Rhea Kanwar is thirty, unmarried and tending to fat, who one morning realizes that it is high time she did something about her life. She despises her mom’s best friend, Bubbles Auntie, who always has something nasty to say about poor Rhea, and to top it all up she is invited to all the family functions. To avoid further questions from the rest of her family, Rhea decides to plunge into the marriage market. She meets several guys and every new guy she comes across seems perfect to her for the initial few days. But after a while she starts finding them weirder than the last. Vyash, one of her prospective suitors, freaks out when he realizes Rhea is not the pill, Jay has a super cool tattoo, Mazher is a perfect gentleman and Sid is atrocious in bed, but almost perfect on the outside. But Rhea has been in love with her best friend for the longest time. What will Rhea do now? Will she settle for an arranged marriage or find her true love?
Review-
Half Love Half Arranged looked like a really cute and fun read and that is why I picked it up. I enjoy reading a good chick lit from time to time and Rhea's quest to get married sounded fun. While I have to say that I enjoyed parts of this book, I do think it could have been better. Half Love Half Arranged was an okay read.
Rhea is thirty and is feeling the pressure from all sides to get married. And so begins her journey to find the perfect someone who loves her. It is filled with more misses than hits but that's the way it was. I really liked Rhea as a character. She was a sweet woman who only wanted to live happily with a better half. I did find her to be too naive at times and the way she instantly fell in love with every single guy was a little unbelievable.
The parts I really enjoyed in Half Love Half Arranged were Rhea's thoughts and Rhea's mother's dialogues. They were hilarious and actually made me laugh out loud. But that was kinda where my enjoyment ended. I knew that Rhea goes through a bunch of guys and each one was more weird than the last but I got a feeling that she lost herself in the way.
It is safe to say that the first half of the book was much more enjoyable than the second. I kept expecting Rhea to learn from her experiences but she kept going back to her old ways. That made it seem a bit repetitive and dragged the book for me. Plus for a thirty year old, Rhea really couldn't make up her mind about any guy and that was irritating.
I really liked Rhea's entire family and her group of girlfriends. The whole cast of characters just adds in to the hilarious situations Rhea finds herself in. Half Love Half Arranged was not a bad read by any means but I wanted a little more from it. I would recommend this one to anyone looking for an average short chick lit read.
*Note: A copy of this book was provided by Random House India in exchange for an honest review. We thank them.
Nice review Janhvi! :)
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