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Book Review: The Library of Fates by Aditi Khorana

The Library of Fates is a fantasy novel written by Aditi Khorana. Well, it is a novel for growing-up children, thus the protagonist is a teenage girl and of course the villains are adults.


Children versus adult villains conjure up a spicy plot and climax for the novel. The novel is placed in an ancient setting around the time of Alexandra, hence instead of using Alexandra as a real villain the writer preferred to pick up the Hindi name of Alexandra: Sikander.

Amrita is a sixteen-year-old princess of Shalingar kingdom. Her father, Chandradev, so far has been a good ruler as well as a valuable influence on her. Amrita, beautiful and ravishing, has an opulent life. For her life epitomized getting her desires fulfilled, that is so obvious as she was born in a ruler family. She sees Arjun, another teenager of her age, and hopes to get married to him when the right time comes.

Despite a luxe life, she is always curious to know about her mother who died while giving birth to her, also father never brings up the topic of her mother. But she is sure that with that a secret is hidden, away from her.

Soon it becomes clear that Sikander, the king of Macedon, is going to attack and capture the kingdom of Shalingar. On the other hand, Amrita knows that protecting the life of innocent citizens holds higher priority over her personal legends. Thus, in the sacrificial mood, she and her father decide that she will give herself as a bride to Sikander, this act will avoid the bloody war and the lives of millions.

Well as the time approaches, Sikander presents an oracle to her for caretaking. The oracle is a young girl named Thala, who had been abused and drugged to the terms of Sikander.

Things look settled and under the negotiation but soon Thala reveals the deepest malign intentions of Sikander. According to her, Sikander will initiate a war and kill thousands of people because too many wins over many lands and kingdoms has turned him into a sadistic personality and he lusts to see bloodshed. Also, once Chandradev and Sikander were friends in the military academy of Macedon. Things go awry when the girl whom he liked married Chandradev. For this reason, he had to attack the kingdom of Chandradev.  

So, they plan, and run away leaving everything behind. The rest of the novel is about enduring the hardships of life being an outsider and in search of the library from where they can set the things right by going back into time. Just like the movie the King of Persia.

Overall, the story is vapid and does not arouse that kind of interest that was expected. The language of the characters was anachronistic. The story seemed mingling of very ancient and medieval time. It isn’t a well-thought out novel. 
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