Book Review: The Lady in the Mirror by Charu Gulati

The Lady in the Mirror
Author: Charu Vashishtha Gulati
Publisher: StoryMirror Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
Rating: 3.5/5

A compilation of 8 short stories, The Lady in the Mirror aims at being retrospective as well as speculative. The stories in this book are plausible, relatable and most of them are didactic. The journey of the protagonist to self-discovery forms the central theme of this book. As one would guess from the title that all the stories would have a female protagonist, believe you me, that’s not the case. The author deftly weaves the tales around a female character, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. The eventual result proves how wonderful, powerful and innately strong-willed women are!

Cherry-picking characters from various facets of life and writing about their struggles with inhibitions, eccentric fears and unparalleled situations of life, each story is different from another and that becomes the USP of this book. Whether it is Iti, who desires to fly into the unchartered territories and explore the new world, Aditi, whose soul transforms after she gets the taste of her own medicine or Meera, who questions the existence of God and Shraddha, who realizes the importance of confessing her love before it is too late, all characters learn from life and consequently, introspect about themselves.

Overall, The Lady in the Mirror is a good one-time-read that urges the readers to look beyond what is visible and discover oneself. The narrative is smooth and easy. I missed the use of new words and figurative language though. There are a few errors in editing that have been overlooked. Another round of proofreading would have helped for sure.

Best wishes to the author!

Buying link: Amazon