Sameer Gudhate presents the Book Review of The Whispering Delulu by Dr. Sohil Makwana

There’s a certain thrill in picking up a book by an author you already trust to mess with your mind — in the best way possible. For me, that’s what happened when I cracked open The Whispering Delulu by Dr. Sohil Makwana. I’d read his Murdrum duology and The Sleepwalker’s Lullaby before, so I knew to expect sharp twists and a mind-bending premise. What I didn’t expect was just how strange, layered, and intoxicating this new one would be. It’s the kind of book that refuses to sit quietly in your mind; it pokes, teases, and whispers to you long after you’ve put it down.

At its heart, the story follows Mohini — who wakes from a coma with no memory, paralysed, and trapped in a wheelchair. No past, no identity, no anchor to the world. The only constant is the mysterious man who claims to care for her and the strange yellow pill he places on her tongue. And then comes the whisper. Not just a voice, but a high-tech entity promising her the strength of a superwoman. Somewhere in the shadows, an ancient prophecy stirs, one that hints at doomsday and threads itself into her fractured sense of reality. Is she simply the victim of a bizarre psychological disorder, or is she something far more dangerous?

Makwana’s writing is a fascinating cocktail — part clinical precision, part fever dream. You feel the medical expertise in the way he sketches rare disorders like Munchausen syndrome by proxy, but he doesn’t forget to infuse it with myth, sensory imagery, and moments that feel like they could belong in a Christopher Nolan screenplay. He shifts between timelines and perspectives with the confidence of someone who knows exactly how much to reveal and when. The result is a narrative that keeps you off balance but never completely lost — the perfect state for a thriller like this.

Mohini herself is unforgettable. She’s not your standard superhero figure; her transformation from a helpless, paralysed woman to something far more powerful is messy, painful, and deeply human. And then there’s iGenie, the mysterious, possibly imaginary companion — equal parts eerie and oddly comforting. Their relationship, strangely tender in places, became one of my favourite parts of the book.

The plot is a tautly woven net of multiple timelines, flashbacks, and rapid shifts in tension. One moment, you’re immersed in Mohini’s slow, nerve-wracking recovery; the next, you’re plunged into a high-octane sequence where nothing feels certain. The twists aren’t just tacked-on surprises — they’re the kind that make you mentally flip back through earlier chapters to see how you missed the clues.

Underneath all the suspense, the novel wrestles with themes of identity, manipulation, and the way stories — myths, prophecies, even lies we tell ourselves — shape reality. It also brushes against darker societal undercurrents: the psychological scars of colonisation, the ethics of medical intervention, the fragility of trust. The book made me think about how easily perception can be engineered, how truth and delusion sometimes wear the same face.

The emotional ride was intense. There were moments that punched me in the gut — Mohini’s confusion, her first taste of strength, the flicker of hope in the unlikeliest places. And then there were stretches that left me feeling deliciously uneasy, like I’d just heard someone breathe behind me in an empty room.

Makwana’s strengths here are undeniable: his ability to blend medical realism with speculative invention, his knack for writing twists that feel both shocking and inevitable, and his creation of a central character who is both fragile and formidable. If I had to nitpick, I’d say some of the more technical sections — especially the pill mechanics and certain survival calculations — ran a little long for my taste. I get the intent (and fans of hard science fiction will eat it up), but I occasionally found myself skimming. Still, the momentum always pulled me back in.

Personally, this book hit that sweet spot between cerebral and visceral. If you’ve ever enjoyed films like Inception, Interstellar, or the disorienting mind games of M. Night Shyamalan, you’ll feel right at home here. It’s also a great pick for readers looking to push beyond standard thrillers into something stranger, more ambitious, and unapologetically genre-bending.

By the time I closed the book, I wasn’t just impressed — I was unsettled in a way I secretly love. It’s the rare thriller that makes you both race through pages and pause to sit with its ideas. For me, The Whispering Delulu was a solid 4.5 out of 5 — a book I’ll be pressing into the hands of anyone who says, “I want something different.” Just be warned: it whispers back.

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