Fictional novel review: The Accidental Apprentice (2013) by Vikas Swarup.

How does one navigate the cut-throat world of business when they have no previous business experience? What does one do when faced with the impossible? Is it possible for someone to be handed a dream opportunity out of sheer luck?

Here on this nice day in July, this is where I start with Vikas Swarup's 2013 novel, The Accidental Apprentice. For Sapna Sinha, her ordinary life is turned upside after she is approached Vinay Mohan Acharya, one of India's richest men. Imagine being offered the job of company C.E.O if you pass the seven life tests. You do not have to imagine what Sapna's first thoughts were...

Nevertheless, this novel takes us on a ride of highs and many lows, as we see how challenging life can be to navigate. Sapna's journey does not simply show her do seven tests as it were and then she becomes C.E.O of aging Vinay Mohan Acharya's business. She often found herself in situations where the outcome had that many possibilities, I never knew which way the novel would turn. I kept asking myself how the novel still had an amount of pages as I went through various stages of the novel. This is because I kept her journey to suddenly end. I notice that like Sapna, I novel kept ‘rendering me speechless for an instant’¹.

It was the ending that shocked me the most. Some characters I knew what their intentions were. However, the ending opened my eyes to the whole nature of others. It changed from sometimes mundane, sometimes intense to full on tension. I loved it! Seeing Sapna at her greatest was wonderful to read. I won't spoil it but she is good.

This novel is packed for of suspense, drama and pockets of joyousness. I loved it and so I am giving it an 8/10.


Until next time,


Thomas.



Footnotes:

¹ Vikas Swarup, The Accidental Apprentice (London: Simon & Schuster, 2013), 420.


Bibliography:

Swarup, Vikas. The Accidental Apprentice. London: Simon & Schuster, 2013.

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