the sheer manner in which the author introduces them in the book are worth commending. This book, sees the growth in reverence and power of the Neelkanth and how he manages to find an optimistic outlook even when surrounded by sheer darkness. For me, personally, the fight between the man-eater tigers and Sati is the true essence of the book. It manages to leave a visual impact in the readers mind. The book ends, again, with a twist, but a somewhat sombre manner. However, it leaves the reader with wanting to read more! Watch out for Parshuram, a vasudev brahmin turned warrior, who leaves a really good impact.

The flipside to the book? The book could have been bigger. Even at 414 pages, it fails to capture some elements, which needed a lot more description to make the story more awesome. Though the twists and the surprises are good, there are too many surprises! One too many really. There is another empire mentioned in this book, The Branga Dynasty. I had hoped for a much more extravagant and exemplified description of this empire, specifically since there is a lot of hype built around it. There are some typos in the book, which can really be passed off as genuine human mistakes in proofreading.

Book Rating – 3.8 out of 5

This book is available at a great discounted price on Flipkart.com

If you haven’t read the first book yet,then again there is a great combo offer available for Book 1 and Book 2 of the Shiva Trilogy on Flipkart.com