Book Review- U & I

U & I

              Don't we all love romance? Well atleast majority of us!! Teenage love stories are even more special. Seeing a "Happily ever after" to a teenage love story captivates me, precisely why I picked U & I. The essence of love stories, for me, lies in how pure they are. Only purity strikes a chord and in turn helps a book to scale to different heights.

                U & I is the journey of two souls made for each other. It is a story of a studious  boy -Abhishek from Uttar Pradesh and a beautiful girl-Preeti  from Lucknow. Abhishek is an ambitious guy who goes to Lucknow for his studies and infatuated by Preeti the minute he spotted her. "Infatuation at first sight" as the author addresses it. They start of as friends and start spending a lot of time with each other. They eventually fall in love. Abhishek's goals take him away from Preeti but only geographically. They maintain their relationship successfully. Everything goes on smoothly when an accident happens. How will this affect Abhishek's and Preeti's paradise- A paradise they have built with a lot of love and understanding? Does their love have the power to withstand this storm?  DO they really have a "happily ever after"?  The answers to these questions lie in the 260 pages titled U & I.

            The author has tried to write this in the form of a flashback. SO the dates written at the start of the chapters become essential. Flashback is a form most authors want to attempt as its extremely catchy and keeps the reader at the edge of the seat.. But for most it just gets limited to "want". Not many our successful in this. Sadly Abhishek wasn't too bad with it. But initially with the prologue and all it gets a tad bit confusing. When one reads the prologue, you get a very clear picture of how the story will progress. This in turn leaves very less room for the reader to be it at the edge of the seat. In a tale of mostly only 2 charcters, both have to be carved extremely strongly. Over here neither Abhishek nor Preeti get etched in your heart. The journey of Abhishek is shown but what about Preeti? She has only been shown as being a phone support to Abhishek. What does she do for a living? The dates show that they are todays couple so isn't Preeti also inclined towards building a career? Their conversations even at the age of 20 feel as if teenagers are conversing. Being a girl of today, I definitely am aware that couples do not behave this way. There is alot more spark in a relationship. The essence of a true relation just does not get captured.

            The cover page also could have been better. Editors have failed in this one. I don't know how this occurred but everywhere where it was to be "my" it has been written as "mine".

            As a story U & I doesn't really touch your chords, which is expected out of a love story. There is no plot. The characters are weak. Their love story is just limited to words. The depth in their love should have been painted very beautifully as that is what the storyline demands but the author fails to do that completely.

            A futile attempt and a definite miss in this ever growing genre.

STARS-1.5/5

This review was first published on talespensieve.com