• Title – Fashionably Yours – girl in the city
• Author – Swati Sharma
• Publisher – Harlequin India Pvt. Ltd.
• Genre – Fiction/Chik Lit
• Pages – 241
• Price – INR 250
• ISBN – 978-93-5106-659-0

Synopsis: “Maya Kapoor swaps the snowy mountains for the glittering ocean.”

Maya Kapoor arrived in Mumbai with a glamorous dream, quite literally. Maya wants to be a serious fashion writer for the high-end fashion magazine, Glamorous but luck is not in her favor. Instead, she lands a job with a local fashion magazine, Style. Maya hates everything about it but for now this is all she has. Despite all the odds, Maya is excited about living an independent, fashionable life in the city of dreams.

At twenty-five, love has eluded Maya. But when she bumps into the dashing photographer, Aryan Malik, she falls head over heels for his gorgeous smile and charming manner.

But Maya seems to be stuck in a rut – her credit card bills are sky-high, her melodramatic mother can’t stop ranting, the boss is unbearably cruel, her younger sister has decided to tie the knot, and she’s not sure if Aryan could love a simple, confused girl like her.

Will Maya get the fairy-tale life she dreamed about or will she let everything slip through her fingers? Read her diary and find out.

Review: The book has a beautiful cover that does full justice to the essence of the plot. It portrays the protagonist, Maya Kapoor with an eye for fashion, landing in Mumbai to realize her dreams. The intriguing blurb outlines the foundation that gives birth to towering expectations from this Chik Lit.

Written in a diary format, the book is divided into 32 short chapters. The book opens on a high note bringing to light the pressures young Indian girls often face and how Maya has a sound head on her shoulders to skim rational from age-old traditions. While the plot is conventional and pretty predictable, the author has successfully managed to make it entertaining. Peppered with wit, drama, true-to-life emotions and natural reactions, the story stays interesting till the end.

I’d like to congratulate the author on wonderful portrayal of each of the characters, allowing them full room to grow. I particularly liked the inculcation of the myriad hues to each personality, gifting the book interesting twists and turns. The writing style is simple and picturesque.

The book however went a little lull in the middle third and ended on a very abrupt note. The rush to give it a fairy tale ending not only startled me, but also came across as forced on many quarters. I felt the timeline wasn’t quite even and many unnecessary jumps were taken, that could have been avoided.

The profuse use of profanities throughout the book was a major turn off, besides the many grammatical & typing errors. I wasn’t impressed with the way tenses played havoc on many occasions. I failed to accept the way Maya’s YouTube channel was shown to receive 23,000 views & 9,000 subscriptions in 10 days (that too for a newcomer). The figures quoted totally stole the acceptability of the major twists in the plot.

If you love reading Chik lits that make for a breezy read, loaded with humour, love, passion and drama you may find this book a good one time read.

About the Author : Swati Sharma has completed her post graduation in business. Before writing this book (which is her debut novel), Swati has authored four coffee-table books and written for a lifestyle magazine. One thing which very few people know is that she is clairvoyant. Currently, she lives in Delhi.

Rating: 3/5