Potpourri by Anusha VR

Val Penny ♦ January 23, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

I very much enjoyed a previous book by Chapeltown Books, From Light to Dark and Back Again by Allison Symes is a reviewed here: https://bookreviewstoday.info/2017/03/22/from-light-to-dark-and-back-again-by-allison-symes/ . So, I was thrilled to receive another book from this publisher in exchange for an honest review. I always give honest reviews.

Potpourri by Anusha VR is a delicious mixture of short stories, flash fiction and poems. The quality of the works is very high. The stories are clever, the flash fiction interesting and the poetry neatly constructed. There is no doubt Anusha VR is a writer with talent.

Initially, I really enjoyed the entries in this book. The stories are well put together and the twists nicely fore-shadowed. The themes covered are different and the author takes interesting angles and views. 

My problem, I think, is that I read the book in two sittings over a couple of days, rather than dipping in and out of the book at leisure. Had I done this, I believe this review would have been unremittingly favourable. However, I didn’t do that, I read it all at once.

As a result of that, I was struck by the negativity throughout the book. Too many of the works cover dark themes, unprepossessing characters and misery. Examples of these include: Mrs Maurier’s Garden, A Perfect Family, Muffled Voices and Escaping the Limbo. There are entries that made me smile, including Rainbow in the Abyss and Proud, but there were too few smiles.

There are too few flowers in Potpourri. The author writes well but this book left me feeling troubled and uncomfortable.

Val Penny