In true romance fiction form, there is a series of silly little misunderstandings before they become a couple
Middle-class girl meets posh boy in a bookshop and immediately falls in lust with his sexy aftershave. His brown eyes and his body are not too bad either, sigh. Avani’s pheromones are on a high, and she absolutely has to stop herself from dressing like a hottie in case he pops in to the bookstore where she works again. Meanwhile, she does the usual social media stalking. The boy (Aman) is the billionaire CEO of a family-owned textile firm. And, more importantly, appears to be single.
In true romance fiction form, there is a series of silly little misunderstandings before they become a couple. Aman’s life is a world apart from Avani’s: She lives as a paying guest, is a law student, and makes a little cash from her part-time job. He lives in a penthouse, has a fancy chauffeur-driven car, a private jet, the works. But nope, this is not Austen’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’ where the pedigreed hero initially regards the less privileged heroine with scorn. While Aman is posh, there’s not a snobbish bone in his hot bod, and all is well until it is not.
Avani is the messed-up commitment-phone here for reasons that are occasionally hinted at and only surface at the end. Too little, too late, and as a reader you may feel a bit cheated. There are several anachronisms too, like 2,000-rupee notes being in use in 2023, but they do not in any way take away from the story. As for the plot, well, it’s simply girl meets boy, they date, there are minor fallouts, and then they live happily ever after. This is not Tolstoy’s deep and meaningful ‘Anna Karenina’ either, so you can cut the author a little slack for all the flaws. It’s just a fun, light, romance, and there’s great joy for the reader in that too.
Perhaps the best part of the book is the effervescent dialogue and the repartee. Avani and Aman play a great jousting game with their witty lines, both have equally strong comebacks, and sometimes you do wonder if they are twins. Martin, the cool guy who runs the cafe at the bookshop, has great lines too, but there is a clear difference because he’s edgier. However, despite the lively dialogue, the novel does pall in the middle, where the couple do the same things every day for pages and pages: flirt, make out, eat in or eat out—it gets hamster-on-treadmill tedious, so speed-reading those pages is highly recommended.
If you’re a chick lit or rom com fan, you will definitely enjoy this book. It’s not path-breaking, but it’s very funny.
Too Good to be True
By Prajakta Koli
Harper Fiction
pp. 307; Rs 399
