SEVEN LIVES, ZERO IMPACT: A DISAPPOINTING DIVE INTO SURFACE-LEVEL STORYTELLING

 

Book: The Girl With The Seven Lives
Author: Vikas Swarup
Published: 2024
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

The Girl With The Seven Lives promises intrigue, depth, and drama, but delivers a bloated, over-engineered mystery that struggles to justify its own narrative ambition. For a novel centered on the idea of reinvention and resilience, it ironically fails to reinvent the formulaic storytelling Swarup seems to rely on too heavily.

From the outset, the book suffers from an identity crisis. It oscillates awkwardly between being a social commentary, a murder mystery, and a human drama — without succeeding fully at any. The titular character, Sapna Sinha, is presented as a woman of many layers, but the narrative doesn’t give her enough genuine interiority. Her “seven lives” are little more than plot gimmicks, presented in a checklist-like fashion rather than woven into an emotionally resonant arc. Instead of complexity, we get a caricature.

Swarup’s writing, while readable, often descends into clichés. Characters speak in stilted dialogue that feels written for TV rather than literature. The pacing suffers from too many detours that add little to the emotional or thematic weight of the story. The mystery at the heart of the novel becomes increasingly convoluted, not in a clever or rewarding way, but in a way that feels artificially suspenseful — like the author is more interested in springing twists than telling a grounded, human story.

Journalist Ashwin Jamwal, the narrator, is a particularly weak protagonist — bland, conveniently insightful, and emotionally hollow. His investigation doesn’t unfold organically but feels spoon-fed through chance encounters, forced revelations, and improbable coincidences. It’s difficult to invest in a mystery when the stakes feel manufactured and the characters so disconnected from emotional realism.

Even on a thematic level, the novel tries to do too much: gender politics, class struggle, media ethics, corruption — all are touched, but none explored with any real nuance. The result is a book that gestures toward seriousness without ever fully committing to depth.

Ultimately, The Girl With The Seven Lives feels like a missed opportunity. It squanders a compelling premise by choosing sensationalism over sincerity, complexity over clarity, and cleverness over connection. For readers seeking emotional truth or narrative substance, the novel may feel hollow — style over substance, plot over people.