(03) Chucking the Dragon by Mark Wilde (Not the author's real name)

This is a very dark take on a student and a teenager from Sri Lanka, Colombo. And according to the writer it's a true story.

This is very bleak stuff. It's getting darker by the chapter. But it's a necessity in my opinion. It's eye opening. You get to see this things that happen in newspapers of Sri Lanka quite often that I thought that is not true, but this book goes deeply into these areas like Colombo Night Life, drugs, trade, sex trafficking, subcultures and NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations).

Though you first feel that the book is so unreal and emotionally flat it's deep rooted cultural and social explanations are amazing. Therefore as a reading experience for a Sri Lankan it is great, but with a serious depressive tone in writing.

I find myself in the character who is addicted to western entertainment which later opened my eyes to to slowly reduce it. ( A positive learning from the book.)

The writer or the person in the book is a child, a youth confused in cultures and people.

A misguided soul.

Just like me. I myself is in the same boat. So the novel feels mutual.

When he refers to the Sri Lankan war time incidents, it feels close to us.

For the first time when I read the book I hated the story teller. He was snobbish, arrogant and a soulless creep.

And when you slowly give time you find your heart bleeding for him.

A lost child who did not quite make it like others.

The book opens our mind to question our existence. The novel represents one of the darkest parts of a Sri Lankan youth and by this revealing it establishes a point of mind that we as a country need to change in going into the future as a nation and a society.

And it is good to see a lovely ending for the novel the story teller finding realisation in life.

Sometimes the aspects revealed by the novelist is haunting.

This revelation is a need in the current society.

A recommended read to every Sri Lankan.

Read it with an open mind.

This book feels like a homage to films like "Trainspotting (1996)" and "A clockwork Orange (1971)".