Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander

Review by Shwetha H S

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander is one of the books that’s part of Harry Potter’s curriculum in Hogwarts. Though this book claims to be an encyclopaedia about magical animals, it turns out to be a mere catalogue, all the magical animals in alphabetical order. It is a commendable effort to come up with seventy-five species of magical animals, but the descriptions don’t cater much to the reader’s imagination regarding the physical appearances of certain animals. Considering this book to be part of Hogwarts’ curriculum, how can students rely on this book? At some places the description is just splendid, but for rest we have to just keep calm. Unsure about how the animals are meant to be, now the reader has to rely on the movie version of this book. But, the way categorisation of beasts is done and how each animal or beast is different from the other, makes us appreciate the mesmerising world of Harry Potter and other witches and wizards. Of course, now Muggles too.

The Mobile Phone by Pankaj Suneja

Review by Shwetha H S

The Mobile Phone is a novelette by Pankaj Suneja that tries to explain to the readers what trauma a person who has lost his nearest and dearest ones goes through. The author has done this job through the characters Rohit and Prabhu. In this story, it is shown how trauma can go unnoticed, and can lead to depression and psychotic disorders. Prabhu, a child still in school, loses his mother and Rohit, a college going student, loses his best friend and roommate Kumar. What happens to them while dealing with the trauma of loss is the essence of this novelette.

The narration is slightly confusing in this book. The author has tried to experiment with a new method of narration, but leaves the reader confused. The first person narration is what creates the problem here. The second half of the book is very similar to the author’s another book, Gulabi. Moreover, Prabhu’s illusions feel like they have been taken out of Harry Potter series. Maybe he has read that series and imagines them to be part of his real world. In the beginning, it is explained in a way that the reader understands Prabhu’s father is bedridden. But in the second half of the novelette, he is up and walking all about. This abruptness doesn’t go well with readers at all.  Apart from talking about psychosis through this novelette, the author has tried to talk about homosexuality too through Rohit and Kumar. If this is not what the author has intended to do, then this is exactly how it is represented in the book, and it is good.

If you are looking for a book to finish reading in a day, just to read for the sake it or interested in psychosis, then go for this book.