Title: Till the Last Breath

Author: Durjoy Datta

Publisher: Grapevine India

Rating: 3.5/5

Durjoy Datta has written six novels prior to this one and is ranked amongst the best-selling Indian authors. If you have read, loved or even hated his works; this piece of fiction he wrote will leave you stunned, at many places.

‘Till the Last Breath’ is a fiction that revolves around characters viz. Pihu, Dushyant, Armaan, Zarah and Kajal and the line of events that connects their dots together.

Pihu Malhotra, is ever-smiling angel and a brilliant student studying to be a Surgeon, but get caught with a disease which brings her on the hospital bed. Dushyant Roy, the bad boy shares the bed parallel to Pihu in the hospital, trying to fight his death and guilt of treating her ex-girlfriend wrong.

Kajal, a simple daughter of filthy rich family who always ends up being a damsel in distress standing right in the middle of two (or more) twisted relations of her life.

Armaan and Zarah, are the doctors – one acting Rued and other trying to portray Bold to bury their past.

To be true, the novel won’t appeal to you till you reach chapter 5 (or in cases, chapter 7-8); here I will blame the author to have loosely knitted the initial chapters. It gets better when you dive into the prelims and sail towards the ending.

At moments, Durjoy will take you by surprise and on other occasions you would be smiling on the wisely chosen dialogues and situations. Though, the author stretches the storyline at some parts, it doesn’t get boring – as you keep wondering, what’s Next?

Life is cruel, unfair and shitty, we all say; but while reading this you will agree to the part that we too make our life much more miserable by our decisions, obsessions and perceptions. Durjoy successfully conveys the message of Valuing Life and Taking Wise Decisions with this work.

When I sat to read 237 pages, and even when I ordered the book online; I was in impression of reading about “Avantika” and “Deb” (characters in his past novels). When I read first two chapters, I was wondering how he can carry off without those characters, but Boy! He carried it off!

One of my friend said – “He writes lot about girls and romance, and that gets obvious”. Well, here too he writes about love, romances and characterizes her female characters, but in a different fashion then his older works.

He must’ve did some research before writing this novel, and his hard-work is pretty obvious with the mumbo-jumbo of medical terms being used. I won’t say, it’s the best I have ever read, but it sure isn’t the one I will forget anytime soon. Worth a read!

PS. Guys at Grapevine India need to polish their proofreading team, as there are many (and I mean it – many) errors in the novel. Pretty easy to find and ignore, but it spoils the flow.