#BookReview :: Destroyed by Ishq by Mr. Invisible

Its not just a cold February morning that freezes all activity at IIT. The topper of the Computer Science batch is found hanging inside his room locked from the outside. A day later, in a fit of anxiety, his best friend erases his suicide note from his laptop, thereby obliterating the only way that could have led to understanding the reason behind such a catastrophe.

The smartest among the group of software experts asked to retrieve it finally gets hold of it, but silently gives up on finding it and withdraws with the stolen suicide letter. What is it about the letter that makes him hide it from the world? Why does he lose himself in the amaranthine ocean of agony and forgets all else on reading it? Love is life giving, but Destroyed by Ishq explores the other side of love. Are you ready to turn the page?




I usually make it a point to avoid any IWE campus story books. If you have read one - you have read them all and those books are simply waste of my time as they clearly are not my cup of tea. But I picked this one up with some expectation because the blurb really makes it clear that this book is more than just a campus love story.

The main focus of the story is supposed to be a computer science genius. Well, what else can you expect from an IIT class topper? But clearly he doesn’t have even a pea brain when it comes to other things in life or life in itself. As he bids adieu to his life, he leaves behind a suicide note on his computer. While his best friend deletes it in a fit, another person is asked to retrieve it. What is the reason that could send a young guy with rest of his life ahead of him to an early grave?

Suicide is a phenomenon that touches a lot of hearts and I for one have always been curios about it. While people around me say that it is a coward’s way out – I beg to differ. Preserving one’s life is a person’s basic instinct. To defy one’s basic instinct and to take your own life MUST have a HUGE reason behind it. If it wasn’t so, every other person would commit suicide to escape the hardships that life eventually puts in front of each of us. I wanted to understand this frustration and really hoped that this book would present me with at least one plausible theory. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The characters and situations in the book, while not very fictitious, is not even close to seriousness I was expecting. While I am not a person to underestimate someone else’s hardships or an expert in psychology, this novel doesn’t really come close to justifying something like suicide. I didn’t really care for the characters and neither felt a bit sad. Instead I felt that it was very stupid.

There were a few positive points about this novel that kept me from putting this book down mid-way. First is its narration style. I always enjoy a story that s told in multiple POVs. The language and narration was good and probably the saving grace of the book. Also, some of the situations felt quite real that made me think that ‘okay this actually happens on campus and during our graduation days’. It wasn’t all a bollywood set up with rose petals raining and an orchestra playing in the background.

All said, I will not be picking this book up for a second read.