The cover blares bright lights, big city, mysterious women and plenty of mirchi. After that movie-posterish promise though, the first few pages seem a bit dry. Bhattacharyya starts off with a hard slice of reality. Protagonist Reema Ray discusses all that's wrong with her life, the gritty and far-from-glamorous Calcutta Crime-Fighters' Club makes an entrance, and it's clear this is no blonde Barb Wire we're meeting. Yes, Reema kickboxes to...
12:57 PM, Dec 04, 2012
Bareilly to Beverly Hills is the journey sixteen-year-old Shalini Agarwal makes when her father moves to a new job in Los Angeles. And that journey, along with the changes it brings for Shalini and her family, is what Kavita Daswani's 'Lovetorn' is about. This book reads like the script of a dozen Hollywood films. Teen heroine moves to new town and new school, is targeted by the hip clique, is...
03:24 PM, Nov 23, 2012
If you've spent time in hostel, consider your college friends the best you'll ever make, and get nostalgic about the person you used to be ten years ago, this book is going to touch a chord. If you've done your share of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, it'll probably make you want to write your own book too. Chances are, it won't be as well written as The Angel's Share. This...
01:31 PM, Oct 08, 2012
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace returns in Not Dead Yet with marriage on his mind- he's about to become a father as well. Of course, distractions get in the way of domestic bliss in the shape of transatlantic rock stars, murder cases, court appearances, budget cuts and police rugby matches. Born-in-Bristol rockstar Gaia is returning to shoot a Hollywood period drama at the Bristol Pavilion- after escaping an attempt on her...
04:30 PM, Aug 04, 2012
My first Hakan Nesser and I'm hooked. A young boy is killed by a hit-and-run driver and with his death begins a spiral of violence in the fictional location of Maardam. One of the victims is the estranged son of Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, venerated to mythical proportions by the police officers working the case. His grief for his son, his cautious reaching out towards his son's girlfriend, all help...
01:34 PM, Aug 04, 2012
Vibha Batra checks all possible teen-lit boxes: hunky teen hero, hormonal teen heroine, rain dances, Facebook status updates, iPod playlists, inconsiderate parents, stern principals, careless punctuation. Unfortunately a good plot is one thing that seems to have slipped through the cracks. Batra's writing is easy-breezy, her characters convincing if caricatured (the Nalli-obsessed mom, the oily-earnest neighbour, the trendy mean-cheerleader type), but dude, where's my story? Here's what happens: our heroine...
12:18 PM, Jun 25, 2012
The disclosure first: The narrative trigger for this book is the relationship between a Tam Brahm boy and a Jewish-American girl. Substitute Bengali-Agnostic for Jewish-American and this could be my love story. Well, almost. I can't boast of shifting continents and cultures in an attempt to win over my in-laws, as Deborah does in 'Chennaivaasi', but I did identify with situations and emotions on almost every page. So I'm not...
01:29 PM, Jun 08, 2012
Tuhin A Sinha's protagonist Shruti Ranjan, at first glance, could be any of us. A newspaper journalist in a live-in relationship with a TV reporter, she agrees to an arranged marriage after discovering her boyfriend is involved with her best friend. So far, so cliched. But this is not going to be a rom-com chick lit beach-read. Sinha aims at a gritty political page-turner, and even before his heroine has...
01:34 PM, May 25, 2012
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