I was requested by Poornima Dhiman to review her debut novel "Arranging Love, contemporary way!" and was sent a digital copy of the same. I tried to finish the book in minimum sittings to arrange a quicker feedback for Poornima and the book being a light hearted take on an otherwise serious subject helped in achieving the same.
And that, in fact, is the biggest strength of Poornima Dhiman as a story teller.
The book begins with a rather familiar territory of a strong, independent single women in her late 20s being dumped rather unceremoniously. When I expected a story of redemption with my experience out of similar books based on strong values of feminism, Poornima has rather a different and interesting subject to discuss and that was really a welcome move.
Poornima has solely focussed on a comparatively lesser known and lesser discussed topic of "what goes on while searching for a potential groom via marriage portals" through her debut book and has fairly succeeded in achieving the same. The entire process, those anxious moments, the nervousness of meeting your prospective partner for the first time after having talked to him for some time, has been detailed out rather elaborately.
The biggest success of Poornima in her debut book has been managing to keep the entire mood of the novel comparatively light weight and not at all break into a preachy or a philosophical tone. In spite of meeting some of the most mean, sexist and MCP characters most of the times, her protagonist never turns "anti-men", and is always able to put up a positive outlook towards the entire turn of events in her life.
The book definitely demands better editing. At times, dialogues start but soon turn into narrative leaving the reader confused. One major problem I had with the book was that Poornima skipped certain important and major aspects of this search of groom on marriage portal. I would have loved to read into her first Skype chat with a prospective groom, how she prepared herself, how she thought he had come prepared/unprepared, etc. I would also have liked to read maybe what happens when some of the meanest men in her book get married and face the taste of Karma for once.
In spite of those little nuances, because she has digressed a topic which many are unaware about and is kind of a black box, she deserves full marks. That, adding to the overall tone of the book makes it a perfect metro read. The book is certainly different. Not everyday you get to read about the thoughts of a modern day successful woman who actually is not skeptical about finding her partner through a contemporary arranged marriage setup.
All in all, I would give this book a rating of 4/5.
The book is available at Amazon Kindle store
You can get in touch with her at Poornima.dhiman@gmail.com
