Book Review: There’s Something About You
This is Yashodhara Lal’s third book, after her first two successes Just Married, Please Excuse and Sorting Out Sid. The lady is firmly establishing herself as one to watch out for in the Young Rom-Com space. Her protagonists are career folks sweating out their love stories. Their work, personal and social spaces and the balance (or the lack thereof) in them, that is what she writes about. With sprinkles of casual humor all throughout.
Trish finds herself out of her content management job at a media firm, having made herself outdated and irrelevant to the changing beat of times (or, is it?), spending more time at home with her parents. Her father has Alzheimer setting in, and her relationship with her mother is not even remotely cordial. There is a friendly neighbor, a person she saves from drowning, a person who reaches out to her, and an assignment as an agony aunt/ Mahinder Watsa hybrid, and Trish’s dripping sarcastic self. Does that make for a good read?
It does. Like her previous two books, There’s Something About You is a simple story about a simple life with a simple set of complications, told in a simple and humorous manner. The characters are relatable and reasonably well etched out. A little more on Sahil wouldn’t have hurt, but the others, right from Aakansha to Zee to Trish’s mother and father are extremely well defined characters. The language as well. Some of the situations are a little too forced, but well, they don’t bother you as much. The second half of the book, as Trish’s relationship with her parents starts taking center stage is a lot funnier than the gloating first half, where the sarcasm fails to work as well. The book, thankfully, does not dwell too much on anything, making it a breezy read.
I was hoping that the Ask Annie sections, the agony aunt columns, would be somewhat funnier, especially with the kind of ridiculous questions that get center-spread. I finished off the book in an afternoon, which tells you that it makes up for very good afternoon reading. It is a book which is tailor made for Bollywood, with Imran Khan as Sahil, and the Dum Laga Ke Haisha girl as Trish.
The book packs dollops of humor and sarcasm in most interactions, and I found Nivedia-Trish interactions to be the best. On the other end, Trish-Mother equation seems to be the most deftly handled. Add a lot of chick-lit mush around it, and a generous sprinkling of modern day shenanigans, including Zumba to it. And there you go!
What YLal manages to deliver over and over again, and I mean it as a strong praise, is to position herself as the Chetan Bhagat of Young Romance. Her books are immensely readable by a large number of people and keep the content down to simpler meanings.
There are no fifty shades of emotions here, and there-in lies her victory.
Title: There’s Something About You
Author: Yashodhara Lal
Publisher: Harper Collins India
Pages: 268
Genre/ Sub-Genre: Fiction/ Romantic Comedy
Rating: 3.50 of 5.00
Reviewed for: The Tales Pensieve Kindle Pick of the month – November 2015
Browse through the full list of book reviews in the depths of the Pensieve.
