Stories We Never Tell (Savi Sharma)

Book Review by Priyanka Zielinski

I have always curiously admired Savi Sharma, her tremendous success and her adorably personality. I must admit, though, that her name is what drew me to her. My youngest of 3 is named Savi. I named her after my grandmother, Savitri, a fierce and enterprising woman who once put out a fire in a burning gas station by herself (that’s a story for another day).

I just finished reading Stories We Never Tell by Savi Sharma and really enjoyed it. It’s a smooth easy read, brings you in, and keeps you glued. I found myself, I hate to admit, envious of Jhanvi’s success as an influencer and totally loved learning about such personal aspects of influencers’ lives. Ashray’s relationship with his adoptive mom made me nervous from the beginning as I sensed that the writer was building up for a tragedy to come. Whats amazing about Savi’s writing is the fluidity of her prose — how she narrates an entertaining story sifting in and out of really meaningful perspectives.

“We expect that grief comes with an expiry date and that, after that date, everything should return to the way it was.” I couldn’t agree more — we are so desperate to “fix” grief, we allow almost no time for it to linger. Change, loss, heartbreak is so hard and even the memory of it makes us relive pains of pang. Yet we try to jump right back into a routine, pushing all feelings under the rug, to conform and do as “expected of human beings to cope.”

The coming of age of Jhanvi and the intertwining of her life with Ashray’s is a post-cute romance and a celebration of friendship, support and trust. I did enjoy the perspectives from the friends, Kavya and Rishi and the therapist himself towards the end.

I hope my daughter Savi is as inspirational as her namesake Savitri and as the writer Savi Sharma.