Hey everyone. Hope you all are doing well. The book which I am going to review today has a very different theme; a theme that I do not usually read. But this book made this theme very interesting to read! It is…sports. So, the title of this wonderful book is “Loki Takes Guard”. This book is written by Menaka Raman and the cover is designed by Ekta Bharti. The book does not have any illustrations and is a novel. And yes, this is the first time I am reviewing a novel!

The story is set in a first-person narrative. The protagonist, Lokanayaki Shanmugam, who prefers to be called Loki, is an eleven-year-old who is crazy about cricket. The story begins with the introduction of the place she lives in, L’Eiffel Abhirami, a pink apartment in Temple Street III Cross, Chennai. She loves to play cricket and was coached by Coach Amir who is the father of her best friends; Rajina and Rubina. She was the only girl who was coached with a group of boys to play for their local team, Temple Street Tankers. When she reached her sixth grade, Coach told her that she could not play anymore for the team because it was a decision taken by the management. She gets furious in hearing this that she stomps away to her house.

As time passes, she meets a lady named Malati who lives in her apartment. Malati was a person who fought for rights. When Loki tells Malati her story, even she gets mad at hearing and wants to help Loki to get her right to play for the team and teaches her how to make a petition. Later that week, Malati records a video of Loki where she reads out her petition which talks about how the management is not allowing her to play. Soon, two journalists come to Loki’s house and ask her views about her petition. Loki gets very confused because Malati told that she would not post it somewhere. The journalists then explained to her that she is a famous persona on Twitter for her petition was posted on Twitter by @_poetic_paati. Since then, people start to retweet the petition and sign for it. Loki’s mother gets very mad at hearing this and suspects that Malati would have done this. Due to this, she also becomes very popular at school and she does not like this. The rest of the story answers these two questions- Does she get into the team? Does she find out who is @_poetic_paati?

This book is about perseverance, will power and friendship. The one line that stood out to me was “I am the one and only Lokanayaki in a world of Tia-Kia-Nia-Pia and Reenas.” I liked this line because being unique in your own way is all that matters. While reading, Loki’s mother reminded me of the typical Indian housewives as shown in most of the soap operas. The book is straightforward yet astounding and can be read by anyone above 10 years of age. Click here to check this book out on Amazon. I love the cover design because it is very elegant. One suggestion would be the inclusion of illustrations. Overall; I would like to give this book 9 out of 10.

This is it for the review. If you liked reading it, do comment down below 😀