Book Review: Singlehood by Wilson Awasu

About the book:

Being Single Can Feel Frustrating... Try a Change of Perspective! There can be many complex emotions tied up in the idea of being single. Societal pressures, self-esteem, loneliness, a sense of where you fit in the world...it can seem overwhelming or even depressing. Singlehood is a refreshing look at what it means to be single. Follow Lisa as she learns valuable lessons about herself, and challenges long-held misconceptions that hold many people back. Do you look for a potential partner with a laundry list of must-haves, ignoring your own dysfunctions? Are you more focused on what someone can give to you, rather than on what you will bring to a partnership? Are you locked into the idea that people who don't have children aren't fulfilling their calling in life? And do you believe that as a single person, you aren't who you are supposed to be. Properly benefiting from singlehood can be the most powerful tool in transitioning to a successful marriage. Let Singlehood open your eyes to a new way of thinking, and learn along with Lisa how to enjoy being single, and how to learn the skills that will let you take charge of the experience of singlehood, turning it into a time for growth and blossoming, rather than bitterness and frustration.

About the Author:

Wilson Awasu (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) has been given the opportunity to observe people’s relational patterns during decades of teaching and interacting with college students, missionaries, and hundreds of people both within and outside the church. This book shares his tremendous insights, taken from experience with eligible singles, never-married singles, married couples both with and without children, widows, widowers, and divorcées. Dr. Awasu is the author of Kim’s Confessions, Kathy’s Good News, and Family Likeness. He and his wife Anna live in Lakeville, Minnesota.

My Review:

The theme of the book is naturally intriguing in a society which views the matters of marriage and single-hood very seriously and where marital status is both a measure of happiness and sorrow. Well, to begin with, the book does touch up on subjects of everyone's concerns: simple things like how we have an irrational tendency to grow our self-esteem based upon how we perform at relationships, or how we tend to overrate the act of being in a relationship. everything leads to one fact: the frustration that we feel on being single is unnatural, it is something the societal constructs force us to feel.

So, we first need to fall in love with ourselves, before being able to commit the time and energy that any relationship requires.
The book reads in the form of a workshop and seeks to address all queries.
Now, although the theme is universal, the approach is not. It is a christian book, which means that the way it chooses might not appeal to everyone. But then, the universality of the theme makes it possible for any reader to relate to it. It even talks about forgiveness and healing, things which play a major role in determining relationship success, but many people know not of.

 My Judgement:

 If you are game for a Christian self-help, get reading!

Find the book:

                                                                     

Book Review: My Happily Forever by Shifalika Kanwar, Kaysa

About the book:

My Happily Forever is a romantic fiction, portraying the life of the beautiful and talented Pia Sharma who has only two things on her to do list before turning thirty. One - manage her own team at JB Standards, a private banking firm in New York City. Two - find, fall in love and marry her own Mr Darcy, her knight in shining armour who would think that her crazy family is adorable. Alas! She is stuck with a boss from hell who has it in for her. Working donkey hours makes it impossible for her to have social life. And Mr Darcy never attends the scary weekend svayamvars her meddlesome relatives set up.

In despair, Pia undertakes a secret mission. With a bartender as her Fairy Godmother and her eccentric, gossip loving BFFs for guides, she arms herself with the top ten dating books in an effort to master the law of attraction. But when her efforts to find her Prince Charming yield some unexpected results, her entire life is thrown upside down.

To what lengths will she go to find her Mr Right? Does Pia have what it takes to fight for her happily ever after?



Paperback 240 pages
Published 2013 by Grapevine



My Review:
Grapevine India has been publishing some real heart-rendering chick=lit stuff. This one is an exception in that it is an episodic novel, dealing with a girl's life. First and foremost I commend the authors, like quite, for their portrayal of the protagonist Pia and her family: an unorthodox father, a concerned-about-daughter mother, the dire matrimonial attempts, relatives who would stuff you before they slaughter you, a string of prospective grooms who somehow always manage to let you down. this is such a humorous account of the ordeal (no exaggeration intended) that Pia's facing.
The opening sentence itself lends hilarity to the whole task of reading. the humour and puns, which the novel is so replete with, are so addictive that you almost succumb to it and find yourself in the place of Pia, feeling a surge of the same emotions as her, and with the same intensity. So, while the girls reading this book can relate to her in entirety, they might as well start laughing at their own status quo.
This book is a must read for all Indian girls especially, living here and abroad, whether from orthodox or unorthodox families, united by a common problem: the societal (read:baseless) pressure to "settle down".
At another level, the novel is a critical account of the status of single hood in our society: it is still deprecated and despised as if a curse. Girls like Pia are compelled to find their "happily forever" and then this already fantastical notion of Happily-ever-after is peppered with the yearning for a Mr. Right, prince Charming, and other abhorrent names you might give straight out of some Bollywood movie.
And then, more than anything else, it is a contemporary story, so it also depicts the professional roadblocks faced by the girl. There are relatives more desperate than herself. People just don't seem to understand that it is a decision of a lifetime, that it is not undone casually, that it remains forever,....you get the drift.
If I had to choose the best part of the whole story, it is undoubtedly going to be the character etching. The authors have had some real skill in creating hilarious, eccentric, despicable, endearing characters, all at once.
BFFs who laugh hysterically while watching movies, who keep pulling your leg when you equip yourselves with books on dating, but nevertheless rescuing you from the abyss of the singlehood-syndrome!
The relatives, who butcher you every weekend in the guise of your well-wisher.
the parents, who've been pestered enough by relatives to believe that their daughter has to get married, no alternatives, no questions asked!
A string of foolish boys: some desperate to live-in, some to conceal their sexuality. A boss who could not have been more hateful, whose absence ironically augments work productivity.
So, if you are in for a light read, which you can relate to, go treat yourself NOW!
In fact, this is a must-read book for every girl out there....