Excerpted from the book review by Auyon Acharya:

The author Amitabha Bagchi has a nice way of narration which gets you hooked on to the book.

Is it worth spending your time reading this book? Well, yes!

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From the very first page, the words pitter patter, thoughts flow and dialogue is easy and natural. The first chapter captures the tension that the average IIT aspirant goes through. Right from the fact that few even know why they're taking the exam.

There's a lucidity to Bagchi's writing - a touch of bhodrolok - that is often absent from his contemporaries.

A hugely welcome debut.

Bagchi's lead man Arindam (Rindu, for friends) doesn't fit the goofy, bashful youngster staple from recent works by Indian writers, set in similar premises. He has a quiet composed air about him that plays along fine with the averageness of his life.

Above Average is horribly reminiscent of a lot of Indian college life. There are the students who are competitive and face heartbreak from cleverer peers on a regular basis; those who make your stories their storiesl those who make up grand tales to impress and are then found out; teachers who humiliate and themselves have feet of clay....

These are authentic characters with authentic dialogue ...

Excerpted from Follies of academic life, Kanchan Mehta, 29 April 2007

Based on the author's early life experiences, Above Average, Amitabha Bagchi's debut novel, recalls Joyce's Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man and Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.

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Bagchi has an honest candour in realising that IITians lead a hermetic, rarefied existence and so frequently brings in events of the outside world. Sensitive to issues of gender and caste, he attempts to address these concerns through allusions to the problems that SC quota students ... face.

Excerpted from Book Review by Aaman Lamba, 9th April 2007

Like in the fairy tale genre, all quests in the novel cause great suffering, and are futile. A desire to be 'above average' defines it's own limits, and even those with vaunting ambition reach only so far before their 'aspiration fills whatever space it occupies'. This might almost be a cautionary tale of Indian progress, with it's failed techno-entrepreneurs, rootless desis in the diaspora, and a regression to the mean.

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The author’s exploration of universal issues is helped along by a shy but ambitious protagonist. He does not avoid clichés, rather seeing their place in a campus that is already “an island in the city”. This exploration of a rare world may leave the algorithm unsolved, it is above the average it is as far as books on IIT go.

The book's subliminal sub-stories are about basic forms of human nature: jealousy, betrayal, triumph, and loss. The book also short-circuits the basic principle ... of childhood, where the world is divided in right and wrong.

It's a touching coming-of-age story -- simply written, but with a good feel for its characters and their conversations -- about how easy it is to dream big when you're young and equally easy to start compromising as you grow older.

... a more complex novel than it's branding suggests.

The pure desiness of the novel brings to you the smells, sounds and sights of Delhi. The uncles and aunties of Mayur VIhar's Society are people whose parallels you'll find in your own neighbourhood.

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.

Progressive masculinity you will not find here, but at least you won’t be bombarded with excessive testosterone either. Arindam is comfortable in his shy skin, with a sense of humour that only occasionally gets seriously self-deprecatory. The novel’s universe revolves around him; in terms of being well-rounded, he, in fact, is the only character to even come close to a semi-circle. All the others, even the theoretically-informed girlfriend, remain largely two-dimensional.

Bagchi’s biggest asset is his language. He moves smoothly from funny desi similes and Delhi-speak to lyrical description. The tone is mostly warm and light yet frank. He is most enjoyable when describing Delhi: vivid yet eerie, charming but hollow, extremely conscious of its very visible class boundaries, composed of many small towns and the clichés that follow.