Promise of Fireflies by Anupam Patra / Books Teacup and Reviews

Published: June 10th 2017 by StoryMirror

Read Date: September 5th 2017

Stars: 4.5/5

This is collection of 11 short stories. The stories are about (I’m going in order) –
Extraordinary friendship and kindness;
Struggle of daughter finding her place and love in family;
Extra marital affair and acceptance (complicated one according to me);
Story of inmate who finds freedom and peace inside jail more than the outside world that has changed lot;
A blind girl falls in love who bring back light of her eyes and life but with a dark bitter truth;
Story of a temporary promise of a laborer over his unspoken truth and love for a prostitute;
Story of childhood love that started over the game, scrabbles and also ended up as parting gift;
This story was about a mother-in-law who never accepted his son’s wife and did all she could to torture her till suffering of old age consumed her body;
Story of a mother who suffered domestic violence and kept away from her own daughter and her fight of getting her daughter back;
A stranger helped writer to complete his story about unfulfilled love;
About consequences of not choosing love and compromising with what family approve.

Different kind of people and their different stories– check
All kind of emotions that make you cry or yell – check
Realistic characters- check
Warning in the beginning: this stories will leave you crying mess. Keep tissue available at hands reach.
Tragedy, Flaws, Mistakes, Regret, Fates, Guilt, Unfair life, Kindness, Forgiveness, Betrayal, and Love. Can you believe all of these emotions were there in the book? Believe me author has done a fantastic job in giving justice to all those emotions in this book.

“To pine beneath pretense is the most deadly poison you can find for yourself.”

All of those stories felt so real, happening all around us- some bits of it you have heard from someone while the other you have read in newspapers or you might have experienced yourself.
I was thinking till the end why the title ‘Promise of Fireflies’. In blurb it said it binds all 11 stories so I was expecting something moral kind of thing, but it was nothing like that. It was actually a whole different, touching, and the last 11th story of the book. It was a story about promises and letdown that I loved so much and I’m glad author decide to keep it in last. I’m sure I might not wanted such heavy dose story in the beginning.
I have literally written review for individual stories but at the end I found it too long to post and also might give out too much and spoil the fun of reading them. So, I’m just giving precise review of whole book.
First the writing was great and smooth. I liked how author woven all stories Author’s words made all stories so alive that I almost forgotten the world around me. Loved the beginning of all stories, first lines of each stories gave the feeling like I was reading an artistic work. Title of each stories were so appropriate and the way all stories ended made those titles reasonable.
Some stories included the serious issue of India like dowry, domestic violence, and patriarchal mentality. Some were the family stories like, Mother-daughter relationship; daughter-in-law and mother-in-law relationship. Some were no only one on friendship and lot of sad love stories.
I loved all of them except two that I will tell below. But the best story that I liked was “Stranger” and “Promise of Fireflies”.
Stranger because – The conversation between the stranger and writer in this story. It was cleverly written and the way stranger talked about love, I was totally in different world. Those were the best definitions of love and best pages of the book. Oh and it had little suspense too. If this was the first story in the book, I would have loved this book instantly.
Promise of Fireflies – This was the only story that made me put myself into characters shoe and I could feel the pain of both characters. I felt dislike for both character’s family as well who never stayed to see what they have done with two lives. And the last shot was the reason behind title. It was perfect for the story and I loved that explanation for it as well.
If these stories are read in groups, I bet it will give lot of topics and characters to discuss over.

The only complain I have is with these two stories- Games We Never Forget and Petals in the Wind. Story was okay but felt little cheesy, it was clichéd and another thing I couldn’t understand what went wrong between characters and why they decided to take such drastic decisions.

Overall, this was poignant amazingly written short story collection. I would like to read more from this author. If you like to read good emotional short story fictions, I recommend this book.