My Rating - 2 out of 5 stars
Publisher - Westland Ltd.Genre - Fiction
Publishing year - 2018
Language - English
ISBN - 978-1542040464
Pages - 304
Book Review -
I read Two States and Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat even before I started reviewing the books. This is my third read and the initial review of his work. One non-related to the review fact, my house number is also 105. LOL.
Now, get back to work. The Girl in Room 105 is Chetan Bhagat's attempt to write something other than a typical romance novel. As he stated, it is an unloved story.
The girl in the room is Zara Lone, a Kashmiri Muslim. She lived in the IIT campus hostel, completing her Ph.D. The male protagonist, Keshav Rajpurohit, is a Rajasthani and falls in love with Zara in a debate competition. Due to Keshav's orthodox parents and not having a future together, they broke up.
Zara moved on and got engaged with Raghu. Keshav starts teaching in a coaching centre, unable to find a job in the company. Moving on for him seems impossible; after four years, he still misses Zara.
One day, she messaged him to meet unexpectedly in her hostel room; when Keshav reached there, he found her dead body.
From here, the story picks a pace; the police arrest the murderer in two days. Keshav starts snooping around with his flatmate and colleague Saurabh to get some closure. They find some clues, but they can't do anything without concrete proof.
The police inspector Rana helped him so he could get the promotion. Saurabh helped Keshav because they both sucked at their jobs and hated it but didn't have the guts to quit. This case brings some action into their dull lives. So, they roamed around, asked questions, hacked, and did many so-called detective works.
The story has some kind of suspense, but like any other Chetan Bhagat book, it is filled with Hindi language abuses, objectifying women, and their choices. It is like something you watch on a big screen, a commercialized movie based on a novel. His writing aims to give Bollywood another feature film, nothing else.
The author talks about how people see Muslims, in general, as hate for the Indian Army in Kashmir, and the people of Kashmir do not see themselves as a part of India, the policemen abusing their powers. These few points made me stop reading to reflect on them.
Keshav's character is portrayed as a typical obsessive, egoistic male with no goal or courage to act. No wonder Zara left him. Other characters are not even worth mentioning.
Overall, it is an okay read. If you hit a reading slump or if you are someone who wants to improve your English, pick this book.
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