Book Review : Te Amo... I love you,
"The Prolonged Kite"
Romance are the widely used topic in recent published fiction book written by Indian writers. Of course, Love story has a charm that can make any heart smile, enjoy and even make cry to readers. That’s why because of Romance topic, many writers have evolved to write more and have listed them in "Best seller list". A simple love story can win heart of many people while it may not work some other time. As a writer myself, I have an affinity towards love stories and have read few from Indian and non-Indian writers.
How I got this book?
While I was looking for some new release by Indian writers on online site homeshop18, I saw book, "Te Amo... I love you". The very first line in description was "The Book has been Nominated for the COMMONWEALTH BOOK PRIZE 2012."
As a writer myself, I have an affinity towards love stories and have read few from Indian and non-Indian writers. So, I browsed about the same book on flipkart where I saw few reviews which had lots of applause for book and its writer. I checked its price; The price was 140 (It is comparatively higher than normal fiction books as other book are available from the range of Rs 60 to 120). Debutant writer and Higher price! I thought there must be something special, so I ordered hoping it will be treat to read. Moreover, even debutant writer should be given a chance. The content of Book was 307 pages. Too long, May be longest fiction I have ever read till now. But... But, I had forget the old proverbs, "Never judge a book by its cover" and "All expensive things are not quality."
About the Book and Writer.
"Te Amo... I love you" is written by Rohit Sharma. The short introduction of books writes Rohit as ’Senior software engineer". It is his first book. As I said, This romance fiction is 307 pages long which we hardly get any book so long.
Plot
Aryan is a dance teacher settled in London where he has his own dance academy. One rainy day, he finds a Spanish girl ’Isabella’ asking for help of lift. He offers her lift and drops her till her London university. That short moment makes Aryan fall in love with her where he goes back to London University to search her again. The coffee date, Isabella visiting Aryan’s Dance academy and many more, time brings them closer as they fall in Love with each other. Isabella says she is daughter of very rich man in Spain and her marriage is fixed with her father business partner’s son ’Ethan’. Ethan is not a man with good heart and She is afraid of him the most. With the view point to convince her family, both travel to Spain. They succeed, but Ethan’s interruption brings hurdles in their Love. They get married but Ethan’s coming up his evil work tries to separate them. The rest of the love story is all about their journey and conquering the love.
My view:-
Love Stories between two different people, the interruption, the chases and climax, they have been the part of Romance book/movies from early times. till today so many stories and movies are made on this topic that they goes unnoticed if some special plot is lacking there. Same happens here. Old type of stories, Old dialogues, repetitive scene, and predictable story takes book to back foot. Most of all, words like "Te Amo" and "I love you" is used so many time that at one point you start getting irritated of these words. Oh Yeah, the kissing scene written in similar way... It doesn’t work. Though these might be necessity in romance, but it no where works on this book. To be frank, I didn’t like the book. From the first page to Last, I nowhere had any page to mention it as special. There are few poems included in the book where only one poem works, other are normal.
It took me more than 1 month to finish the book where I read line to line through my lips (which is my reading habit) for first 150 pages and last 20 pages, I read mere through my eyes for other part of book... In the end, I read it with the intention to know the end story, and that is where it fails again. The end story is different and beyond predictable but doesn’t work either.
People might say, a critic shouldn’t be harsh to that extent, especially at that time when you read debutant writer, we should understand them and motivate them. Its true and I would have supported the book if he would have been with his own creativity!
Story is Simple here, nothing new. Though the languages are good in some extent and decent enough, the use of literature doesn’t work so much here. In his book, he has explained few tradition and heritage of Spain, but he has used them in improper time. Just think, they are going to their marriage to be held in next few hours and they know that goons can be chasing them. Still, they halt in a city to play ’La Tomatina’. Need some common sense or extra ordinary one!
If you feel I have revealed lots of plot in this story, I say, you are wrong. "Te Amo... I love you" is so long that you feel you will need years to complete it. Now you know What I mean. Let me reveal more of it.
Do you remember one of high budget love story movie was made in Bollywood? The love story between an Indian guy and Spanish Girl! Well, you must have already forgotten it as it was a flop movie (though I liked it to some extent because of its music). Yes, When I reached the page where Aryan and Isabella have reached Spain, the chase seems similar to Kites. I said it is similar, not ’same’. You will find few dialogues, Chases and moment completely matching that you will ask yourself, "when did trend of a book picking up Bollywood stories started?
Most of all, as I said, when you feel you might have reached the end of story, just to turn another page, there is another love story coming up , that too in a similar fashion as the romance in earlier part had taken.
Conclusion
Even if I wasted my time by reading the book, May be I shouldn’t had wasted my other important two hours by writing the review. May be I took ten minutes of those reading this review too! But actually, this is what made me write the review of this book is:-
After finishing with this book, When I again went back through the reviews of this book written by verified buyer in flipkart which had high rated this book, I found the review writer is none other than writer’s friend themselves. What a way to foolish the people. May be he used the dialogues of ’Kites’ thinking that ’No one watched this flop movie’.
Writing is always a good habit and as many people are interested in making their fields to writing, sometime good fiction might vanish unnoticed, just because people feel debutant writers are not good enough. So it is always advisable to come with something short, sweet and own creative for the welfare of writer and upcoming writers.
My rating 1 out of 5.
P.S.
My question to homeshop, Was this book really nominated for "The commonwealth book prize 2012"?
Regards
Suraj