The hero of the book, Half-Girlfriend, is a Bihari boy called Madhav. He falls in love with a girl from Delhi called Riya. Madhav doesn’t speak English well but Riya does. Also, Madhav wants a relationship and Riya doesn’t, she just wants friendship so Riya suggests a compromise. She agrees to be his half girlfriend.
There are many emotional moments in the book, especially with the relationship between Riya and Madhav but for me one of the most moving moments was when Madhav successfully rescued his mother’s school with a grant from Bill Gates. Madhav settles in his hometown and helps his mother, with her school. The school is in bad condition with no proper classrooms or toilets so Madhav decides to meet local the MLA Ojha for financial help, but the MLA is of no help. Ojha informs him of Bill Gates’ visit to some schools in Bihar. Madhav tries his best to convince Gates to fund his schools’ development, but to do so he has to prepare a speech, preferably in English. He makes a successful presentation to Bill Gates and receives funding to help make improvements to the school.
The writer of the book Chetan Bhagat once said, "Half-Girlfriend, to me, is a unique Indian phenomenon, where boys and girls are not clear about their relationship status with each other. A boy may think he is more than friends with the girl, but the girl is still not his girlfriend. Hence, I thought we needed a term like’Half girlfriend’. Because, in India, that is what most men get."