Official Review: Fate by Ali Bin Zahid

[roguexunited]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Fate" by Ali Bin Zahid.]

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Fate by Ali Bin Zahid is the story of a tangled web of characters whose lives become interconnected after a tragic hit and run involving a socialite and a young man that was about to become a first time father. Affairs, angst and heartbreaking stories are told as each chapter disentangles a piece of the puzzle and highlights the point of view of a different character.

I’m going to start with the good that can be found in this novella. I am pretty much a fan of those books that tend to give you glimpses of a narrative through different voices. They are not always the easiest to read (Faulkner comes to mind) but they are always interesting. This is pretty much the approach that Zahid took with Fate. The melodramatic story of a marriage that is “perfect” in the surface but in reality is pretty much broken.

I really wanted to like the story, but then I found that there was an accumulation of problems that just wouldn’t let me enjoy the book. The characters were one of them. I found very little connection to them, specially the married couple that seems to be the poison that infects the lives of everyone around them. I found them highly hypocritical and a little blind to their own situation, even selfish, as they brought misery and angst to everyone around them. The rest of the characters have very little to say, but they seem more the victims than anything else.

Now, when it comes to the story the premise sound very interesting but I did have some problems with the execution. There are some inconsistencies from chapter to chapter that could benefit from a good editorial revision, but that take away from the narrative. These little errors in the story make it difficult to follow, which combined with the intricate and unsteady timeline it creates a confusing mess.

To top the problems with the narrative the edition has some very strange punctuation choice as it emphasizes through underlining very random words and phrases. I read it for kindle, and those choices left me confused.

The part that troubled me the most was the ending, or lack there of. As the mystery of how these individuals are connected appears to become clear, the story ends abruptly as a character has an epiphany that solves the terrible crime. Nonetheless everything is still left up in the air, as the story really doesn’t have a sense of an ending.
All in all I give the story 2 out of 4 stars. I think that another revision would do it a world of good.

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[UmaM]

Thank You for the review, I was planning to read on this but am now in two minds