Never Kiss Your Best Friend by Sumrit Shahi (Book Review-3*/5) !!!

         Sumrit Shahi made his fans wait for 4 long years to read his next novel after writing 2 books. He became more popular after writing two super hit shows for Channel V- Sadda Haq and Million Dollar Girl. Since then, he is living life of his dreams at a very young age. I had read one of his 2 books that he released in 2010 and 2011 respectively but I cannot recall anything about it. It's Sumrit himself who made me remember that I had reviewed his book "Just Friends". I have just completed reading its sequel named "Never Kiss Your Best Friend". These days books with the word "friend" are doing very good. E.g. Half Girlfriend, World's Best Boyfriend. :-) Considering the cover page of this book and the title, it became quite evident what the whole book would be about. Both these factors are enough interesting to make you pick up the book if you like reading chick-lit fictions written by Indian authors.

           Sumrit have used a very simple and good English language to narrate this story. The best part about the book is that author tried to speak everything in just 200 pages and didn't stretch the story. The ups and downs in the story are beautifully projected. His characters are surely realistic in terms of lifestyle that these cool class of people in metros live. I felt somewhere in between that Sumrit have written this book like a screenplay of the kind of series he writes. It's quite obvious as after writing a show for a long time, your writing style might change or you would like to experiment something new. I liked the humour and sarcasm that Sumrit have used as filler every now and then.

          A special kind of friendship is presented between Tanie and Sumer. It's unusual and you'll wish to have such friend in your life. Whenever they fight, you know that they will patch up soon as books are generally a fairy-tale world but still reading about how they deal with the issue and try to remain unaffected by it is nicely written. The initial pages of the book are very interesting as its written in a fast pace. Also the climax is fine. The little suspense kept by the author also plays a big role in the formation of the anti-climax. 

           Coming to the drawbacks, I didn't like the characters having alcohols, boozing and going out of control in almost every page. I wanted the story to move ahead through real emotions and not by what the characters displayed in the shadow of alcohol. Also "Fuck" and similar type of words are used repeatedly just to show how cool the language is for teenagers of metro-cities. It becomes irritating after a point of time. Similarly, I didn't like the usage of "He Smiled. She smiled. Problem solved." in the cases where it wasn't even relevant. 

          Rest, I liked how the father-son tensed relationship is presented. I liked how two friends these days share even kisses so casually that it becomes hard even for themselves to give a name to their relationship. I liked how diary discloses few facts in the climax. There are many things in this book to appreciate and many that you will want to ask author "Why?" because you know he could have done wonderful even without writing those scenes. In all, I would give the book 3 stars out of 5. You can surely gift this one to your best friend of opposite sex and get your life changed withing 3 hours. Haha! And Hey, Sumrit, please do not take 4 years again to release your next. :-)

 Thanks.

 ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU!!!