Half Good Half Bad

                    This is probably the only Chetan Bhagat book review, where I am going to issue a spoiler alert.

                    There are a lot of reasons to hate as well as love this stupid book but according to the Bible, the sins of the author are visited upon the books and so this book gets an average review unlike the good one I gave for Five Point Someone.

                 The plot is as filmy as the rest. A famous author, who turns out to be Chetan Bhagat (surprise,  surprise!), meets Madhav Jha who gives him the journals of his dead half - girlfriend and tells him to throw it away. Unable to bear the suspense the stupid author reads the pages which are intelligible and then calls Madhav who has comfortably left his phone number and asks his story. The entire book is narrated in Madhav's perspective with a few pages of Chetan's perspective.

                  The beginning of the story is quite pointless actually. The so-called love between the rich girl, Riya Somani and the basketball whiz, Madhav Jha, Prince of Dumraon is a classic example love-at-first-sight. If that was not artificial enough, the attitude of Riya towards Madhav is as cliched as it gets. They become good friends. While that's all Riya wants, it's far from what Madhav wants, obviously. The set of problems that their relationship faces is a truck load of bullsh*t. The presence of a few like minded friends turns out to be a problem for the 'Prince'.

                   Then the book moves on to even more cliches making it into a solid film script, only with more narration. But, surprisingly this the part that I sort of like. I don't know why, maybe because it's filmy? Let's just say, it gets sorta better from there. Then the flashback ends with a supposedly shocking reveal. This then leads to a world trip and finally culminates in an awwwwwwwwwww ending. 

                   

                     Aha! I think I have it now! I like this book because although the story is just as dull as One Indian Girl or 2 States at least this one gives a lot of stuff to think about. Another legitimate reason to like this book is, it quite clearly explains the stigma against a guy who can't speak English in an English medium college, that to one as famous as St.Stephen's. Still, the book also gives a lot of stuff to hate. The characters of Riya's parents are just mentioned and the one time they actually make an appearance, they are barely described. We don't exactly understand them and their thoughts except for the fact that they love money and want loads more of it. But then, that's true about most people in the universe. The decisions made by the heroine are not stupid. No, that would be an understatement. They are downright ridiculous. Her past explains her lack of trust in those around her but that should make her a cautious person along with a silent one. But she is portrayed as a careless person who makes decisions on an impulse when there is no apparent pressure from those around her. The characters are all their typical selves. The mother-in-law wants her daughter-in-law to wear sanskaari dress(read only saris) and think a lot of their good-for-nothing sons. 

                        

                       One thing that I did want to warn you about was, the awful lot of self promotion. If he wanted to insert an author, quite unnecessarily I might add, he could have created a fictitious one or could've inserted the name of his famous author. But then that's exactly what he did, I think. How stupid of me! And what's with the "Simple english words" nonsense? 

Finally a few quotes before the rating:

Don’t go there, I thought, but my mind screamed down its own suggestion: Read just one page.

I don’t want to talk now like I did back then. It’s embarrassing. It wasn’t English. It was 90 per cent Bihari Hindi mixed with 10 per cent really bad English. For instance, this is what I had actually said: 'Cumty room. bat! aieyega zara? Hamara interview hai na wahan... Mera khel ka kota hai. Kis taraf hai?

‘Good morning, sir, sir and sir,’ I said. They smiled. I didn’t think it was a good smile. It was the high-class-to-low-class smile. The smile of superiority, the smile of delight that they knew English and I didn’t.

‘What is your good name?’ I blurted out, without any context or sense of timing. Also, who on earth says ‘good name’ these days? Only losers like me who translate ‘shubh naam' in Hindi to English.

‘And last, reading simple English novels, like, the one by that writer, what’s his name, Chetan Bhagat,’ she said, ending her monologue.

Rating:

5/10 - Average