Manhunt: If her aim was to scare single women off the arranged marriage map, Meeti Shroff-Shah has succeeded as far as Bookworm, the PYB (pretty young bibliophile), is concerned!
Jokes aside, Do You Know Any Good Boys? (Pan Macmillan India, Rs 250) should be essential reading for all girls who have agreed to meet their life partners through anyone other than Cupid (or Aphrodite *wink*). This includes through parents, matchmakers, websites, matrimonials or the snarky community auntie.
But why does one need this book? Well, despite the rather average language and some repetitive portions, what works for this book is the author’s first-hand experience of arranged marriage. And having gone on 40 “first dates” with near strangers before she finally met her husband, she does know how things roll in this biz. So, when Meeti opens with, “Truth is that for most people, the process of an arranged marriage is at least as painful as delivering a pair of eight-pound twins. Without the option of an epidural,” she is only mildly exaggerating. At least one hopes she is.
Starting from battling a sense of uncool for even agreeing to be set up by parents to writing your wedding CV to weeding out potential disaster partners to finally meeting someone at a coffee shop (you’ll find out why coffee is crucial), Meeti offers a step-by-step guide to husband-hunting.
What’s best about this book, however, is Meeti’s agony. No, we’re not sadists. It’s just that when the strain of meeting a new man every weekend or parents looking at you expectantly every time you’re back from a coffee date gets to you, it helps to know that your misery has company. Happy hunting!
Sun, the son:
Rick Riordan is back with another series based on Greek mythology. This time it is Apollo, the Greek god of sun, prophecy, archery, music, poetry... who’s in trouble. He made his dad angry. Angry dads are never good, especially if the dad happens to be Zeus, the god of sky and thunder. Now Apollo has been cast down from Olympus as a normal, pimply 16-year-old called Lester and he has to survive in the modern world till he finds a way to make Zeus happy. He heads for the only place he knows he may be safe in — Camp Half-Blood. The Hidden Oracle is the first of five books in The Trials of Apollo series.
