Andaleeb Wajid has been one of my top favourite authors since last year. I happened to get a copy of her bestselling book More Than Just Biryani at my college library. I fell in love with her writing style: she can paint a beautiful story with so many different characters, and play with their lives like an expert puppeteer, handling 10-15 puppets at at a time.
I was honoured to be given a chance to review her upcoming book, Twenty-Nine Going on Thirty. It will be published by Penguin India on 5th March 2018. Here’s why you should preorder your copy today!
The plot of “Twenty-Nine Going on Thirty” by Andaleeb Wajid goes like this:
Priya, Farida, Mini, Namrata. Four different personalities, yet one common thread drawing them together: they’re all twenty nine, reluctantly entering their thirties.
Priya has a mom nagging her to get married ASAP, before she becomes too buddhi for the marriage market. A good-looking next-door neighbour doesn’t help matters.
Farida is being bullied into giving away her family house property to some random and suspicious Aunty, meanwhile pining away over her childhood crush.
Mini, a snappy and fiesty character, is just recovering from a breakup. An awkward breakup that has left her confused and demanding many answers.
Namrata, the silent and shy one, is eagerly looking out of the window, waiting for her Prince Charming to notice her.
One thing leads to another, and this odd group of personalities become friends. They try to support each other through the tough times, which often ends up escalating things to a Bollywood-esque masala level.
Do Priya, Farida, Mini and Namrata end up meeting their hearts’ desires, before they turn thirty?
What I liked about this book is its complete ease of reading. You can take this book on a sunny beach, sip your coconut water (or something stronger, if you’re older), and blissfully enter the lives of these characters. The whole motley cast of characters will pull you into a seemingly real world where everyone is twenty-nine, and going on thirty. You get the whole starter pack: comfort foods, late night Netflix binge watching, wondering whether bae loves you back or not, making drastic changes to your life just to get over someone, being unsure about how to treat people younger than you who think you’re an AUNTY.
What I didn’t like about this book is the repetition of the idea that people who are twenty nine don’t look twenty nine, and that they all look young.
I give this book a 4/5 star rating, and recommend it to all you ladies in your late twenties. Read this book before you turn thirty!
~Amateur-Book-Reviewer
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