Red Card by Kautuk Srivastava

Book – Red Card

Author – Kautuk Srivastava

Publisher – Penguin India

No. of pages – 304

Ratings – 4🌟/5

About the book –

One team. One year. Everything to lose.

When Rishabh Bala reaches the tenth standard, life takes a turn for the complicated. The bewildered boy feels the pressure of the looming board exams and finds himself hopelessly-and hormonally-in love. But what he yearns for most is victory on the field: at least one trophy with his beloved school football team.

Set in the suburban Thane of 2006, here is a coming-of-age story that runs unique as it does familiar. Hopscotching from distracted classrooms and tired tutorials to triumphs and tragedies on muddy grounds, this is the journey of Rishabh and his friends from peak puberty to the cusp of manhood.

Book Review –

If you are a graduate or are in college, done with your 10th standard, this book is going to make you very nostalgic. The book is very relatable and starts with 3 friends spending their night watching a football match. The storytelling skills and narrations are brilliant and the language/vocabulary is easy to understand.

The book is parted through four football tournaments where Rishab and his teammates have to face challenges to win the cup along with the most stressful boards exam. If you were one of those students who balanced academics along with sports in your final school year, you know how clumsy and stressful it can get.

But Kautuk, in his debut novel, has made this as hilarious as it can to make it light by taking about love, parents pressure for the boards exam and the matches which had it’s own problems.

The first few pages took it’s time to get me interested in the book but as the story progressed with it’s wittiness and humour, it kept me going. The second half of the book kept me hooked until the last page with puns, nostalgia and a good story.

If you are anyone who plays football or were in any sports team during your school days, pick up this book to get all those flashbacks from school practice, classroom crush to 10th boards exam. I never was in any sports team but related to the story more than ever. It is a light and a fun read and is very much recommended. Give the book few pages in the start to be interested in the story.

You can buy the book from here.

– Kinjal Parekh
youtube.com/c/KinjalParekh