If you read Danielle Steel, be armed with tissue papers. She is sure to make you cry. Her novels are better when you have just gone through a break-up and want to cope up with it, or promote the concept of having more kids, or a liberated but a confused woman. Nah, I’ve not gone through any of them, but stumbled upon this novelist’s book when I had to travel a great distance to reach my office. Somehow, I started liking her novels, because they were light and had nothing but good stories, the nice romantic ones you could read with your rajai as a company on a winter evening.
This time Bunglow 2 seemed to look attractive, so I purchased it and started reading it. Now, let me introduce you to the plot.
STORY
Tanya Harris a scriptwriter for serials, has a lovely family with three children a and a lovely husband and sweet memories of 20 yrs marriage. She is the perfect wife to her husband, best mom to the kids, a sweet neighbour as her best friend and a career which is flexible as she works from home when her family members are not around. All of a sudden she is told by her editor to meet a well-known director on whose movie she must do the script. The offer sounds juicy since she is to get a bungalow 2 (name of a bungalow) at the Hollywood , a very handsome pay and a lifetime opportunity to work with such a renowned director. But at the price of leaving her home for nine months and staying at bungalow. She is about to refuse when her husband cajoles her to join. She does on the pretext of returning home every weekend. The scriptwriting in Bungalow 2 keeps her busy and she gets completely involved with the film. Slowly, the family, after missing her for initial days get used to her absence. The children are busy with their studies and the husband falls conveniently in love with her best friend and neighbour who is a widow. That is the cost she pays for being away for such a long time. Her world is shattered when she comes back after completing the movie since her husband moves away. She has a few failed relationships too as an after-effect. But in the end, what \does she do to rebuild her life? Truly speaking, she starts hating Bungalow 2 which is a painful reminder of her broken marriage, and yet, she turns it into a memorable place, .
FLAWS
There seem to be too many flaws in the story.
1) Can a marriage which looked perfect for 20 years be broken since one was away for 9 months?
2) Can there be a perfect family at all with perfect husband, perfect wife, and perfect 3 little kids.
3) The end is so abrupt that one doesn’t feel like even completing the book.
4) Steel is repetitive and the story takes time to move forward
5) Tanya isn’t strong enough in the beginning, she takes all abuses form her husband, receives all the blame by her children without even giving proper justification
6)A perfect husband does not fall for another woman when the wife is away.
Tanya perhaps could have handled the whole thing better, instead of being besahara naari. It isn’t the worst book ever, yet it isn’t the best book written by her. Read it only if someone gifts you the book.