I have deliberately avoided hopping on the modern Indian "love stories" bandwagon because my past experiences with them have been, em, unsatisfactory to use a euphemism for the different swear words which I want to write.
I really, actually desperately wanted this to be something different from the thousands of similarly themed, hackneyed tripe available in the market. Its cover page boldly proclaims this to be a national bestseller. Hence, I desperately wanted this to be super awesome because even after being in print for close to four years, it is being bought (by suckers like me) and discussed enthusiastically. To put it simply, I wanted to be proud of a "national bestseller".
This is supposedly autobiographical and the author, through the narrator Ravin, tells the story of his ill fated romance with a girl called Khushi.
This is a book of two parts. The first part lasts for around 180 pages and the second for a mere 20.
The first 180 has many incidents which tell us how Ravin fell for Khushi, how they used to address each other and their intimate moments. My grouse is not with the prose of the book which is truly terrible. It is with the cliches. There is no such thing as a whiff of fresh air. The characters are as cardboard as they can get. Yes, there were few moments which made me smile because I remembered doing something similar three years back. But then, to go on harping about similarly themed incidents throughout the length of the book seems over the top and gratuitous.
The last 20 are well written. The reader can feel the author's agony and they are the ones which lift this book from the truly terrible to the barely readable.
I am thankful to Flipkart (as usual). This was available for 50% discount when I bought it. Spending something close to 150 bucks on this seems a cardinal sin in retrospect.
Stay away from this. If you want to read good romance, I would recommend the earlier Sparks and David Nicholls's One Day.
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