Book Review: Let’s Have Coffee by Parul Mittal

Let’s Have Coffee
Author: Parul Mittal
Publisher: Rupa Publishers
Rating: 3/5

If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.
~Margaret Thatcher

Love is incredible yet confusing. What lies ahead in the path of love is a deep unfathomable chasm! When in love you cannot decide what is right or wrong. But you can definitely decide who should enter and who should exit your life. ‘Let’s Have Coffee’ is a mushy love tale filled with desire, ambition, desperation and happenstance. It revolves around Meha and Samir and their internal conflicts.

Boisterous and wild, Meha is a wedding planner who aspires to become famous and become as rich as Croesus but nothing goes as planned in her life. Her constant battle with her mind and the crooked lines of her destiny force her to make erratic decisions which she regrets later. Snazzy and suave, Samir is an engineer turned into a freelance photographer. He dreads the idea of marriage but believes in the concept of ‘Friends with Benefits’. While numerous bimbos drool over his personality, he savours each moment and believes in living life to the fullest. Meha and Samir are opposites- not only in terms of likes and beliefs but also in terms of physical appearance. But isn’t it true that opposites attract?

When they first meet, their exes become a medium of introduction for them. Love blossoms and ends up in a one-night stand. Five years later, they meet again just like the protagonists met on the sets of ‘Na Tum Jaano Na Hum’- arms in arms, blaming the circumstances and the creator. Love blossoms again. With a little twist here and there, the book concludes with a happily-ever-after. This is the gist of the plot. It is more like serving old wine in a new bottle.

The flow of the story is as smooth as silk. I finished reading it in merely 3.5 hours. No doubt it is a breezy read, but still, the language is a major problem. Written in present simple tense, the author has goofed up the tenses so much so that the comprehension becomes difficult. The latter part of the story is fine but the initial 4-5 chapters have copious mistakes.

This book is another of ‘Chetan Bhagat’s’ type with Hinglish used as a means to enhance emotions and inclusion of intimate scenes just to spice up the content. Though the authoress has definitely worked hard in the field of plotting and arranging every event sequentially, yet I found something amiss. I felt I had read stories that began when the protagonists had alcohol and the stories that narrated how confusing love is. It was all very clichéd.

The cover is subtle but the title is ambiguous. I like the way the authoress has played with the words throughout the story. Some ideas are admirable but some seem directly plagiarized from Bollywood movies. Yes, the book offers an insight into how the young generation plays around with the concept of relationships but it was nothing that we don’t know already.

Overall, ‘Let’s Have Coffee’ offers brewed romance that can be enjoyed with a steaming cup of coffee!

Best wishes to the author!

Buying Link: Amazon