Book Review: What A Boy Wants by Nyrae Dawn

About the book:

Title: What A Boy Wants

Paperback, 272 pages
Published September 26th 2013 by Headline Eternal 

Genre: YA Romance

Rating: 3/5

Blurb:
Courtesy of watching his mom's relationships, Sebastian Hawkins knows what girls need to do to get a guy. He has what he considers a PHD in hooking up. When he needs extra cash for a car, Sebastian starts up an online venture as The Hook-up Doctor, to anonymously help girls land the guy of their dreams. Of course, his services don't offer a happily-ever-after guarantee. He's seen firsthand getting together never means staying together.

And then he falls in love...
With the last girl he would expect...
Totally not in his game plan.

Suddenly, Sebastian finds himself muddled in the game he's always prided himself on. He can't even pick up girls at parties anymore! Why would anyone want to be in love when it turns you into a stuttering, screwed-up, mess with really lame stalker tendencies? Stalking? Totally not his gig.

But the Hook-up Doctor won't let himself go down easily. He's always known how to give a girl what she wants and now it's time to figure out what a boy wants... and he definitely plans on getting it.

About the author

Is a compulsive reader and writer who loves YA fiction. Loves nothing more than writing about young adults. Lives in Southern California with husband and two children.

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My Review:

I received this book in a giveaway, and was excited by the blurb. I wanted it to be one of those entertaining as hell reads, that makes you double-up when the girl and boy bump into each other, or avoid each other. But...
A very cliched plot. A guy who plays hook-up doctor, much like the beaten-to-death concept of Love Guru, is a witness to failed relationships. He saw multiple break-ups and divorces of his mom and he has no damn to give about relationships.

He also has a steady friend circle, Sebastian Pris, Aspen and Jaden didn't impress upon me instantly, although their banter was amusing, and very amateurish. They talked like really young middle-graders.
Fav line? "If you mess this up, I will mess you up too!" That's what girl best friends are for.
The story does have some feels, and was an enjoyable read when you have a few hours handy, without the energy to commit to a long, deep book.
The part showing love is messy and difficult were really entertaining. But even that dragged a lot.
The fact that Sebastian was getting to know it better, chapter after chapter, was what salvaged the whole romance. Loved that bit.

Maybe it was the first-person narration, but it seemed to stretch for no reason. I almost went over and shouted over the pages, addressing the boy, "pull yourself together!"
Overall, I felt that the book could have been woven stronger than this.

Links to the book:

Source of the review copy: Won in a giveaway

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Book Review: Rescued by Love by Shilpa Suraj

About the book:

Paperback
180 pages
Harlequin India: Mills & Boon
MRP: Rs 150

When Naina Ahuja is kidnapped as hostage days before her father, a Supreme Court Chief Justice, must sentence a terrorist, the stakes are very high. Lt Col Arjun Rathore and his team are the only ones who can be trusted with the mission of saving her. 
During their arduous trek back through the hostile terrain of Ladakh, Arjun and Naina spend days in danger of losing their lives - and their hearts. Back in safety, the real world and its very real problems threaten – as do their own perceptions of the differences between them. 
They must separate – but will life rescue their love?

About the author:

Shilpa was a year and a half when she was first introduced to the world of books. Her mother would park her with a picture book on the floor of the kitchen while she finished her cooking for the day. While it’s no longer the kitchen floor, you can still find her tucked away in a cosy nook somewhere with her nose buried in a book. While books in all genres interest her, it was romance that captured her heart. While racing through every romantic fiction book she could beg, borrow or buy, her over active imagination started to work overtime and weave its own stories. Years in the corporate world followed by a stint of entrepreneurship crystallised her belief that all she really wanted to do was give life to the stories bubbling inside of her. She briefly managed to tear herself away from the world of fiction to find her own personal happily ever after and now spends her time happily focusing on the two loves of her life – family and writing romances.

My Review:

The first thing that comes to mind in the aftermath of reading the book is that we just read a sweet feel-good story. 

This is the story, a quintessential Mills and Boon, with a twist. 

Naina, daughter of the Chief Justice of India and Col. Arjun  fall in love with each ither during a rescue mission.  The girl is betrothed to a Fatty politician who she obviously didn't want to marry even before this mission in the first place, the love gives her an added excuse. She says, "Marrying a man you didn't want was bad enough but marrying him when you wanted another would be torture"

But this is dear life, and nothing is less than twisted. There are other problems to look after: a servile mother, a domineering sonavabitch father, principles, the  crooked, intricate concept of honour. 

A leap of 6 months and fates will be decided. This is where you need to pick up the novel and see for yourselves what happens in the story next. Which means that I am asking you to read it. Which further means that this is a novel worth reading.

Character sketches are impeccable: the incorrigible father who would rather not go back on his words lest they backfire than break a marriage. Just like that. This character is crafted meticulously, because sad though it be, such people exist in flesh and bones and arrogance and  much more. And such a character and its obstinacy makes the ending of the novel believable, and satisfying.

M&B novels are supposed to entertain you with romantic descriptions and a surreal boy-meets-girl-falls-in-love plot. This book manages to honour this image so well.

That said, it comes with its set of flaws. For one, it is a quick, fast-paced read. I, who can savour books for hours at stretch finished this book in a couple of hours. Because reader can be kept longing for more. Not more plot, the plot has been done right. Great even. The timings. The setting. The  characters. Everything flows seamlessly into the plot. What reader seeks more of, is the description. Maybe a third person narration can be cited as the culprit but then the reader certainly has a right to know in detail the feelings and emotions of a character s/he has associated himself with for more than a 100 pages. So, we know Naina is getting a roller coaster of emotions, but which ones? THAT is a big question.

