A mild curiosity crept in seeing the title of the book when BlogAdda first posted about this book being available for review. Having done some heavy reading including ‘A Fine Balance’, ‘The Glass Palace’ and ‘And The Mountains Echoed’ in the last few weeks, I was in mood for some light reading and requested for the book, assuming it was going to be one seeing the title.
The cheesiness in the title, unfortunately, does not stop there. Vikrant Khanna, the author of the book who is also in the merchant navy, has a mention on his website that, ‘the author has his finger strongly on the Indian youth's pulse.’ If this is what the pulse of the Indian youth is, I am beginning to worry. A little more.
The premise of the book is fairly simple. Two parallel stories with some love, rant-filled love one must say, the usual misunderstandings, a tragic moment, and some lighter moments (which in this book seem slightly gross); all of this coupled with a pirate drama in the background, you have your Love Lasts Forever. I could go on about how cliched a lot of the premise and the romance seems, but since this seems to be the flavour of the ‘youth’, I suppose Vikrant may have a winner in his hands.
While Vikrant seems to have a reasonable grasp over English, he doesn’t resort to using bombastic words and uses a colloquial lingo for most of the book. Perhaps, his way of catering to The pulse. Some more attention could have been paid towards the grammatical correctness since there are quite a few instances where the book could have used more proofreading. Additionally, what ticked me big time was the use of the word ‘marriage’ in almost every situation that demanded the usage of the word ‘wedding.’ Agreed that the two words have unfortunately become interchangeable (not just in India), but I guess someone has to point it out and I guess I will do that here. The book has a statement ‘We had a long last night and we reached our home way past midnight after our marriage.’ While the intent of the statement was something, but it definitely reads in a different way.
Coming back to the premise, I seem to have severe dislike on how the fairer sex is portrayed in the book. While the older character Shikha had her own reasons to act the way she had to, as a reader I felt bad for how poorly Aisha’s character was developed, in addition to it being shown in such poor light. I will not dwell too much on the gender-biasedness that the book has to offer, since many ‘contemporary’ Indian writers who cater to the same youth population tend to do so as well and the aspiring writers seem to draw inspiration from that.
Love Last Forever, overall, was a quick read on a lazy afternoon which did not involve too much of thinking while reading it. But it did serve as some food for thought on how we perceive love and relationships. The book succeeds on that front. If only the current generation which includes me saw love in a different way, the world would be a much better place to live in.
This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!
The cheesiness in the title, unfortunately, does not stop there. Vikrant Khanna, the author of the book who is also in the merchant navy, has a mention on his website that, ‘the author has his finger strongly on the Indian youth's pulse.’ If this is what the pulse of the Indian youth is, I am beginning to worry. A little more.
The premise of the book is fairly simple. Two parallel stories with some love, rant-filled love one must say, the usual misunderstandings, a tragic moment, and some lighter moments (which in this book seem slightly gross); all of this coupled with a pirate drama in the background, you have your Love Lasts Forever. I could go on about how cliched a lot of the premise and the romance seems, but since this seems to be the flavour of the ‘youth’, I suppose Vikrant may have a winner in his hands.
While Vikrant seems to have a reasonable grasp over English, he doesn’t resort to using bombastic words and uses a colloquial lingo for most of the book. Perhaps, his way of catering to The pulse. Some more attention could have been paid towards the grammatical correctness since there are quite a few instances where the book could have used more proofreading. Additionally, what ticked me big time was the use of the word ‘marriage’ in almost every situation that demanded the usage of the word ‘wedding.’ Agreed that the two words have unfortunately become interchangeable (not just in India), but I guess someone has to point it out and I guess I will do that here. The book has a statement ‘We had a long last night and we reached our home way past midnight after our marriage.’ While the intent of the statement was something, but it definitely reads in a different way.
Coming back to the premise, I seem to have severe dislike on how the fairer sex is portrayed in the book. While the older character Shikha had her own reasons to act the way she had to, as a reader I felt bad for how poorly Aisha’s character was developed, in addition to it being shown in such poor light. I will not dwell too much on the gender-biasedness that the book has to offer, since many ‘contemporary’ Indian writers who cater to the same youth population tend to do so as well and the aspiring writers seem to draw inspiration from that.
Love Last Forever, overall, was a quick read on a lazy afternoon which did not involve too much of thinking while reading it. But it did serve as some food for thought on how we perceive love and relationships. The book succeeds on that front. If only the current generation which includes me saw love in a different way, the world would be a much better place to live in.
This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!
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