Book Musings: Never Gone by Anusha Subramanian


This book arrived with many postcards, a bookmark and a note from Namrata di. All the way from Mumbai. She had written that the protagonist in the story had reminded her of me, and that the letters in the story spoke to her. It’s no secret that I love writing letters and if you’re one of my favourite people I have written a letter to you at some point during the course of our friendship.

Never Gone is the story of a group of friends in the eleventh standard, and is an Indian Young Adult novel in the truest sense of the term. I loved how all the characters in the story had been fleshed out. It was wonderful to read about them struggling with their very teenage problems. It reminded me rather painfully of the time when I was in high school and everything around me seemed to be two minutes away from falling apart.

At the heart of all these characters is the protagonist, Ananya. She was born to change the world. I loved the letters she had written to everyone in her life, because they echoed words that the characters really needed to hear. I found a lot of myself in Ananya, and I certainly hope I have been able to change a few worlds as well.

I would recommend people who are on the edge of despair to read this book, because oh, come on! What do you have left to live for if you do not have hope?

Never Gone will make you cry, make you laugh and make you wish you had a second chance at being seventeen again!


Thanks a million times over, Namrata di. You brought one of the nicest reads on 2016 into my life.

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