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Arribada: The Arrival
Arribada: The Arrival
Review By: Garima Agarwal
Genre: Fiction, Inspirational
Pace: Slow to Medium
Level: Beginner
Triggers: Alcoholism, an attempt at suicide, hunting, domestic abuse, abusive father
Review:
“If 'Life of Pi' and 'The Alchemist' have a baby together, and put it on steroids, it would be this book.”
''Arribada: The Arrival', written by Samantha Kocharr, is a book about a man named Joy from a small village in Goa and his encounter with an Olive Ridley turtle named Ollie, and how his life goes from being a high-paid investment banker in London to reaching Africa and living within a Maasai village in Africa.
The book talks about the universe, its energy, the meaning of life, truth and love.
I started this book and fell in love with the characters. How real they were. How cute they were. I am a sucker for quotable books and books that talk about meaning, peace, love and truth and this book had all that. I felt that the stars had aligned to help me find this book because it had everything. The writing felt smooth; the book had beautiful lines, and the characters were well-written. But then I reached the halfway mark.
And my god, the turn it took. The book went from being fun to being a borderline chore. I skimmed through the majority of the book and wanted to be done with it. The writing felt sloppy. The whole book was now filled with lines on meaning and truth that felt repetitive and copied from some Instagram page probably named 'beautiful_life' with the same generic stuff.
Before that, I had assumed I'd be giving this book at least 4 stars. I had mentally listed down the people I wanted to give this book to and had already started recommending the book to my friends because I thought they'd love it.
I had already thought of giving this book to my juniors who come up to me for reading recommendations. But this book ended up being nothing more than a 3-star average read you'd rarely recommend. The book tries to be a book for adults who last read in 6th grade for school and want to start reading again, which its story does have the potential to do. But after a point, the book just gets so repetitive and boring that you lose all your interest. It's not a bad book per se, but the way it started, it does not keep that momentum intact to keep a reader interested.
Writing:
The writing is okay. It's generic. It's basic. It isn't something you'd expect from literary fiction. It's good enough not to be compared to Chetan Bhagat's writing but bad enough to be compared to a college graduate who writes with no emotion.
The writing could have helped to cover the repetitiveness by using new ways to write about it, to mould the point differently. But Kocharr misses the opportunity to do so, even after having such an interesting story.
Characters:
The one thing I love about the is though (yes there is something that I liked, it wasn't that bad) is the characters. The characters are so real. They are filled with flaws. They are so human. They have so much to them. I related to Joy and his struggles in life so much. I loved and still love Ollie with all my heart.
Ollie is the apple of my eye, the blood in my heart, the hope in my chaotic world because he is all that I ever want. The book, in moments, made me want to enter the world and give Ollie a big hug, whispering "I love you" in his ears and telling him he is the best buddy anyone could have. I'm not a crier when it comes to books (unbelievable, right?), but whenever there would be a scene with Ollie, I could feel my tears stir in me. Ollie is the one thing that the book gave me and I'm grateful for. I almost for a moment felt that this turtle was my spirit animal and I was an ocean girlie who lived all her life thinking she was meant for the mountains, but it was all just false imagination. The book did make me want to quit everything, pack my bag leave for Goa and listen to the waves for the rest of my life. All because of Ollie.
I think I've been very critical of the book, but genuinely, the book had so much potential; it just disappointed me so much, even though I tried my best to love this book.
I'd only recommend this book to someone not above 13 and no one else.
One-line review: A self-help book trying to be fiction in disguise.
Favourite characters: Ollie (ofcourse)
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