CHARACTERS: 3/5
WRITING STYLE: 2.5/5
CLIMAX: 2.5/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3/5
Sanjeev Ranjan has to his credit two bestselling novels – In course of True Love (2012) and It’s No Longer a Dream (2014) but unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of reading them.
Published by Random House India, Just The Way You Are comes packed in an attractive cover and with quite an attention-grabbing blurb.
The blurb and the cover got me hooked so much that I had to keep at bay another book which I was supposed to review first and get started on this exciting one.
The story is about a guy Sameer who, since as far as he can remember has always been shunned by the lady called love.
Right from his college days, he has constantly and unceasingly been deprived and devoid of love. And the fact which makes it so much worse is that for every step that love takes in the opposite direction, Sameer takes an additional one chasing it.
Finally, after enduring years of loneliness and isolation, Sameer gets lucky and ends up meeting Shagun. The moment he laid his eyes on her he knew that if there is ever a girl made for her, it is she and no one else.
All goes well and Shagun and Sameer end up getting married. But as fate would have it, Sameer bags his dream job and he has to join the very next day in Switzerland.
Last night he got married and today he is leaving. Shagun, all alone and deprived of even her first night, starts passing time by reading Sameer’s personal diary which she incidentally laid her hands on while packing Sameer’s luggage.
But as she delves deeper, she soon realizes that the Sameer she married and the one she is reading about are two different people.
Does she even know her husband? What will she discover? And what will happen to their marriage? Well, this is for you to find out.
I liked the way the story of Just The Way You Are is set – husband leaves for a foreign job, leaves the lonely wife behind, the wife discovers the secret diary and starts digging dirt, but the book as a whole has not done justice to the interesting plot.
It just felt like another mediocre delivery, okay for a one time read but not something to be cherished in one’s personal library.
Honestly, there are only a few things which have the ability to keep the readers hooked on till the end. The high expectations which the cover and blurb set, are almost never met.
The characters are good though – charming and charismatic in their own ways. I enjoyed Sameer and his conversations with his mom. I also liked the sweet character of Shagun.
Overall, I rate Just The Way You Are three out of five stars and hope that my next book will not be such a disappointment.
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