Table for One

Book : Table for One
Author : Neha Bindal
Pages : 117
Price : 199/-
Publication : Half Baked Beans

Light, easy, refreshing read that will give you, Queen meets, DDLJ and English Vinglish vibes.

Story

Taara Maheshwari, a 31-year-old unmarried girl living her life in the restrictions created by her father. Happily siting and having fun with family, but just from outside, inside she craves for more, more from her family and more from her life.
Her parents keep brushing the marriage topic to her on and off, until one day she sees DDLJ playing in the background and agrees to her parents wish to get married. BUT ON ONE CONDITION ! She wish to travel alone to Europe before her marriage. Reluctant Indian parents don’t agree to her demands, but give in when they think of the outcome after this trip.

Taara visits places, meets people. Is this what her heart always wanted?
Will she find the “more” she always wanted from life?
Will she finally tie in the knot to the person her father has finalized ?

For all this, and more you need to read the book 🙂

Writing

First things, first I LOVED the cover, it gives such soothing, travel vibes. All I want to do is pack my backpack and leave the country too.
Language was simple and easy to understand. There is the of other languages as well, but it’s too minimum to cause any hindrance to the story. Hindi touch sometimes adds up pretty good in some novels, and here it did same.
But at the same time, saying “blah blah blah” to any non-understanding language is an insult. Instead, it could have been handled more mature ways, like Taara simply saying “I couldn’t understand” or something.

There were too many parts, where my mind remembered number of Bollywood movies. References like Girl says yes to marriage, only after a Europe trip, the church scene, and some more reminded me of DDLJ
If we look closely the story is so much inspired with Kangana Ranaut’s Queen movie. “INSPIRED” not copied , that while imagining Taara my mind always thought of Kangana somehow.

The writing made it very easy to imagine the situations, the places and the fun she was having. We could see the whole transformation of Taara in these 117 pages. From a fearful girl, with family pressures turned into a wanderluster (is that even a word eh ?) and someone who in the end took a step that her heart allowed, and didn’t go with the flow of things happening.

Loved the chapter titles they were apt for the content of chapter and those quotes by famous people aptly went with the novel.

Writing style of Authoress, Neha reminded me of articles that was shown/written by Carry Bradshaw in Sex & the City. They always had that edge of questions at the end, and they were two faced. Also italics of deep meaningful words were good at starting, but by the middle whenever I saw italics font coming, I knew there will be a question, or a thought, or meaningful words etc which took my sense completely to that part rather than current part I am reading 😛 (sounds weird right ? but it happened :-/)

Having said above all that, there were a few things that my over thinking mind couldn’t take.

**** New section ****

Weird Things

>> Going to a new city, and Taara’s over precious parents didn’t call her? They were shown too protective of her in starting, and suddenly Europe made them vanish. I would have loved to read about them in novel every now and them.

>> The simple novel turned into quiet an erotica ! WHY ? There was absolutely no need for that, a clean novel is also liked by everyone. We can simply say, they made love instead of describing THINGS!

>> The age of Taara is mentioned quite a lot in starting. I mean, yes, it matters that a 30 year unmarried thinking of taking such trips, leaving a job. But really, does age actually matters? I mean any age “girl” doing such things will make NEWS !! 😛

>> The stone, that beautifully came to Taara’s escape in starting lost its way in the mid. And suddenly came in at the end. Well, please let the stone be there like in every situation 😀

>> Where did Charu go? There were two sisters right ? And after one night I couldn’t see why Charu isn’t accompanying Purvi anymore.

Things that worked out for me :

> BEA-U-TIFUL Cover, the Title and the story in general.
> Loved the description of places Taara visited.
> Emotions were shown plain and simple yet deep, and I could connect with them (except some)

Things that didn’t worked for me :

> There were parts in the story that I wish were given more read-time, too many loose ends. (mentioned in weird things’ section)
> The steamy action wasn’t required at all. Sometimes things can be left unsaid and to be felt loved.
> The end was kind of cliffhanger, it left me with so many questions. (Is she working now ? How her parents reacted to the fact that things didn’t work out as she said before leaving.) Well, I am a very caring person, and it makes my duty to know about the character I invested in.

Authoress Neha Bindal YOU NEED TO WRITE A SEQUEL, to answer above . 😀

Words that touched

No matter who we are, what we do, or where we live, deep inside we all feel incomplete. It’s like we have lost something and need to get it back. Just what that something is, most of us never find out. And of those who do, even fewer manage to go out and look for it.

Like the houses we build, the sky was also a shelter to few.

Alone wasn’t just a closed dark room anymore but a whole wide world full of opportunities. I needed to explore and occupy the vastness of the world inside of me, which until now I hadn’t truly understood.

Memories is a beautiful thing if you don’t have to deal with the past. – Before Sunrise (movie)

We are all taught that the most beautiful part of a fairytale is “happily ever after”. But we fail to notice that all fairy tales begin with “Once upon a time”. Once. It all happened. It was all real. Once.

Final Note :

Wanna go out and travel Europe in words ? This is for you. A short, light breeze in that hectic day of yours..

Cover: 3.5/5
Title: 3/5
Blurb: 2.5/5 (blurb gives vibes of queen/DDLJ a lot, and it just doesn’t justify the whole other things novel brings to us)
Theme: 4/5
Story: 3.5/5
Characters: 3.5/5
Overall: 3.3/5

*Thanks to Half Baked Beans for providing review copy in return of an honest review.*