Review- The Paperback Badshah by Abhay Nagarajan

Summary-

‘In life…you can choose to become a specialist or a generalist. But in love, please don’t become a reluctant fundamentalist. Instead become a love scientist.’
-Raghu Balakrishnan

Raghu Balakrishnan is a laidback 25 year old, who quits his regular job as a financial advisor to focus single-mindedly on his dream of becoming a published author in India. He stays with his parents. They reluctantly tolerate his new found creative ‘nonsense’ as he works on his book, a love story, which he titles The Paperback Badshah. 
As time passes by, he realizes that writing the book is just one part of the dream.
How did one go about getting it published? 
What about the marketing and promotion?
What about reactions from the readers?
Would it open up the faucets of love in their hearts or would it irritate them, given the sheer absurdity of the plot?
Along the way, will Raghu also get lucky in matters of the heart?
Find out by joining him in his entertaining journey, as he chases his writing dream to eventually become a published ‘100 Rupee’ paperback author.

Review-

The Paperback Badshah is the journey of Raghu Balakrishnan who leaves his job as a financial advisor to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. The book starts off with Raghu at his work place being sick and tired of his job in which he has no interest. Raghu comes from a slightly upper middle class family and can afford taking a break to complete his manuscript.

He starts to work on his book, The Paperback Badshah which is supposed to be a love story. All his friends make fum of him, that he is writing a love story when he himself has never been in love. I thought Raghu was a sweet guy. He really had no evil intent in mind and his thought processes were unique. 

He could relate one random thing to another at the spur of the moment and make it into a ridiculous rhyme. It was actually quite amusing. The Paperback Badshah is supposed to be a comedy and there were some moments where I genuinely laughed out loud. The jokes were sometimes a bit crude but over all it was a book filled with silly jokes.

Those who enjoy reading books where you don't really have to use your brain but just enjoy the book and its sense of humor in the moment can pick up The Paperback Badshah. It is not meant to be a life changing read. I can appreciate such books from time to time without over thinking it. But there is a ton of Hindi mixed in the book so I would only recommend it to those who get it.

*Note: A copy of this book was provided by Srishti Publishers in exchange for an honest review. We thank them.