Review of UNLOCKING THE SHINE by Meenakshi Goswami.

Healing itself, maybe a subjective opinion both emotionally, physically, and most importantly of the mental state, of which one’s own self is most of the time held responsible for. It seems to be a very pleasing aspect that, with breezes of time blowing faster, a stage set for understanding, deciphering, and acknowledging mental health, has been in trend in recent years. 

Sometimes you might be wanting to be served with some motivation, which would thrust you, or sometimes you would be incessantly craving for some positive notes, which might help you in absorbing the bliss of life you tackle on an everyday basis. 

Probably Meenakshi Goswami too would have felt this void, but rather than just you and me, 'pondering about this void' she fondly pens her feelings down into poems, the poems which would serve you the right amount of threshold to unlock your prudence towards the world. 

And the book which I stumbled across, and will be reviewing today is

UNLOCKING THE SHINE by Meenakshi Goswami. 

'It’s okay to be your own kind of genius’ (cited from page 114)

From what Meenakshi says from this book is something you would love to have in your lowest of life.

It's not new to the population that Non-fiction books dealing with motivational/inspirational chunks of information expect them to be understood, processed, implemented, and then habituated in our routine. Writing in the first person's context, Meenakshi cuts off this trouble of longer texts, whilst propelling the similar motivation through poems, alongside her vivid imagination. 

Lying there between the words is something to explore. Meenakshi's attempt to bring out this innate meaning works better than expected.  

Dividing the book into sections according to the genre was one step ahead, which made a place in my heart. Illustrations like any other anthology were quite catchy and fresh. It was hard for any part to be hated. But also it was hard to have this book being read in one go. (ALERT - readers who finish off reading a book, burning the midnight oil, would find this book a bit alienating.)  

Essentially this book is a collection of the 'author's feelings' which would rather go unexplained and yet slightly described. Some of the poems which might be of the long narratives, and some of them as short as a couplet, fall into the right cascade, inspiring the reader to fall head over heels with this book. 

Commenting about the language used, I would say that it works quite smoothly with anyone. Pretty many lines were quicker to get drawn towards my eyes and many were really hard to be ignored. 

With day comes the night and with accolades comes criticism too. Whilst the poems processed prowess to captivate the reader they essentially were the 'authors feelings'  which hardly had any methodological evidence to rely upon(as non-fiction books or inspirational books do rely on scientific facts). Instances, where you disagree with the author, are not scarce while you pick this book up. The huge undermining aspect I noticed was when I was about 65% of this book(nearly 130 pages), where the poems feel too monotonous to comprehend, with similar word building and similar essence. Despite the poem’s context essentially being different, you quickly get familiarized with the way of Goswami's writing. Sometimes denying the fact that adequate experiments with various writing styles in this book were seldomly done, would not be a hyperbole. 

The best out of this anthology, With about 200 pages would be, consuming the information with one poem each day(That's how I have done it). Trust me, these seemingly shorter lines, withhold the capacity to ignite the right motivation within you for the rest of the day.

As they say, words heal a painful heart, quicker than a doctor, 

One such attempt was sumptuously made here by Meenakshi. 

Appreciable aspects of the book:

1. Inspirational content

2. Self-care and mental health are given the central stage. 

Repelling aspects of the book:

1. Monotonous word usage. 

I generally don't gauge books, but.

Who doesn't like scores??

Well, I would give this book 4 out of 5 points.

Reviewed by:

Achyut Murari,2nd yr. MBBS,

Osmania Medical College.

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