Review: Falling In Love...

Falling In Love... by Neeraj Mishra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let’s ‘FALL(ING) IN LOVE’ with the debut novel by Neeraj Mishra (Book Rating: 3.9*/5)

Did you ever fall in love? Doesn’t matter whether your answer is Yes or No. But if you have fallen in love, or even if you haven’t; let us Fall(ing) In Love… Yes! Falling In Love… This is the title of the debut novel by Neeraj Mishra which I am going to review

Catchy Cover and the Lovely Title:

Cover in Red colour perfectly suits to the romantic genre of Falling In Love… One can see a girl holding her boyfriend’s hand. ‘In’ in ‘Falling In Love…’ is printed into a shape of a heart which looks like a cherry on the cake. Overall Rashmita Jha has designed an attractive cover.

Setting- Story of Falling In Love… runs through several locations like Patna, Rajgir (100 km far from Patna) from Bihar, author beautifully illustrates the metro city Bangalore. The story has a foreign touch of Bahamas in North America.

Themes- The novel Falling In Love… by Neeraj Mishra covers various themes like romanticism, comedy, love and e-love etc.

Language and Writing Style- Author Neeraj Mishra uses very simple and lucid language so one does not need a dictionary. He even wins my heart in his ‘Two Words’ in the beginning of the book. Editors have formatted italic fonts in a proper way but I think italic fonts could have been much better. “Naanu ninna preethi suthene.” Confused? No! I didn’t abuse you. This is the Kannada translation of English phrase ‘I love you’. So author also uses some regional phrases and words. Beginning chapters of Falling in love… are written in a diary style without mentioning dates. All the chapters are narrated in a fast pace so a reader doesn’t feel bored while reading. The author uses first person and past tense to narrate the story and this technique works fantastic.

Characters- Manav Goswami and Sriti Agarwal are the protagonists in this story of Falling In Love… Vikas Nandan and Ashish are super seniors of Manav. Mr. Subramanyam and Chef Chatterjee represent Manav’s college as the director and first-year teacher for kitchen training respectively. Sriti’s best friend Pooja aka dashing_poo’s character is portrayed beautifully. I am really impressed with the character of Sriti’s father Ghanshyam Das Agarwal- a businessman of plywood and timber at Agarwal Timbers Pvt. Ltd. Sriti’s mother Laxmi’s character represents typical housewife. The author also introduces about Sriti’s brothers Aditya Agarwal and Adarsh Agarwal. Mr. Suri’s character is also sketched gracefully. I liked all the characters portrayed in Falling In Love. But I really missed one character. Author Neeraj Mishra talks about Manav’s father in beginning, but a name of his father and description about Manav’s family is missing in the whole book. So I would have liked more if the author would have described Manav’s parents as he influenced on Sriti’s family.

