Mindful Love – THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT YOU by Yashodhara Lal



A loser, fat, just fired, on the wrong side of twenties girl who is trying to find her calling and her zone. Who wants to read about losers, right? Wrong, we all want to know, what did she do right to be in this situation first?

The initial chapters build up to the actual love story and I found that very interesting. The moment she rescues a guy while almost drowning and then gets followed by a stranger, nearly pulverizing him!! The story warms up to a love a story very slowly, almost as if love is already there, it just needs to be accepted.

The novel has a lot of masala, magic and madness! Yes, never a dull moment. Right from the time Trish gets fired, almost dies and resurrects herself. The story of a girl trying to find herself and a guy who wants to forget himself till they find each other – could have been the tag line of the book. Two very different people but they just click the moment they meet. How they meet is another feather in Yashodhara’s cap!! Never have I read a book with not one but two meetings of this kind, well third time was indeed a charm for them! The one thing that pulled me in the book was the language. The way Trishna shares her thoughts about the things around her was so crisp, caustic and pretty much the voice of youth today.


The parents add a lot of reality and value to this book; it is not your typical fluffy romance. This story has a strong core, Trish might feel stifled with her life but this is the life she chose and will not have it any other way. The moments between the father – daughter were very endearing. The squabbles with her mom; well I think we all know why they read so familiar. Have we all not fought like that with our moms, grumbling yet grudgingly admitting defeat – can’t fool mom; can’t win from mom!!

The only odd point was the amount of medicines she gave to her Dad, a bit much but then her mother did cook a lot too! This story has a lot going on; the free loader, rich friend Akanksha and her sweet child Lisa add more layers to the story. And how can I forget the ‘Muscular Raj’ 🙂 Will he get his own story? Maybe if he tries hard enough, he will find his sweet spot yet again!

Even though I was able to figure out what Akanksha was up to by her second appearance! It was a bit of a bummer there but still Lisa more than made up for her mother and I think for a secondary character Lisa was the best out of the lot.

Now the part that I really liked, well the letters were cool. I have read similar ones in a few magazines and they are all the rage. How Trish writes them and how they affect her helped me understand her character a lot better. Zee was so cruel for want of a better word but she was also the wind that helped Trish rise against the odds. Most of her growth was due to the treatment meted out to her by Zee. In life we do need a sudden push to get into action and so did Trish. So the clashes were like the fuel she needed to move ahead.

Sahil, now how can I not like him, cute, well mannered, kind and plays a guitar; he is so endearing. From all that he has been through, he turns out to be quite the stabilizer in the novel. The only thing I did not like was he not giving his readings of people to Trish! And I wanted to know more about him, have them alone for more conversations and just sea gazing! The charm of “You are still really irritating,” and the sweet familiarity. Their friendly banter and faith in each other speaks volumes about love, much more than a testosterone charged exchange can. Sweet, practical and very endearing love; Sahil is all about embracing love in all its shades and moods.

All our lives are complicated but how we sort them is what matters most and if the companion is supportive & non-judgmental, it gets a lot easier. There’s Something About You is a breezy read with lots of “Something” – read and find out what?
Also I loved the page numbers in the middle of the page, so much easier to find where I was and the quirky arrow was cool, stylish too.



(I received a copy of the book from the Author & Indiblogger Review program; the views are my own.)



BOOK BLURB

This is not your typical boy-meets-girl story. Okay, they do meet, but there are some complications.
Trish is twenty-eight. She’s unemployed, overweight, single and snarky. She knows all that. And if one more person – just one more person – tries to fix her, she might explode. Sahil is thirty-five. He has superpowers. Well, kind of. He seems to think so, anyway. He’s also hot (okay, in a geeky kind of way, but still). And he plays the guitar, helps the underprivileged and talks about his feelings. Aren’t guys like that supposed to exist only in fantasies?
When Trish and Sahil meet, magic happens. Real magic, you know, like fireworks, electricity, that sort of thing. But here’s the problem. Trish doesn’t want anyone in her life. She has enough to deal with – dependent parents, flaky neighbours, bitchy editors, the works. And yet, Sahil is determined to be in her life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Yashodhara Lal’s USP is in taking the ordinary and making it hilarious. She graduated from IIM-Bangalore in 2002 and has over 12 years of experience in the Marketing Domain across two large corporations in FMCG and media. She lives in Gurgaon with her husband Vijay, and the three small children they call Peanut, Pickle and Papad – all of whom never fail to provide her with material for her entertaining blog at http://www.yashodharalal.com.

From the bestselling author of Just Married, Please Excuse and Sorting Out Sid, here is another zinger of a book – There’s Something About You.