Book Review: Teenage Diaries…The Days That Were By Saurabh Sharma

Ratings :-

Writing : 4/5

Story: 3/5

Characters: 3/5

Overall: 3.5/5

Genre : Young-adult, Middle grade, fiction, Teen

Age recommended: 13 and up

Enter Ganshyam, the boring nerd everyone dreads at school and the under-confident guy whose teenage years are soon going to turn his life topsy-turvy.

With first crushes, kisses, dares and dudes whizzing past like whirlwinds, would Ganshyam fall of the ridge? And most importantly, would he ever be able to get the girl he has come to love?

When I was first approached by the author for a copy of the book in exchange of an honest review, I definitely did not know that what awaited me was a complete storehouse of clever puns ( with a tagline of “both figuratively and literally” ), hindi slangs and song references and highly relatable anecdotes.

I even wrote a poem on her

“Insaan ki bhagwaan ko ki gayi bandish ho tum,

Kabhi toh lagta hai, mere dil ki dimaag se saazish ho tum ”

Guess what will be her reply?

” Ki mein kehti hoon, bohot cute par foolish ho tum”

Hailing from a middle class Indian background, most orthodox myths and beliefs mentioned about in the book, seemed more than relatable.

P.s.: Being a Kashmiri myself, the intro to the ‘ Kashmiri version of Ryan Gosling’ aka Armaan seemed pretty cool .xD

What tickled me in the funny-bone even harder , were the insanely humorous school-related accounts of this utterly delightful novel.

“Dude, next year is again boards! This is practically our last year of school to enjoy.”

And the elaborate ‘gyaan’ (knowledge) on girls was pretty much on point.

“There are broadly four types of girls –

The match-makers, the poser-bulldozers, the humble-hunters and the self absorbed-divas”

In short, ‘Teenage Diaries’ perhaps, is one of the most fun books you’ll ever read…thanks to the author’s amazingly humorous style of writing.

Having been one of the first Indian books that has *actually* been a teen related book, Teenage Diaries was a pretty awesome read. It sure did have a lot of stuff going on, altogether, but Saurabh Sharma’s clever transitioning several phases saved it from being a monotonous collection of obvious teen-stuff crammed into one book.

The characters, I must say, were , greatly crafted so as to facilitate some sort of bond between them and the readers. While some parts were slightly exaggerated, the rest of the book remained utterly realistic.

“The pseudo-euphoria that liquor brought along somehow made me forget what was not going well in my life

All-in-all, Teenage Diaries is one fun book you ought not to miss. Besides giving you regular bursts of laughter ( or do I rather call ’em ‘fits’? xD ) of laughter, the book is sure to keep you hooked until the end.

Yours A-fiction-ately

Nandika Kaul