Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan

Book blurb:

The new novel from the bestselling author of The Zoya Factor and Battle for BittoraIn a sprawling bungalow on New Delhi’s posh Hailey Road, Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur and his wife Mamta spend their days watching anxiously over their five beautiful (but troublesome) alphabetically named daughters. Anjini, married but an incorrigible flirt; Binodini, very worried about her children’s hissa in the family property; Chandrakanta, who eloped with a foreigner on the eve of her wedding; Eshwari, who is just a little too popular at Modern School, Barakhamba Road; and the Judge’s favourite (though fathers shouldn’t have favourites): the quietly fiery Debjani, champion of all the stray animals on Hailey Road, who reads the English news on DD and clashes constantly with crusading journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, he of shining professional credentials but tarnished personal reputation, crushingly dismissive of her ‘state-sponsored propaganda’, but always seeking her out with half-sarcastic, half-intrigued dark eyes. Spot-on funny and toe-curlingly sexy, Those Pricey Thakur Girls is rom-com specialist Anuja Chauhan writing at her sparkling best.

Genre: Fiction/Romantic Comedy

Pages: 398

Format: Kindle eBook/Paperback

Price:

• Kindle eBook: 129 INR/$3.52
• Paperback: 317 INR/$10.67

My Ratings: 4.1/5

The Thakur sisters (Anjini, Binodini, Chandrakanta, Debjani and Eshwari) are beautiful, but each with their own set of coquetry. Though fathers aren’t supposed to have favorites, Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur worries most about Debjani, the fourth sister, who is ‘a lover of losers’. When her heart seems to be fluttering towards for Dylan Singh Shekhawat, a playboy of sorts, but top notch in the looks as well as professional department, everyone wonders whether it is the end of Debjani’s ‘bad days’. Or is it just another lost case?

What I liked about the book:

What I liked about the book:
-> It is a nostalgic read for those who were around in Delhi (or anywhere in India actually) in the 1980s.
-> The characters come in various shades of grey, each one quirkier than the other. The lead characters have a depth and there are countless moments when you’d find yourself actually bursting out with laughter.
-> The side characters and their shenanigans keep you entertained throughout the book.
-> The inclusion of the anti-Sikh riots after Indira Gandhi’s assassination as a subplot. That added a layer of credibility to the narrative.
-> The side-plots with two of Debjani’s sisters are done quite interestingly. Like Anjni’s rocky marriage and Eshwari’s highschool romance were done well enough for the page time they got.

What I did not like about the book:
-> The slurs used for Asian people, like referrring to North East Indians as ‘Chinki’ and a Kashmiri side-character as ‘terrorist’.
-> It is essentially a one time read with not much depth but surely worth a laugh.
-> We don’t really see Debjani develop as a character and any and all sorts of development which comes off as a whiplash in the climax, seems as if it has been induced because of Dylan instead of her own moral compass.

Quotable quotes:
-> The word ‘paradise’ evolves from the Persian pairi-diza which, simply put, means ‘walled garden’.
-> The juice is sour, by the way, so I apologize for not finishing it.

Buying details:

• Amazon.in
• Amazon.com
• Bol.com
• HarperCollins

Author’s social media links:

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

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