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A review by thebobsphere
Leila by Prayaag Akbar
2.0
Although I am a fan of dystopian novels, I am also aware that there are certain tropes and that it is easy for this type of genre to fall prey to them. I am especially wary when they are compared to Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Unfortunately Prayaag Akbar’s novel suffers from this problem.
There are some original ideas. One is that I have never read a dystopian novel which takes place in India. Also the plot centres around a woman who buries a candle in order to commemorate her daughter’s disappearance/kidnapping. This is an undefined future that is a police state.
From then onward the books uses every cliche that one finds in dystopian fiction; there’s the thought police, arrests, the sense of paranoia, the pervading main office, unnecessary deaths. It as all been done before. Not once did I admire any of the ideas proposed in Leila, simply because they’ve made appearances at one time or another in other novels.
Yes I was disappointed but I do hope that other readers will get more out of the book than I did.
There are some original ideas. One is that I have never read a dystopian novel which takes place in India. Also the plot centres around a woman who buries a candle in order to commemorate her daughter’s disappearance/kidnapping. This is an undefined future that is a police state.
From then onward the books uses every cliche that one finds in dystopian fiction; there’s the thought police, arrests, the sense of paranoia, the pervading main office, unnecessary deaths. It as all been done before. Not once did I admire any of the ideas proposed in Leila, simply because they’ve made appearances at one time or another in other novels.
Yes I was disappointed but I do hope that other readers will get more out of the book than I did.