BUY OFFICE SHOCKS | SUMIT AGGARWAL | BOOK REVIEW

PLOT: 2.5/5

CHARACTERS: 2/5

WRITING STYLE: 2/5

CLIMAX: 2/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 2.5/5

The title would be more apt if I were to read it in my office. I would be shocked & I would be at the office. But luckily I was at home and a disprin was at hand. Rupa & Co. was celebrating the launch of its new website and offered a 50% discount on all books for one week and that is when I purchased this book.

I would like to start the book review of Office Shocks with a question. ‘Do you remember your first day at office?’ I remember being a bit afraid, a bit happy, a bit worried and a bit of all other emotions possible. But I don’t remember being in a mood for humour. The author has tried to create a humorous story around ‘first day office experience’ and I must say that this is not a bad idea. What better way than to have a confused & new bakra as the central character of a humour plot. But sadly, the story has failed in making me laugh.

The story is about the first day of Aniket as a Junior Associate in Cairn & Company. The author has tried his best in bringing a humour quotient into the plot by using the boss’s character, the nosy colleagues, the training seminars, the client meeting, the lunchtime, the fag sessions and the womanising manager etc. I didn’t much enjoy most of these scenes because of the writing style of the author. Instead of creating a funny situation, the author has tried to bring humour by using jargons, slangs & funny language. Say for example, to describe a colleague who has thick & bushy eyebrows, the author writes, “One of the guys was the embodiment of a lesser known corporate adage that told something about working to make both ends meet, through a rather endowed and bushy uni-brow”.

In spite of all this, the book has a few lighter & funny moments too. I liked a scene where Aniket bumps into a colleague in the washroom and the discussion between them. There are a few funny dialogues too which will make you laugh. When Aniket finds out that the elevator is not in operation & a colleague advises him to take the stairs, he says to himself, “Oh really, I was all game to go base-jumping to take revenge on all my bones.” The titles of the chapters have funny names & the acknowledgement written by the author is very innovative. This is where the fun ends.

Even though the book is only around a 100 pages, it gets very boring in the end and I was tempted to jump a few paras (though I didn’t). Though I will not recommend this book to anyone, if you love reading very short books, you can give it a try. Who knows, you might just like it!!!