Aru Shah and The End of Time Review

Spoiler Alert – If you wanna read this book properly, I won’t recommend you to read this review as it contains multiple small spoilers which may ruin the story for you.

This is a book which I have been the most excited to read in my whole reading journey. Period.

Hey Guys! I am back with another Book Review. This one hits close to my heart. This book is a mashup of two of my favourite pieces of literature. We have Rick Riordan, my favourite author. He has passed on his sarcasm and humor to the author of this book to the author – Roshni Chokshi. And we have the story of THE Mahabharata, retold in a fun and modern setting. Its as if you gave a child a map to a land made up of candy. I am that child. Anyways, lets get into the review.

The story starts with a close introduction to our protagonist – Aru, who is the reincarnation of Arjuna, a demigod and the son of The King of The Gods – Indra. Indra is like the Hindu Zeus. Getting back to our protagonist, the author shares a deep insight on the character of Aru, a serial liar who tries to make her lies honest. For example – She tells her friend that she has a pet elephant who was rescued from India (this story is based in The USA (yep they even took our mythology <facepalm> (and yes I did a bracket in a bracket <pride shines>))) (also yes, I closed it with 3 brackets…hey! you can’t blame me for that, blame the education system for cutting marks just because students keep forgetting to END THE BRACKETS IN MATH!!). When she says these lies she is talking about a marble statue of an elephant that was salvaged from an Indian temple, so yaa she tries to convince herself that she isn’t something which she is, so that it will make her feel okay for herself (that sounds like someone I know, ohh…now I remember, that’s me <send help, please>). She has some pretty convincing arguments throughout the book which was a very funny thing to read.

Anyways so she has a mother who is a very popular historian and runs “The Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture” in Georgia. She is always busy and has pretty little time for Aru which pisses her off. She is always pulling off mischief to grab attention of her mother. Her mother has kept her well informed about Indian Mythology and stories. But has equally not been there for some quite important moments in Aru’s lives. Aru doesn’t know anything about her father except that he left them and is angry at him for that. One important thing that she has learnt from her mother is that never ever light the Cursed Diya (Cursed Lamp) which is one of the museum’s most treasured possessions. It is said that if the Cursed Lamp is lighted, a frightening demon called The Sleeper will wake Lord Shiva, the God of Destruction, and that Lord Shiva will perform a dance that will end time itself which will in turn destory the world.

Sounds dangerous right? Well…Aru lit the Lamp, just to impress some classmates (these adolescents and their escapades. Hey mum! I am not getting friends, should I destroy the world? That ought to get me some attention <wink-wink>. NOO! DON’T DO IT! I am very angry. Not only because of the immature destruction but also because I just realised that even I am an adolescent. <sigh>) and in turn released The Sleeper, who not only seems to be a demon but also someone Aru feels is close to her, even though she can’t explain the feeling. When this demon wakes up, Aru faints and then wakes up to find that time is freezing in whichever place the demon is going. So, her mother and those classmates are frozen in time. Yaay!

The best part is yet to come. As she is processing this information a talking pigeon comes in front of her. This talking pigeon tells Aru that his name is Subala (to which Aru gives him the nickname of Boo) but he actually is Shakuni, the biggest enemy of the Pandavas who also happens to have become a good person now who is a mentor to these Pandavas. He is a sarcastic, serious and annoying pigeon who tells her that she is a reincarnation of Arjuna. And that she has the soul of Arjuna. He is also quite annoyed that she is a girl and states that – Instead of great heroes all I get to save the world is a little girl filled with hormones.

She also meets her soul-sister (pun intended) who is the reincarnation of Yudhistira, the son of Dharma Raj, the God of Death. She is a timid little girl with spectacles and she actually knew that she is a hero. Her parents had told her and had introduced her to the world of gods quite earlier. From there the three go to the Otherworld, where they meet The Council of Guardians which consists of heroes such as The Mighty Hanuman, who attempted to eat the Sun as a child and the beautiful Urvashi, who is said to have been the most beautiful women. From their they start with their quest to stop The Sleeper from awaking Lord Shiva. They have lots of fun obstacles in their way and there are quite a few surprises in the book. Some of them blew the hat right off my head. It is filled with lots of humor and lots of information in the world of the Hindu Gods.

Some things that I didn’t like were – there was this huge buildup for this book. It was like Rick Riordan and Hindu mythology. I was going out of my mind, but then what I read didn’t satisfy me. There could have been a lot more things which could have made the book better and more pleasurable to read. It did have some of the Rick Riordan element but I could actually feel that it wasn’t written by him and the disappointment that followed was sad. He is the actual myth master and I feel that if he had written it, it would have been a 100 times better. This doesn’t in any way mean that the book was bad but all I am saying is that it isn’t competing with Percy Jackson. Another thing that I didn’t like was the lack of Gods in the book. I was expecting a full on punch of Gods in my face with the kind of involvement like in the Percy Jackson books. I wanted that egoistic careless nature of the Gods towards Humans which would have made the story more enigmatic and eye-catching. The Gods were not involved in the book and the author kind off left them out. I understand that Hindu Mythology consists of a lot of gods and characters and that she tries to fit in as many of them as she could but I just didn’t feel the bam element.

So, while going to read the book don’t make the same mistake which I made – don’t have expectations. You will love it if you have no expectations. If you want to read lots of surprises and discover many mysteries, be sure to read the book and I promise that you will like it when you finish it.

Be sure to subscribe to Bookgest for more such amazing content at the bottom of the page. Comment down below about what you liked about this book and whether you liked the self-deprecating humor that I used in this article. If you have something to say you can mail me anytime at mybookgest@gmail.com and I will try to reply to you as soon as possible. I will see you the next time. Till then read the book if you have time, if you don’t then…don’t read the book…I guess. Anyways, with that said, I will see you in the next one. Peace.