The Jaz Gang: A Dangerous Escapade by Vaishnavi Anantha is a brilliant children’s fiction that you must bookmark for your next read. It is a time travel children’s fantasy that hardly appears to have been written by a young, adolescent teen.
If ever people get a chance to go back in time, they will always strive to set right what they have previously wronged.
Have you ever considered time travel? If you ask me, it is a truly wonderful thought even to ponder. Having the opportunity to go back in time and relive an event sounds like a fantastic idea, doesn’t it?
My most recent read, which happens to be a children’s fiction, toyed with this concept, and boy, was I blown away by the enigma of what our young Author Vaishnavi Anantha has managed to pull off. The plot revolves around Zenisha, Archie, and Jay, who, despite being polar opposites, band together to time travel back 7000 years and explore the Ramayana era. The core and crux of the plot are whether they get to go back in time and unravel what all the past holds or whether they get trapped along the way.
To begin, I must commend Vaishnavi on her ability to incorporate time travel into children’s fiction while setting it against a mythological backdrop. Curiosity is a very intriguing trait that children have, and I liked how Vaishnavi created the plot’s plethora. We cannot expect young writers to understand the finer points of writing, such as character development, conceptualization, world-building, and so on. Contrary to popular belief, Vaishnavi is not only exceptionally talented in this area, but she has also created such a magnificent piece, a perfect start to a larger-than-life enigma, that I could only marvel at the sheer brilliance of her build-up.
An adventure that encompasses not only the time travel mechanism but also how the characters came to discover it, as well as their personalities, learning from each other’s traits while on a treasure kinda journey that eventually turned into time travel. It was fascinating to see how the children’s characters were captivated by Indian mythology and eager to go beyond time to discover it.
Not only were the characters well plotted and developed, but I also thought Vaishnavi was quite visual in her description, creating a graphic art of whatever was happening in the story in my mind’s eye, compelling me to be there at that point in time in that particular scenario. The pace she manages to set, the twists, and the overall excitement was a rigmarole performed by few. But Vaishnavi accomplished the feat, and how!
The story is gripping to the point where, after the initial start, you gradually get into the pattern and rhythm of the narrative, being curious enough to wait breathlessly to see what happens next. One of the challenges, in my opinion, is managing the narrative’s pace, which Vaishnavi has done admirably. Similarly, she has created and built each and every aspect in a way that made me think twice about how, despite being a children’s fiction, this will actually appeal to many older people as well, once it is developed and taken forward significantly. I can’t wait to read the next one in the series because this one ends on a cliffhanger, which piqued my interest enough to pick up and read the next one as soon as I could get my hands on it. Stay tuned, and keep an eye out for that one as well, peeps.
I recently spoke with Vaishnavi and congratulated her on her work. When I spoke with her, I realised she has a very confident personality, she knows what she is doing, and, most importantly, she has a lot of potential to move forward as an author. I not only see her getting into a very successful writing pursuit in the future, but I am also super confident that she will deliver very good pieces of writing, indulgent enough to keep you riveted and enthralled, giving you enough to stay hooked on it for keeps. A fantastic work of children’s fantasy fiction that you should bookmark and keep for your next TBR pile.
The Jaz Gang: A Dangerous Escapade
Summary
Three teenagers Zenisha, Archie and Jay who are poles apart from each other, join hands to discover something they must have only heard of or read in fiction novels – “A time machine”.
They decide to go back 7000 years to the Ramayana era as they want to prove that Ramayana was real and not a mythology as claimed by some western historians.
So, I hope you enjoyed this book review of Vaishnavi Anantha’s The Jaz Gang: A Dangerous Escapade.
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Adios Amigos!