BOOK REVIEW - “Hooked, Lined and Single‘ by Rashmi Kumar”
BOOK REVIEW – ‘Hooked, Lined and Single‘ by Rashmi
Kumar
It is
a very interesting story about Alafia Singh, a 31 year old divorcee
writer. She was married at the early age of 21, and the marriage lasted 11
months. Since then, she has tried long and hard to find a groom through a
matrimonial website. But she finds it hard to connect with all the men she
meets. Either they are too rich, or too boring or too one-dimensional or too
intimidated by her or… The list goes on. IT comes to a point where her 24-year
old sister is getting married and Alafia still remains unmarried. The many men
that came in her life through this means only add to misery to her all ready
troubled life. She was used by those men either sexually or emotionally thus to
hurt her from the core. After her younger sister's marriage she decided to take
a firm decision on her marital status. The story revolves around the path she
took to find a right destination for her. She ends up asking herself why she
needs a man in her life and the eventually makes peace with herself.
All Indians
unite over two things: food and marriages. While this book doesn’t delve in the
former, it talks largely about the latter. This book talks about the difficulty
of the arranged marriage system, and more largely, the pressure that is put on
girls to find a boy and “settle down”.
The book is
engaging and is filled with humor. There are fun characters sprinkled all
around the book that seem quite life-like. There is always a certain person
from real-life you imagine filling up this role. The characters are also
fleshed out well, not too meaty to bore yet not too insubstantial to
dismissive. Each character has a certain purpose and there would definitely be
a void without. The instances with Tara, the spiritual healer and Myra, her
best friend are interesting. The book flows simply and the writing seems to
come naturally to the author.The climax was quite interesting with twists and
turns to unfold the same you need to read this book.
Now my Positive viewpoints:
The positives of the story are the
primitiveness in the narration impressed me. The character of open minded
independent girl came out superbly with the narrative. The marriage scene of
Alafia's sister presents the true image of Indian marriages. All men characters
were different from each other giving a humor to the narrative in anecdotes
about them. and the book flows
beautifully, like a serene river. I loved it, and I am sure that the target
audience will love this book too.
Some suggestive points:
Overall the author had wonderfully narrated the story. Though
at some places story was stagnant and moved an inch only in the end to give a
one line message of the book. I feel the narrative was coming back to the same
point after each change of scene without adding much to the story line. The
author seems confused in building the plot. The way it ended lives the reader
cheated. Even philosophically it has not much to offer.
Final words:
Overall
if asked I would say this is a light and simple book, perfect accompaniment to
your evening coffee. And a special mention to the cover that has simple, mellow
colors and doesn’t look overtly jazzy and cliched.... Overall
if asked I would say...this is a good job done by Author (Rashmi Kumar) … I
would give 3 stars to this book.
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