Lovely Plot:
First chapter ‘Welcome to Bangalore’ begins with Manav’s admission to college and introduction about his college rules and regulations. Beginning of ‘Falling in Love…’ commemorates me the beginning of You are the Best Wife by [authior:Ajay K Pandey] as both love stories start with the college admission. Cute_Manav and sriti.agarwal’s chatting is just realistic as we do nowadays in our own life in the virtual world of the internet in the second chapter ‘And She Came Online...’ First chatting scene between Cute_Manav and sriti.agarwal in the third chapter ‘The New Approach’ is really funny. I would like to mention Sriti’s definition of Dumbo “Dumbo means you! The person who has little malfunction on upper floor is called dumbo.” Manav’s theory of difference between chatting and talking is really logical and brilliant, I won’t wonder if prestigious dictionary like Oxford approves his theory of difference chatting and talking; “Let me tell you the difference between chatting and talking! See, when you think something in your mind and you want to express it to another person then with use of hands you type on the keyboard and your message travels via computer’s binary language to the other person and the person receives your message and then responds to your message via the same procedure! This time consuming utterly slow paced conversation is called chatting while vide hearing the voice over telephone or mobile instrument or face to face is called talking where the conversation is fast paced and filled with real emotions!” Author comments on friends who poke their nose in every matter of friends and interferes in their life. Manav and Sriti’s first chat in the fourth chapter ‘From Online To Offline!’ on love and other funny topics reminds me my chat with my FRIENDS. Fifth chapter ‘Listening to Her’ touches to my heart and let me back in the memory of my someone close. The ending of this and eighth chapter made my cry literally. Sixth chapter ‘The Rendezvous’ brings so many twists in a relationship between Manav and Sriti. Author comments on girls’ modern dressing fashion in the seventh chapter ‘New Beginning.’ Manav’s experience of a ride on Sriti’s scooty commemorates me my own experience of a ride in the back seat of my best friend’s scooty (heheheJ!!! Oye Hello! Dirty minds, didn’t I write FRIEND??). Sriti’s birthday event and Manav’s ‘zid’ to wish her is described beautifully in chapter eighth ‘Her Birthday…’ Author comments on Marwari’s misery and pundits’ prediction of future. The author gives brief but enough information about American chop suey and dry baby corn Manchurian (Naam padh ke hi muh me paani aa gaya na?? Mere muh me bhi aaya…). In the ninth chapter ‘The Bad Days And Good Days’, author scribbles that how one phone call of friend’s interference can create misunderstanding and how the relationship can go to a sad end (No! I am not sharing the climax you fool..!) I myself commemorate me the same phone call when Pooja calls Manav to forget his love Sriti. Eleventh chapter ‘The Mission’ tells everything about author’s deep observation and satiric comments about Marwari community when Manav quotes “The smell of business to a Marwari is just like the smell of biryani to a hungry man!” My mouth watered while reading names of various delicious dishes cooked by Manav in the kitchen on Sriti’s home. Knowledge of cooking studied in Hotel Management is elegantly used in the novel by the author Neeraj Mishra. The author also shares some useful ethics of business. So, this love story was formed in the virtual world of internet. We are aware of the future and reality of relationships formed on the internet. So, what happens next? Do Sriti’s parents refuse Manav and Sriti’s relationship? Or they accept them? Does this story ends to a happy end or fails like common e-love stories at a tragic end? I won’t share the climax but you must not miss the novel ‘Falling In Love...’

Quotes from Falling In Love…

All the quotes and one-liners from the novel ‘Falling In Love…’ touches to my heart and relates to my own life.
“Telling a lie does not make you cool! You become cool only when you are truthful and when your heart speaks truth. A friendship is based on trust and if you lie, the trust breaks and without trust any friendship cannot sustain.”
“You know sometimes it happens that someone else knows about your heart better than you, because your heart doesn’t remain with you, it belongs to that someone.”
“Value Of Relation” Is Not That How Much You Feel Happy With Some One. But It Is That, How Much Some One Feels ALONE Without You J!!”
“Never regret a day in your life. Good days give happiness, bad days give experience, worst days give lessons, and best days give memories!”
“Memories are always special. Sometimes we laugh by remembering the days we cried and we cry remembering the days we laughed.”
“‘Life is everything’, when the person you love misses you in your absence. But ‘life is nothing’ when they miss to understand your importance in your presence.”
“Love happens only once and rest is just compromises and then life goes on and on.”
“Love makes you do everything that you never imagined doing.”

Oops Factors of Falling In Love…

Improper Typing and Editing: Sriti.agarwal is printed instead of Cute_Manav on page number 50. Space is printed between ‘w’ and ‘hy’ (i.e.: w hy for ‘why’ on page no. 103. Double inverted comma opens which should be closed in the last paragraph on page 108. I am highlighting misprints with strikethrough effects- may, Maam and Srits’s instead of my, Ma’am and Sriti’s on page numbers 134, 160 and 211. I would say that editing could have been much better than what it is now.
Header margin is too much and footer margin is very less, so lines are printed to the footer line.
Though the light weight of the book is plus point, we can’t ignore very cheap quality of pages.
Price Rs 175/- is too much for the book when we compare with poor page quality.

Reviewer’s Notes-

“The story and fast pace of author’s writing style keep you hooked with the story of ‘Falling In Love…’ and won’t let you put down the book. I can consider Falling In Love in my all-time favourite love stories. Author Neeraj Mishra may claim ‘Falling In Love…’ as his story but this is my and everyone’s story who have TRULY LOVED even once in ANY RELATION. I have mucked almost every page and every line of the book. My friend Trupti almost finished the whole book in one seating and I too finished the book in two seating. I feel the climax scene short in length, so I would have liked more if author Neeraj Mishra would have stretched the climax scene with more thrill. Otherwise, Falling in Love is the perfect love story which will make you smile, laugh and cry at the same time. I would recommend it to every student of Hotel Management, romance lovers, and businessmen. I would rate the book 3.9 on the scale of 5 stars.”

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