When I first read The Zoya Factor (the book that kickstarted this book blog), I knew I had found my new favorite author. But then I looked at her books through Goodreads and other book blogs and found she was just not getting featured a lot.
Which made me a little confused. Was I the only person who liked The Zoya Factor? I enthusiastically pressed it on my friends, and their ho-hum response made me doubt my taste for the longest time. And so, my bookish insecurity prevented me from picking up any of her books again.
Which is sad. When I eventually tried Those Pricey Thakur Girls, I found it delightful too. This time around, though, I could see some of the flaws in it that my friends and other book reviewers were pointing out.
About the Book
In a sprawling bungalow on New Delhi’s posh Hailey Road, Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur and his wife Mamta watch anxiously over their five beautiful (but troublesome) alphabetically named daughters. Anjini, married but an incorrigible flirt; Binodini, very worried about her children’s hissa in the family property; Chandrakanta, who eloped with a foreigner on the eve of her wedding; Eshwari, who is just a little too popular at Modern School, Barakhamba Road; and the Judge’s favorite (though fathers shouldn’t have favorites): the quietly fiery Debjani, champion of all the stray animals on Hailey Road, who reads the English news on DD and clashes constantly with crusading journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat.
Review of Those Pricey Thakur Girls
Many reviewers have called this book an Indian Pride and Prejudice, but except for the similarity of the five daughters, this book is nothing like Pride and Prejudice. And any reviews doing this comparison are not doing justice to this book.
So, with that out of the way, let’s get to the meat of this book.
At it’s heart, this is a rom-com based in the mid-1980s. I am explicitly stating this because the book blurb doesn’t, and I was a little confused by some of the descriptions at the beginning of the book – the frequent references to Doordarshan (a state-owned TV channel that was relevant in the 80s and early 90s).
The romance is between Debjani – a Doordarshan newsreader, and Dylan – crusading reporter. I”ll be honest and say that I found the romance tepid. This is mainly because Dylan is an arrogant ass, and I was rooting throughout for Debjani to ditch him. The two of them didn’t seem a well-matched pair at all. And I couldn’t see them living a happily ever after life.
What I did love about the book is the fantastic family dynamics. Justice Thakur, his wife, and his daughters are an utter delight. The story is quirky, the dialogues are hilarious and each character is one of a kind. The plot is far away from the traditional love stories we find, with some serious events that are otherwise unexpected from a breezy read of this kind.
Of course, Chauhan gets a bit too carried away with the humor – veering into slapstick territory sometimes. And also dragging the book a bit toward the end. The Zoya Factor has these same flaws, too (I now realize), but I found it much more enjoyable as the leading man wasn’t such an ass as Dylan.
Overall thoughts: Good, but not as good as The Zoya Factor. That still retains its position as my top Indian romcom of all time.
