The other side of twenty, is a little more wrinkled, a little more independent, a little more responsible and a little more mischievous. And the other side of twenty is definitely a whole lot adventurous!
Especially when you are one of the few single women, fast approaching thirty! Every acquaintance does not fail to point out the approaching years and almost every relative has at least one proposal in mind for you. As your wind your way through the maze of complications created by a prejudiced Indian society comprising of far married housewives, you make discoveries of your own.
Almost single is a book about the cons of singledom in an almost thrity woman’s life.
The plot is simple. Girl meets boy albeit under quite compromising circumstances. They meet each other again. and again. and again and eventually fall in love! Nothing very out-of-the-blue about the plot.
But what makes the read interesting, is the tiny snippets, which the author has tastefully added to flesh the story out.
The part about the sweet girlfriend of the main character of the story, turned vindictive by a messy divorce and gaining small girly victories by silly things such as paper-rolling his car, makes you alternately want to pat her on the back and laugh at her antics!
The hillarious bits about the dating experiences, of the other girlfirend who completes the trio, make you smile quite against your will. Your heart automatically goes’awwww’ as she meets up with a guy from her past on the insistence of her parents, who she remembers being a loser but turns out to be the frog-kissed prince and returns from the charms of delhi to her obscure village in Punjab for a’meet the parents.’
Keeping in sync with the urban flavour of the book, there are a couple of gay friends thrown in, who make you gawk in shock and envy.
There is even a nagging worried mother, who does not seem to understand why her daughter cant be happily married like the rest of her cousins(some of them even younger to her) and isnt planning her first kid. He worries range from how she has to be the focus point of the jokes at her kitty parties, to will her daughter every marry!
I found the book to be a great travel companion. Though, it does not score any literary brownie points, it still makes a nice coffee time read!