“Truly unique, emotional and gripping tale of family, destiny, identity, culture and belonging.”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

Neha Jani has been diagnosed with the same cancer that killed her mother when she was a baby, was this her destiny? Or just a coincidence?

Her father still grieves the loss of his wife but does not believe in destiny. Her grandmother who lost her husband in a racist attack and lost her daughter to cancer is still is a firm believer that our lives are ruled by ‘The One Who Wrote Destiny.’ Neha’s twin brother, Raks, an up-and-coming comedian, thinks his only destiny is to be great. Is it only genes and coincidence that ties all the characters in this story together, or is it something more, is it destiny?

Nikesh Shukla’s brilliant novel, The One Who Wrote Destiny spans the lives of three generations of a family, from the 1960s to the present day as well as traversing locations across the globe, from Kenya to the UK to New York. The book’s plot is based loosely on parts of Nikesh’s own family history reported The Bookseller, and this personal emotion is clear in the writer’s moving and gripping story.

Nikesh Shukla writes perfectly for a modern, young adult audience, with themes of politics, discrimination and feminism. What’s more, Shukla’s exploration of culture and belonging through his main characters all of which have a mixture of British and Gujarati identity allows many readers to see something of themselves within the pages of the book, while offering other readers an insight into cultures they may be less familiar with. The One Who Wrote Destiny by Nikesh Shukla is a truly unique, emotional and gripping tale of family, destiny, identity, culture and belonging.

 

Reviewed by:

Catherine Muxworthy, Booksbirdblog

Added 12th May 2019

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Catherine Muxworthy