Stoned: The Untold Story of CO-Weed-20-Gautam Mayekar

Book: Stoned: The Untold Story of CO-Weed-20
Author: Gautam Mayekar
Publisher: Half Baked Beans

What is your favorite song by Nucleya?

Stoned: The Untold Story of Co-Weed-20 by Gautam Mayekar is the story of Amar, who travels back in time and is narrating his story into the Voice Data Recorder of the time machine he uses. He is stuck alone in the machine with Mohit, his friend who made the machine, and the only person who knew how to operate it getting tested CO-Weed-20 positive and going to a permanent sleep. With the entire city of Mumbai afflicted with the same effects of CO-Weed-20, Amar only has twelve hours to find a cure, or the machine will disintegrate. Before it does, Amar will reveal the secrets behind the production of the deadly drug – CO-Weed-20 and how it all went awry. Find out the identity of Amar and the ultimate fate of him and the entire city.

The plot of the book is unique in the sense that it is a series of blog posts compiled to form the story, so each of the chapter has its own unique identity and yet has a common thread that propels the story forward. Satirical writing is one of Gautam’s talents and he uses it to its maximum here. He has taken the concept of getting intoxicated and then used his writing to extend it to ridiculous proportions that make it a fun read. Amar’s journey is captivating as it has both elements-relatable, as well as some scenes that seem extremely farfetched, giving the reader a chance to smile and laugh at moments. The language is easy to comprehend. The plot flows seamlessly and maintains the tempo of the storytelling till the end. One thing that could have been improved is the editing, as I noticed that a couple of scenes were repeated in 2 chapters. While the climax is well executed, I would have loved to see a couple of more chapters after the climax and the reality. One thing that I must commend on is Gautam’s use of Nucleya’s music to accentuate his plot and establish characters.

Coming to the characters, Amar is a well-executed character, and he propels the plot in the way it goes. His ideas are detailed, and his perspective of the world is quite unique and explored well in the plot. Another thing I liked Amar was his out of the box ideas and his zeal to execute them. Joanna was another interesting character, who I thought could have been explored well and used to bring out some more parallel tracks in the story. Another character I would like to highlight here is that of the time machine, and for me that was the crucial character, without which the events would have not transpired.

Overall, a fresh and breezy read that scores a 4.19/5 for me. 

Grab a copy of the book from Amazon here.
(This is an Amazon Associates Link)

P.S. I did create a Spotify Playlist of the songs mentioned in the book. Check it out here.