I’ve been going through a major chick lit phase that has lasted longer than I thought it would! Just finished reading ‘Almost Single’ by Advaita Kala. It’s a very witty book. You know the ‘smart’ funny kinds?It’s a story about a 29 year old girl (or is she over 30? I forget) who works in the hospitality industry & her two other friends – a girl from Bhatinda who is desperate to find an NRI to marry & registers on matrimonial websites to increase her chances of getting picked up by some NRI, and another who is about to get divorced from her husband of 5 years. The book is about how the first two girls find love, while the third begins a new life - not with another man but with a brand new career!
Advaita Kala often gives amazing insight on some home truths of singledom & the dating world. Of course, there is the quintessential hot man in this book too like in all other books 'by a chick & for chicks', but this book is as much about issues faced by single working women living in cities away from their hometowns, tyrannical bosses, bitchy/psycophant colleagues, philandering husbands & the constant battle against weight by women who aren’t genetically blessed with wafer-thin bodies! Totally hits home :)
The book isn’t laugh-out funny, unlike, say ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ or 'Bridget Jones' Diary', but there is this one scene that had me in splits. The protagonist, sick of being referred to as "a girl with a rather large frame" or "a girl of generous proportions", decides to take her life in her own hands & goes back to gym after a gap of 2-3 months. The instructor gives her a hard time for having missed gym (from personal experience, I can tell you that most gym instructors are evil). At the gym, she runs into the guy she has a crush on. She’s on the treadmill, and in order to prove to him that she too can run, she jacks up the speed. And just then the instructor yells “Stop pehelwan! If you run like this today, you won’t come to gym for the next 6 months!!” The guy she has a crush on is on the treadmill next to her!
Read the book if you want a light funny read. I promise you it doesn’t get mushy, emotional or overly romantic at any point of time :)
4 comments:
i know. one of the best by an indian author. Try Piece of Cake by Swati Kaushal. Not bad either. The humour is almost too much...a bit forced at times but on the whole a good read.
I'm slightly wary of Indian female authors writing chick lit right now! Read 'You Are Here' by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan a few months ago & it was THE WORST book I have read EVER! She incidentally is the author of the blog 'The Compulsive Confessor'. The book is an off-shoot of her blog. It's like the publishing house offered her a shitload of money which she couldn't refuse, so she came up with the crappiest book ever! Advaita Kala was heavily recommended, so I picked it up. Will check out Piece of Cake...but will try to read an excerpt online first :)
I picked up Meenakshi Madhavan's book...is it that bad???
@Moonshine - Take it back to the bookstore RIGHT NOW! Exchange it for another book. It's HORRIBLE! There is no story whatsoever. It's a complete waste of time.
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