For a person who professes to dislike romance fiction, I’m reviewing too many romance fiction books this year! *facepalm*
Flying Without Wings by Rishabh Puri is a story about Milli Bajwa and Karan Singhania, a classic tale of a rich boy falls in love with poor girl story.
Milli Bajwa works in the duty free shop at Chandigarh Airport. Karan Singhania is born and brought up into a rich family of a business tycoon. What brings them together is their common need for falling in love with someone’s personality, and not their looks. Both of them wish to find a life partner who speaks not only to them, but directly to their mind.
Alas, the story begins with Milli being harassed by a childhood friend Rahull (the typical creep-o who feels entitled to a girl) who wishes to marry her. Karan is busy spending his dollars on a high-maintenance girlfriend who’s only around for the purchasing power of his dollars.
Milli and Karan both install an online dating app, Clikrr, and meet each other in a virtual space. They fall in love during the breathlessly typed conversations… The intimacy of not being next to someone but always being on their mind… And soon, yes, they fall in love.
But the real story begins when Milli has to take a decision that will impact both their lives and when Karan has to finally take a decision to settle down from his playboy ways. Do they manage to let love get them through the tough times?
There are many supporting characters to the story, such as Milli’s mom who is a drug addict. Karan’s caretaker and best friend since the day he was born and till date, the elderly Amit.
What I liked about this book is that it is an unadorned love story. Some love stories tend to add a lot of unnecessary frills to the entire story, in a bid to make it an “original” love story. But, love stories can never be completely original. After all, it’s always ‘boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they fall in love, they have a major fight, they get back together, and then they get happily married ever after’. How original can you get with that? In this book, the author has made that perfect decision of devoting words only to the love story. No extra masala. What’s more, the conversations between Karan and Milli are the love-stricken dreams of every sapiosexual. Even the clichés of every romance book are present here in abundance. And I like the fact that this book is not pretending to be something it’s not. The simplicity of being in love, and the grandiose-ness of it blend together beautifully.
What I didn’t like about this book is that, like every romance story, every problem seems to have a magic solution flown in directly from Aphrodite. (Spoiler Alert) Specially in the scene where Milli’s mom is supposed to have disappeared, and one moment Milli is frantically calling the police and the hospital, and the next she’s sleeping in Karan’s arms. Like, really? (Spoiler Alert End) But then that’s the whole fantasy of a romance novel, isn’t it?
I give this book a 4 star rating, and recommend to lovers of the romance genre of books. I was quite impressed with the language, and the dating app conversations between Karan and Milli were the ones that I really enjoyed.
Thank you HarperCollins for sending me a review copy of this book! ❤
~Amateur-Book-Reviewer
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