By Arshiya Malik: The book to be reviewed is “Half Girlfriend” by Chetan Bhagat. Bhagat is the author of a few half decent books like ‘five point someone ‘ and his books have several great movie adaptations such as ‘3 idiots’ so it was surprising that a book of such a plot and low calibre can be written by him.
It is recommended for teenagers and adults alike and it is a love story where the protagonist, Madhav, falls in love with a high class girl from Delhi, Rhea Sonami.
Madhav is in Delhi University on a sports scholarship in basketball. He hails from rural Bihar, where his family used to rule. The storyline is patchy and extremely hard to believe.
It has unrealistic standards on how people should behave and what is the society like, despite it being set in modern day India. The plot follows the bizarre twists and turns of what Madhav does in order to get Rhea and the lengths he goes to get her.
After Madhav speaks rudely to Rhea, she stops talking to him despite his best efforts and he spends the rest of his college days in depression. Later in the story, Rhea gets married, effectively breaking Madhavs heart.
Then, Madhav returns to his mother in Bihar. Then the story takes a strange turn, where Bill Gates is introduced for some absurd reason. To further complicate this tangled plot, Madhav meets Rhea again in Patna of all places where it is revealed that Rhea has gotten a divorce and is now estranged from her family.
They fall in love again, but upon seeing Madhavs mother’s disapproval of her, Rhea fakes having terminal cancer and runs away. Much to our dismay, Madhav chases her to America, where Rhea is singing in a bar in New York.
As interesting as this may sound, the plot is dull and monotonous with sudden hard to believe twists and one is not recommended to read this one.
For another reason that is beyond the understanding of the reader, the author Chetan Bhagat is also there as one of the characters who tells Madhav that Rhea is not dead, after reading her journals.
The book is not even worth a first read, forget the second one. I think all readers can give this one a definite miss.
