Review: Neulan by Thazleena Moidu

Goodreads rating: 4.82/5

My rating: 3.4/5

Neulan is about Alexcy, who is on a quest to find her father that has gone missing without an explanation for 15 years. She joins his alma mater, hoping to find the answers she's been looking for. In her quest, she discovers a parallel universe that does not just give insight as to her father's whereabouts but also about a tragic event that has the whole world wondering - a missing airplane.

As I mentioned on my Instagram post, I was a little scared to read and write a review on this book as I personally know the author. I thought though that I might like it considering the few good reviews that already exist. Before I go on, please note that the reason the Goodreads rating is so high is because it has been rated by less than 50 readers.

Even if I know Thazleena, I cannot be biased and I've chosen to be honest in my review, as I always am.

I believe Neulan is the perfect example of why it is important to hire an editor, a literary agent and why it is better not to self-publish a book. I honestly don't know for sure if Thaz hired an editor or not but my guesses is not due to the number of typos and missing words. Her writing comes off as amateurish without the polishing that it needed.

Typos and missing words aside, the story is quite unique. Thazleena was able to create a world better than our own, an ideal one that would probably exist if it weren't for the way most of us have chosen to inhabit it. The grass is literally greener on the other side.

However, I feel like the story could have been executed better. It began slow and the mystery was built up for too long with not enough being revealed in between, it lacked balance in my opinion. I also felt confused with how much was going on all at the same time. Moreover, I found myself wishing there was more emotions involved as I could not feel much for the characters. The main character, Lexi, describes herself as being emotionally detached so I'm not sure if the lack of emotions overall was intentional or not. Lastly, it was anticlimactic for me. All the build up of mystery was not equivalent to the revelations at the end of the story as I mentioned earlier. There were also parts that were left unexplained. For example, Lexi's love interest is close to a particular character that everyone assumes to be his partner. He later reveals that he's just close to that character because of her tough life. There is no explanation though for how they met, who they are to each other and what exactly the character was going through.

Sadly, I'm not a fan of this book but I think it mostly had to do with the writing style because I liked the plot, I just think it could have been told better. I'm sorry, Thazleena, please don't hate me.