Book Stop Corner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote. They are usually the ones worth writing about.”



Judy Balan and Kishore Manohar, two Indian writers, pen a sarcastic tale in contrast to the popular India writer, Chetan Bhagat's book, Half Girlfriend in their new book, Half Boyfriend. This book, in short, is a parody to Bhagat's book and the authors have diligently portrayed the sarcasm and the criticism of Bhagat's story thereby inventing a hilarious tale of a boy-girl love story.





Synopsis:

A fun and clever (and shameless!) parody of Chetan Bhagat's Half Girlfriend.

In Half Boyfriend, a feudal rich boy from a village courts a gorgeous city brat who has a weakness for lost causes. They go through a series of pointless events and unbelievable coincidences in a dead-end plot that has to end with the chauvinist sleeping with the girl.


Manav, a rural Prince of a village in Bihar, meets the rich and posh Delhi girl, Rhea. Manav uses his charm of not speaking correct English to befriend Rhea but things get worse, when he practically starts stalking her and the girl had to get a restraining order, but Manav knows that Rhea is the one for his heart and no matter what, he will wait for her till she understands that she too loves him. Yes the climax is predictable if you have read the book that is based on, but the story is so entertaining and funny, that it will keep the readers rooted.

Okay for my non-Indian friends, I must clarify a bit about Indian marriage system. Well in our country, people often marry within their or higher than their social strata, so most of the time, if a village guy, irrespective of his financial condition, proposes to a posh city girl, then it is obvious that he will get rejected by the girl. Moreover, the society will judge the girl if she marries someone below her social status. What to do, this is way, how our narrow-minded Indian society works! And kudos to such culture!!

So back to the review. The authors have penned the tale with a myriad of emotions ranging from fun to poignant to anger and have strikingly portrayed them thus making their readers to feel the story deeply. The authors writing style is strong yet it lacked from expressiveness. The narrative is light and at times will make the readers go completely ROFL. And thank god, the authors have not used that crappy Hinglish (Hindi + English) language in the book. The readers will be impressed with the quality of the speech used in this book. The pacing is really fast as the story has an ability to arrest the minds of the readers right from the beginning and will keep them hooked till the very end.

The authors have used so many references in their book that point directly to Bhagat's book, Half Girlfriend, that will definitely amuse the readers, both a Bhagat fan and a non-Bhagat fan. This is a parody but that gives birth to a witty story laced with criticism to the original book.

The characters are an absolute fun and are highly realistic. The protagonist, Manav, is a determined young man, whose only aim is to win the heart of the girl who will be the princess/queen of his village. He used improper English to stalking to waiting patiently to using people to other such slightly evil means to charm his lady love. Manav will warm the hearts of the readers and will keep them glued till the very end. The rest of the supporting characters, like the three friends of Manav, to Manav's mother, they all will make the readers feel like reading about everyday flawed characters. Overall, the characters of this book will keep the readers interested to the story.

Overall, this is an absolute treat for Chetan Bhagat haters and they must not miss out this book.

Verdict: An entertaining and hysterically funny parody of Chetan Bhagat's latest book.

Courtesy: Thanks to both Goodreads and Bloomsbury India for the book.
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Author Info:
Author of Two Fates: The Story of My Divorce, Sophie Says: Memoirs of a Breakup Coach, How to Stop Your Grownup From Making Bad Decisions (Nina the Philosopher #1), Tweenache in the Time of Hashtags (Nina the Philosopher #2) and Half Boyfriend.
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Book Purchase Links:

• Amazon US
• Amazon India