I also adore the wordplay within the dialogues, which were, in addition, succinct too. A great effort has gone into them.

 This is where the characters lack. This is where everything gets neutral. The characters' actions will have you nodding in appreciation and not knowing their emotions would have you creasing your lips and forehead, both the things cancelling out to make it a great read, if not a brilliant one.

My Judgement:

When all is said and done, such a novel's gotta be read. 

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Book review: Bad Romance by Harshita Srivastava

About the book:

Life is a bitch and I’m one of its victims. I had the perfect life. I was blessed with the perfect boyfriend, a perfect best friend, the perfect set of girlfriends and perfect choice of career. There were some loopholes but then they went beyond my perspective. Overall, I had the kind of life people would ideally like to have but happy times aren’t meant to last forever.

Sometimes we feel that we have figured life but that’s something that is never going to happen. You know why? It’s because it has this habit of kicking us right in the middle of ecstasy. No wonder, it did the same with me.

This is my story, my story of that exploration within, my feelings, my emotions, my thought process, my priorities, my conflicts and my journey into the temptation of love, lust, lies and betrayals. This is the story of Kritika and a man who gave her life another dimension, Tanishq. This is a story of the complexities of relationships and the trap that a simple idea of sensuality, pleasure and euphoria can put you into. This is a story for everyone who has loved, lost and fought for survival and love, together.

About the Author:

A full-time writer, Harshita Srivastava is the author of 'One In A Million' that got published by Mahaveer Publishers in April 2013 in her final year of Mechanical Engineering at G.L.Bajaj Institute of Technology and Management, Noida. She is an avid reader and a prolific blogger. She loves reading classics and is a diehard Mills and Boons fan. She loves to see happiness around her so she’ll always be found motivating people or making them smile. Apart from writing, she loves travelling, reading, listening to music and spending time with friends and family. She is currently working on her second novel 'Bad Romance'.

My Review:

The tagline "Love, Lies and Betrayal" aptly sums up the themes around which the novel revolves. It is the story of any girl-next-door. Life in a hostel, a string of relationships, et al form the core of the plot.
The best part of the novel is that it comes in layers: First, it manifests itself as a fairy tale romance, then it resurfaces as a story of two people oscillating between infatuation and superficial love (peppered with the inevitable love triangle) and finally takes a plunge when it delves into the darker human emotions, harsh living realities, and gory human frailties. It soon undergoes a metamorphosis into a saga of shattering human fallacies and an encounter with the ugly truth. And the truth is: Stories about real relationships flummox and fluster you beyond measure, that reasoning between the right and wrong becomes almost difficult. The part of novel which has an interplay of these themes is the best part.
I managed to read it and finish in a couple of hours, so it can become a good one-night-read.
The downside is that for one, there has been a lot of scope to do footwork. For instance, the character sketches could have been worked upon, because a book can get under the skin of a reader only through the characters. Also, a reader is interested in knowing the personality of characters: what makes them them. Same goes with the expression and description of critical and crucial incidents. It is for the same reason that we get abrupt beginnings and endings. Also, editing finesse has been conspicuous by its absence.
Overall, it is a kinda 3.5/5. A .5 extra for the potential of the storyline.

Best Lines:

We don't stop loving people. People die but does our love for them depreciate? It's just that we get used to being without them.

My Judgement:

A raw, bare and verbatim depiction of contemporary relationships is how this novel can be best described.

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Thank you for stopping by, and reading through!

Book Review: About Matters of the hurt By Sourabh Mukherjee

About the book:

Genre: Romance

About Matters of the Hurt: Love Stories - Round the Clock is a brisk read with lasting impact - a collection of four contemporary romantic short stories, aligned in settings and mood with the four parts of the day. The collection paints love in its various hues that make it the only emotion worth dying for. A slice of life in true sense, the book takes us on a soulful journey as we relive loves lost or found or nurtured unprofessed in the deepest recesses of our hearts.

About the Author:

Sourabh Mukherjee works in a Senior Management position in one of the world’s leading management consulting and technology services firms. Born and brought up in Kolkata, India, Mukherjee has several fictional and non-fictional publications in magazines, journals and websites –some of them date back to his early childhood. 

Mukherjee loves traveling, and is a keen observer of human behaviour and cultural diversities. He is an avid reader of fiction, and is passionate about photography, movies and music. For more information about him and his book, visit http://www.aboutmattersofthehurt.com

My Review:

A collection of 4 stories, this book seems almost customized for today's reader. Do you get those times when you have an irresistible itch to read, yet you are short of time. This is the perfect book for that occasion. the first story has a poignant angle to it, and you should wait till the end to get the satisfaction of having read through it all. The author almost surprises us with the ingenious twist in the end. Another story plays with the themes of intoxication, hidden pain, and loss of a loved one. And the last one, Love Came Calling Again, is my favourite. It has a tincture of both hopelessness and hopefulness, simultaneously. And a subtle ending is a cherry on top. The first story, poignant and heart-rendering as it is, is sure to make you pause and digest what has happened. More so because it is a short story and is supposed to end abruptly, leaving you at it. The good thing is, none of the story leaves you in a cliffhanger.

But the end certainly does leave you moved and dumbstruck for a few seconds.

And when the book proclaims that these are stories round the clock, it means it, like quite literally. 

Nothing too intense, nothing too light, the balanced approach of the book gets another thumbs up fro m us. 

We look forward to more writing from the author, now that the spark has been ignited. :)

My Judgement:

 Wanna keep up with your reading, but this is just one of those days where you cannot commit to novels, yet yearn for contemporary romance? Grab a copy!

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