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swethavoleti 's review for:
Destination Wedding
by Diksha Basu
Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu
I finally finished this book after wanting to put it down at the end of each chapter. I don’t like writing harsh reviews but here goes…
Destination Wedding is essentially just that, except not sure why it’s called a destination wedding when the wedding takes place in the bride-groom’s home country and that too in their very own Colebrookes Club? The story follows the family of Tina Das, her parents Neel and Radha Das who are long divorced, Tina’s best friend Marianne and literally every character in the novel. The book is set over a week’s time and covers the wedding of Shefali and Pavan, plus the lives of each of the guests.
Let me just say - there’s no real promising premise. I fully expected just a no-brainer rom-com, Bollywood kinda story, but unfortunately it was barely that. For starters, there’s just too much going on in the story. Every character is given a subplot and is just draining. Nothing really happens, the story just goes on and on.
It attempts to showcase the chaos of Indian weddings but instead it just misses it all. It doesn’t capture the sanctity and importance of wedding rituals, the coming together of families nor the excitement behind it all. What it rather captures is girls and guys trying to get with each other, alcohol and drugs, and the rich. Apart from the interactions between Sid and Tina, there is no real regard given to socioeconomic issues. There was a mention of an LGBTQI+ character but that’s all it was. Some subplots were also unrealistic, for instance that of Neel and Radha.
As for the characters, I despised almost every single character! There were way too many characters involved and the constant change in point-of-views/narrators drove me insane. For example, Tina is trying to cross the road and we are presented with hers, the car driver’s and other driver’s point-of-views on what they think of her road-crossing skills. This was totally unnecessary!! Apart from this, the main characters were so shallow and self-absorbed. Tina, the main character, wanted so badly to fit into the Indian culture and put on this facade that she doesn’t disparage the poor. She herself was very confused and her constant change in mind made it really hard for me as a reader to stay connected.
Even the bridge-groom were shallow and again showed no respect for Indian wedding rituals, it was such a joke! The only character I liked was Mr Das
I don’t live in India but was born there and do consider myself Indian. With that authority, I don’t think this book really captures India. Maybe this was not the intention and perhaps it was just to capture the high society life.
I would not recommend this book but if you do pick it up, don’t expect much. I would say it’s more of a young adult fiction (noting here that the characters are in their 30s but they’re just immature).
In saying that, I appreciate this would’ve been a feat of a book to write given all the characters and all the chaos. This is not to discredit the author’s work.
I finally finished this book after wanting to put it down at the end of each chapter. I don’t like writing harsh reviews but here goes…
Destination Wedding is essentially just that, except not sure why it’s called a destination wedding when the wedding takes place in the bride-groom’s home country and that too in their very own Colebrookes Club? The story follows the family of Tina Das, her parents Neel and Radha Das who are long divorced, Tina’s best friend Marianne and literally every character in the novel. The book is set over a week’s time and covers the wedding of Shefali and Pavan, plus the lives of each of the guests.
Let me just say - there’s no real promising premise. I fully expected just a no-brainer rom-com, Bollywood kinda story, but unfortunately it was barely that. For starters, there’s just too much going on in the story. Every character is given a subplot and is just draining. Nothing really happens, the story just goes on and on.
It attempts to showcase the chaos of Indian weddings but instead it just misses it all. It doesn’t capture the sanctity and importance of wedding rituals, the coming together of families nor the excitement behind it all. What it rather captures is girls and guys trying to get with each other, alcohol and drugs, and the rich. Apart from the interactions between Sid and Tina, there is no real regard given to socioeconomic issues. There was a mention of an LGBTQI+ character but that’s all it was. Some subplots were also unrealistic, for instance that of Neel and Radha.
As for the characters, I despised almost every single character! There were way too many characters involved and the constant change in point-of-views/narrators drove me insane. For example, Tina is trying to cross the road and we are presented with hers, the car driver’s and other driver’s point-of-views on what they think of her road-crossing skills. This was totally unnecessary!! Apart from this, the main characters were so shallow and self-absorbed. Tina, the main character, wanted so badly to fit into the Indian culture and put on this facade that she doesn’t disparage the poor. She herself was very confused and her constant change in mind made it really hard for me as a reader to stay connected.
Even the bridge-groom were shallow and again showed no respect for Indian wedding rituals, it was such a joke! The only character I liked was Mr Das
I don’t live in India but was born there and do consider myself Indian. With that authority, I don’t think this book really captures India. Maybe this was not the intention and perhaps it was just to capture the high society life.
I would not recommend this book but if you do pick it up, don’t expect much. I would say it’s more of a young adult fiction (noting here that the characters are in their 30s but they’re just immature).
In saying that, I appreciate this would’ve been a feat of a book to write given all the characters and all the chaos. This is not to discredit the author’s work.