Review: Love, Marriage, and Other Disasters by Shilpa Suraj

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alisha Rana is not your typical single desi girl. For one, she is on the wrong side of 30. For another, she is divorced. Alisha doesn’t want much. But what she does want is that elusive thing all women search for – A man who gets her…but a man who gets her hot! She calls it “feeling the squiggle.”

Enter Dr. Vivaan Kapoor, cute, hot, squiggle-worthy. The younger brother of her cousin's prospective groom, he’s got the squiggle factor in spades. The only catch? He's never been married and is years younger than Alisha. Basically, completely off-limits.


The story starts with a date going very wrong and I immediately felt a kinship with Alisha who still managed to keep her sense of humor intact, even if it borders on sarcasm. But to be fair, the world deserves it most times. Her relationship with her best friend, her colleagues, and even with the girl who is so mean to her, all reflect her good nature and sensibility. She has an excellent rapport with her parents and relatives too and maybe that is why I also understood her doubts about the one guy who makes her feel special but in her head, he is totally off-limits. 

Vivaan is an early-achiever, kind, fun, and charming person who falls in love with Alisha from the first time he sees her. It is really bittersweet to see him try to woo Alisha every possible way and still be rejected only because Alisha has convinced herself that Vivaan is not the right person to marry even if he is the one guy who makes her "feel the squiggle".

Love, Marriage, and other disasters is a very realistic and appropriate story of love & marriage as perceived through society's glasses and how it shapes people's choices. It is a story of how past relations can make us unsure of our decisions in the future for a long time but accepting and acknowledging the same is the first step to be free. There are lot of small scenes in the story which are very commonly seen and heard in real life and they drive the story forward beautifully. 

I really liked this story and would love to read more about one of the characters in the book that plays a very pivotal role in cementing the love story of Alisha & Vivaan. 

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#BookReview: Physical: The catastrophe of desire by Mari.Reiza

Physical: The catastrophe of desire by mari reiza
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Some times you begin a book with little expectation and find struggling to identify with the character, any character actually. This happened for me with Physical as I just could not empathize with Kiki - whose breakup has left her a little mad and the lonely craziness is just eating her up. I felt her hurt and understood her true self behind the angry mask but she still made me feel frustrated with her. Then the story flips to Fatima, Kiki's best friend, a new mother of twins who is stuck at home after pregnancy and feels her worth fading away. Now that's a feeling I so very well know - by thinking of a time when I simply slip out of others memories and left alone. And gradually I got engrossed in the book. I wanted to see what breaks / makes these two ladies and their friendship evolve.

At a certain point in the story, it became my story. I could feel this play out between me and a friend of mine wondering together, where we walked our own way and this book showed how we can miss the signs even in our closest friends.

A short read, this is emotioanl, fun, beautifully true and so relatable story of Love and desire i  in modern times.

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The City of Devi by Manil Suri

I was overjoyed to receive my first overseas mail carrying a book for review by Norton publishers. So far, I was aware of this publishing house's name for the critical content it printed on literary classics, and was pleasantly surprised to see Norton publishing contemporary authors with experimental narratives and genres. Taking up with novel with a slightly odd name - "The City of Devi" - was easy, since credibility was established by the very name and packaging of the courier I received. That Manil Suriwas a writer who could churn out an epic with an apocalyptal theme turned out to be a pleasant surprise waiting to be unfurled with the turning of pages of this book.

The City of Devi is an innovative, unique and adventurous novel. It dwells on a love triangle with a twist. There is a woman, and two men. However, contrary to what you might be already thinking, in this book, a woman, Sarita, and a man, Jazz, are both madly in love with a third person, a man -Karun - who is the mysterious, elusive figure in the book. It is Karun, however, who keep the two alternate strands of narrative, that of Sarita and Jazz, find a common ground to develop cohesively from. The rather tumultuous love saga of these three protagonists is set against the backdrop of an apocalypse waiting to happen - a nuclear strike on Mumbai, ready to wipe out the last trace of life from the island. In a classic tale of cross-border communal conflict, humanity is standing vulnerable and on the verge of being sacrificed for what are assumed to be conflicts of supremacy of divine powers. Mumbai only could be saved by its patron Goddess - Mumba Devi, recently resurrected in a Bollywood incarnation - Super Devi - giving more fillip to the blind adoration of gullible multitudes. And amid all this mayhem, two, no three, lovers are eagerly searching for an opportunity to unite with each other, after eliminating the 'other'.

This novel doggedly follows the quest motif - a rather effective one in stories which deal with the pains and ecstasies of love. Love is, it goes without saying, the underlying theme. In addition to it, theme of communalism, humanism, hypocrisy, apocalypse and homosexuality have been adequately dealt with in the book. With sensibility and gusto. Dystopia, towards which the real world too is fast spiralling, is another prominent theme. The novel is rich with explicit content, and for the shy readers out there, I have to mention, Manil Suri does not believe in using innuendoes. A powerful strain of narrative, in fact, is developed around a pomegranate - a perceived aphrodisiac (about the veracity of which claim I have no clue!), and that pomegranate continues to be an inanimate, silent yet pivotal character in the book. Manil Suri also weaves together myths and memories in the story; especially curious is the way he deals with a rare interpretation of the concept of divine trinity.

The City of Devi is a work of passion, and intelligent story telling. It has elements which enthral a reader and keep drawing him deeper and deeper in the fiction which starts assuming dimensions of reality. An intriguing beginning and an out-of-the-box climax add perfection to an already great scripting. A grand cast of characters does not obfuscate a reader, because the main concern - the protagonists - are so well constructed and foregrounded. Witty dialogues and great use of embellished language make the reading experience rich and satisfying. Love and romance always work for the audience; but when supplanted with an element of impending doom, they acquire a texture of passion and urgency - a fact aptly exploited by the author. I could go on writing reams of material on they way this book influenced me, but for now, I will conclude by awarding it, in all humility, 4 stars on five. It is one great adventure to be a part of.

Book Details -
Author - Manil Suri 
Publisher - Norton
Published - 2013
Book Source - Review Copy
Genre - Fiction/Romance/Dystopia
Price - Rs. 499
Pages -  400

Reviewed by - SAUMYA KULSHRESHTHA