Book Review:Highly Recommended by Atikah Zainol

Contengan Jalanan by Hlovate

One book, 2 stories.

This is a book like no other. It touches my heart. I can guarantee this book will instantly make you fall in love with its story too. It's not like the typical Malay novel that brings the love theme between a man and a woman (Mind you, not that I completely condemned this kind of theme ). Somehow, I really am searching for a book that can inspire me and at the same time provided me with a nice storyline.*wink2* and here it is.. Contengan Jalanan..

Fend

Fender~ Fend & Fender

The earlier part of the story, tells the reader about Fend or his real name Affendy. He's a guy with so much passion in arts. With his jamming buddies (which they called "creepy hues")~Fend,K2, Paan, Azad and Erdi, he feels his life is way too good. He feels incomplete without his guitar, camera, Dell, HTC and Ipod. He is confident that his life is perfect.

For him, art & music.

That's life.

Some of the quotes:

Kerja bukan lagi beban kalau dah tu memang benda yang kita suka lakukan.

Semua orang sebenarnya sama saja, tak ada beza.Tapi kehendak diri sendiri yang sebenarnya mampu buat kita jadi luar biasa.

But his life changed 180 degrees when he met a girl named Amalia, or Lia at the X-Games Tournament.( Mind you, you are far from right if you assume that this story will be revolving around the cliche love story). Lia manage to grab Fend's attention as she is no ordinary girl.

Fend's life changed when he met Lia by coincidence, and she gave him one CD, with a tagline" the man who decided to change on the 12th hour dies on the 11th". The words then keep repeating over and over again inside his head. It makes him think:

You still got a lot of life ahead of you, man. Don't waste it doing the wrong things. And what's worse is ended up doing the wrong thing.

The story gets better and better when Irsyad or Chad ~Fend's cousin asked him to go backpacking to Sydney, Australia. Here, they go for a masjid-hopping. Sounds cool enough right?=) In Sydney, Fend and Chad learnt a lot of things that they never imagine they going to acquire. As they went there, in the fasting month, I can really feel their excitement in fulfilling their duties and at the same time travelling. Then, they stop at one of the mosque there ~ Punchbowl Mosque and stay there until their break ends. (iktikaf)

Australia

The three sisters-Blue Mountain

Reciting the Quran, learn about the hadiths, perform solat berjemaah ,solat sunat and qiamullail. How awesome! The author describe it so well till I feel how great it is to embark the exactly same journey and adventure as Fend and Chad has gone through. At punchbowl mosque, they met several great men. I don't know why, but I can truly understand how close and good their relations are.

Owh, forgive me. This is just my book review. I got carried away. I do feel like complimenting and analysing every chapter of the splendid novel. Hehe..You must read it yourself to know what exactly happen after this that makes my tears roll down my cheeks. (Yeah2..I am that sensitive)

K2

This 2nd story has merely the same impact just like the 1st story did to me. It's about Fend best friend, K2 or Ku Kamaruzzaman's journey to learn the true meaning of life. At the beginning, Fend gives the CD that Lia gave him with a hope, K2 will realize. With a little hope K2 will no longer believes in " There's no such thing as 'wrong' in arts. You will figure it out later how K2 changes that phrase into " There's no such thing as ' wrong' in arts provided that Islam is a given".

Somehow, Fend realized " Hati tu Allah yang pegang, bukannya orang. Hidayah dan petunjuk tu memang hanya Allah yang bagi. Benda dan perkara yang sama tak semestinya memberikan kesan yang sama juga kepada penerima yang berbeza"

At this second part of the book, the author leaves plenty of Al-Quran verses and quotes that I feel really beneficial and affected me a lot. To highlight a few:

Life is full of changes. And surprises. And the inexplicable(s)

To live is to learn, and to learn is to live. Live. Learn.

That Allah may forgive you your sins of the past and the future, and complete His favour on you, and guide you on the Straight Path~( al- Fath:2)

See you not how Allah sets forth a parable? A goodly word as goodly tree, whose root is firmly fixed, and its branches (reach) to the sky ( i.e very high)~(Ibrahim:24)

The storyline gets exciting and enthralling when K2 when to Jakarta, Indonesia. Here, he founds the real meaning of life. Want to know what is the incident that changed his mind and perspectives?, owning this book is a must. Without any hesitation, I rated this book with 5 stars!

( See~it clearly shows how much I love this book) hehe..

The scenery of Jakarta, Indonesia

Yahoo..!My visit to Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair was worth it as I managed to buy this spectacular book! Actually, I was hoping to meet the author ~Hlovate~her (I think) personally. Her identity was anonymous.Still a mystery.. She's the one who requested it. She need her own privacy. I understand and fully respect it. But deep in my heart, I wish I can meet her. I really admire her writing and I want to thank her for creating " Contengan Jalanan ".

That's all from me now. Till we meet again in the next post. Chaow!=)