Stilettos in the Newsroom – A Book Review

I was super-excited to receive this review copy from debut author Rashmi Kumar. This book has been doing the rounds with various Indian book bloggers with interestingly mixed feedback.

This book chronicles the journey of Radhika Kanetkar’s life as she starts out as a young, starry-eyed, and ambitious journalist to a slightly more seasoned journalist. It’s a short book, very light n easy to read – only about 130 pages or so. It can almost be called a novella.

Unfortunately, when a book is this brief, the expectation is that the book will be plot-driven and intense, making up for the lack of pages. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The story premise although interesting is pretty flimsy, and the main character Radhika does not seem to show any improvement from the immaturity she shows in the initial stages of the book. She is a good observer, canny, and willing to kiss ass (her term, not mine :)) to move up ahead in her career, but she does not really face any major test of character, which is a disappointment. Basically, this book does not build up to anything. There is no satisfying climax at all, which I think is a major weakness here.

Apart from that, there were a few copy-editing issues that need to be fixed. It would be good for the author and the editor to do a run-through of the book once more before the next print run.

Note: I am not criticizing the author here. Of late, I am noticing a lot of language issues in books written and published in India. I am going to get a lot of flak for saying this, but book editors really need to do a more thorough job before releasing books in the market. Badly edited books do writers a great disservice.

Now here are the points I liked about this book:

• I liked Radhika Kanetkar’s honest approach to life and people. She is a vibrant character whose joie-de-vivre and openness to different life experiences makes for a very refreshing change from the generally lady-like and inhibited women in Indian fiction. I would love to read more about her if a sequel is being planned.
• I liked that the focus of the book is more on herself, her career, and her friends and not on the love-interest Sameer.
• The book is short, easy to read, and entertaining, and what else do you really need from chick-lit right?

Overall, a decent read. I quite liked it. Strictly for chick-lit fans, and anyone looking for an easy-breezy read, with nothing serious in mind.

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