Five Point Someone: What Not to Do in IIT [Paperback]

Chetan Bhagat (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 2010

Novel that traces the efforts of Indian youth to educate themselves, work out relationships in a market place dominated by IT industry. Funny and clever.

Product Details

• Paperback: 267 pages
• Publisher: Rupa and Co (December 31, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8129104601
• ISBN-13: 978-8129104601
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Needs zero stars, December 3, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Five Point Someone: What Not to Do in IIT (Paperback)

I picked up this book on my summer trip to India after reading all the hoopla it created there. Boy, was I disappointed! The story has so much potential and is clearly worth telling, but the execution...is miserable! Its success in India is just a celebration of mediocrity. The writing is so bad that it actually irritates. There are virtually NO descriptions to stimulate imagination and the book CRIES out for an editor! Take this literary gem "now i am no Einstein, or something"...and you wonder how such utter butchery of the English language made it past an editor's pen. I understand that it is supposed to reflect the colloquialisms of "Hinglish" and to tolerate that for dialogues is fine... but when used in descriptions by the author, it stinks of banality. There is no character development, no one to empathize with, and stereotypes rule. I read somewhere that he spent 3 or 4 days trying to write the lovemaking scene between Neha and Hari... and when i read the single sentence Mr Bhagat uses to describe it, i was convinced that he must have taken 12 years to write the book if a single sentence of such mediocrity took 3 days to write.
That he is an IITan, doesn't speak well for the IITs. In fact, judging by his language, his Five point grade in IIT is probably a stellar performance. On the other hand, the IITs don't teach creative writing!

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars D Minus, September 15, 2005

By 

PRADIPTA PRASUN SAHA (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Five Point Someone: What Not to Do in IIT (Paperback)

The idea is neat and long overdue, but the execution is terrible...this book reads like an elementary school kid's attempt at a short story. The style is primitive, the situations seem forced (like a formula - a book about growing up must have ingredients A,B,C,...), and I am not even commenting about certain axioms the author assumes regarding the equations between GPAs and relationships. There could not be a bigger disadvertisement for Indian writing in English.

17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars zero point zero...(generously rounded off to a 1 star rating), December 19, 2005

By 

Prashant Rao "prashy69" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Five Point Someone: What Not to Do in IIT (Paperback)

Well, the writer had potential, but alas, this book is as mediocre are it gets. The particularly harsh rating is, because, the book has a very good premise and the writer has potential. But i guess the market forces combined to give this utterly dismiss-able book.
Surprisingly,this book has been on the best seller list in India for over 2 years now and the writers new book on Call centers in India, is supposed to be the next best seller.

Well, if the writer tried to be more than superficially smart and thought through some issues, spend time to chart the character development of his protagonists, and rise above displaying the quirky exoticness of "Hinglish", then maybe he would have delivered a satisfying read. But this is just a LAME attempt