BOOK REVIEW: 'Finding Juliet' by taufeeq ahmed

​If there were three different dishes on my plate, the one that I would finish off first would be, without an exception, the one I liked the least. That way I can enjoy the ones I like more, peacefully.
Why did I feel the need to give you this information, you ask? Well, because I’m going to do the same here. I’m going to give you the bad dishes (read: news) first; i.e. the parts I liked the least in the book.

So, let’s start. ‘Finding Juliet’ is an ideal length novel, with 216 pages, including the Publications and Acknowledgement sections. Normally, a novel of this length would take me around four days to finish. This one, though, took me twice as many. Now, before you jump to your own conclusions, let me give you the reason for this. I started the book on the 1st of February 2017, and by the end of the 2nd, I had given up on it and decided to return it to the author. I found the language as too casual for my taste; so much so that it was bordering on sounding cheap and derogatory to women at some places. That is not something I prefer reading, and certainly not something I enjoy. I had even chalked out a long mail to the author and ‘The Book Club’, citing the reasons why I did not want to read the novel, much less review it online. I could not, however, get down to sending that mail across, owing to one or the other preoccupations- and boy; am I glad that I didn’t!?

In the evening of the 4th, I was having dinner with my wife in one of the fancy restaurant-cum-pub, when I noticed a group of young boys and girls sitting on one of the adjoining tables and enjoying their drinks. To my surprise, the language they were using- and by ‘they’ I mean all of them, including the girls- was strikingly similar to the one used in the book. That is when it dawned on me, that this bunch of guys and girls is the very T.G. the author had in mind while penning the novel; the Y.A. or as the author himself puts it, the Gen-Y.

Needless to say, it took me a good while after reaching back home, before I could rewire my mind to go back some (read: many) years and think like the ‘Gen-Y’. I recollected all the fun stuff we used to do, when we were a part of the proverbial ‘young’ crowd. After that when I picked the book back up the next day, I was better able to relate to the mindset of the protagonist, Arjun. It was then that I realized that the language was not casual; it was the language of today. I loved the novel thereon and finished it in four days. I am writing this review on the end of the 9th.

The casual, informal tone might end up disappointing a few, it is sure to strike well with the T.G. of the book. The author has chosen to tell the story in first person, from the protagonist P.O.V.; and in most part, it tends to flow well. I, however, found the last four chapters to have been rushed. It was as if the writer got bored of his own writing and wanted to, somehow, finish the book and get done with it. The climax definitely warranted a more sincere and sensitive treatment. I wish the editor and proofreader had been a little more careful, as there were some typos and grammatical errors glaring right into your face.

Overall, ‘Finding Juliet’ is a simple, fun read and strictly meant for the youth of today. A word of advice for anybody not belonging to that age bracket; you might want to visit one of those downtown pubs before you get down to read this one. I give ‘Finding Juliet’, 4 out of 5 stars.