Hey there, bookworms! Holy Moses, it’s been a little bit since my last post. I think aside from vacations when I’m not near my computer, this might be one of the longest times I’ve gone without posting a review. Looking at my list on my desktop that I have for finished books I need to review, I’m pretty ashamed. I’m spending so much time catching up on reading so that I can share my thoughts with you guys, that I haven’t posted much. I guess you know now that I’m not wonderful at managing my time. Plus, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
Anyway, tonight I’m going to talk about a new book from Ricardo Alexanders. He was nice enough to reach out and send me an advance copy of Bollywood Invasion. This was the first of his stories I’ve read, so as soon as I could, I jumped right in. Let’s talk about Bollywood Invasion!
The reason I said yes to reading this story was because it sounded so different from anything I’ve read recently. Romance, fiction, time travel, fantasy, and more is packed into a mere 295 pages.
John is a young sixteen year old teenager in modern-day Brooklyn, NY who winds up in an accident with a bus when he’s running late for school one morning. It’s when he wakes up that things are significantly… different.
People around him are calling him Raj and he notices everything has changed. From the people, to their dress, to the architecture. It’s shortly after waking that he notices he’s another person in another time. He’s now Raj Scindia, prince of India in 1958. His popularity as prince paired with his fortune and looks means he has tons of friends and endless female adoration.
The eighteen year old heads back to university with his closest guy friends and trips head-over-heels into a world of non-stop partying and debauchery. It’s when Raj encounters a girl who changes everything for him that he chooses to turn his life around and prove he’s worthy of her love.
He doesn’t really have an aptitude or a care for being a prince, nor is he interested in school, so instead, he convinces his friends to form a band. After some failed practices and gigs, Raj remembers his old life and the iconic songs he used to listen to on his iPod. That’s when the guys call themselves The Beetos and gain audience attention with the famous song, Yesterday.
Knowing that he’s onto something, Raj is driven to bring he and his friends to fame and fortune becoming a sort of reincarnated version of The Beatles. With their fame comes not only all the accolades, but all the difficulties of finding privacy and keeping your sanity.
When Raj encounters a personal tragedy right at the height of his fame, he falls into a void and turns to his old and destructive ways. His friends and family do what they can to help, but something about him is forever changed.
This was an interesting story. As a Beatles fan, I was intrigued by the take Ricardo took with their music and certain phases of their careers that were re-lived through these characters. Also, the summary is slightly misleading saying that John from Brooklyn is reincarnated as John Lennon, unless you take it in a figurative manner. I kept waiting for Mr. Lennon to jump into the story when really it was John from Brooklyn turning Raj into his own version of John Lennon with his knowledge from the future and everything he knew of The Beatles career. The writing jumped a little bit from point-to-point and kept the story from flowing the way I liked, but overall it was a quirky and fantastical sort of read.
If you’re looking for something different and new to read, or if you’re a fan of everything Beatles and music, click on the book below to get your copy and start reading now!
My Final Rating: three out of five stars
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