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More than just an IIT memoir—a sensitive coming-of-age account. Lovely set pieces, but no central character does anything to grab the reader.
The strength of the IIT brand and its implicit values of considerable intellect needed to get in—and equal mental powers to get out—is one reason the IITs have so far dominated the young genre of the Indian college novel. This debut novel should sell because of this alone. Still, it’s more than just an IIT memoir, although in fact it explores an exceptionally rarefied world; of the ubermensch in computer science, the top 3-5 per cent of IITians. Above Average is also a sensitive coming-of-age account of a young Bengali growing up in Delhi.
And yet the book is let down by its subject matter more than anything else. Its many set pieces—riffs on entrance exam madness, a rock competition gone madly awry, a first kiss by an old well—are lovely. And the protagonist, Arindam Chatterjee, is a likeable guy. But no central character does anything to grab the reader. If only Chatterjee had been a bit of a bad boy, this pleasantly anodyne book might have been well above average.