Manali Desai’s latest book title ‘Love and (Mellow) Drama’ reads like a Bollywood romcom with all its twists and turns. It showcases romance and friendship as two sides of the same coin. Relationships play a significant role throughout the narrative, which is peppered with lyrics from Hindi songs and movies, provoking in the readers a sense of deja vu as they look forward to that happily-ever-after moment.
Gayatri Kulkarni and her beau, Varun Agarwal, are the two main protagonists who lead the reader on to a merry dance with their blow hot - blow cold romance. Gayatri with her passion for dancing and her choice of Political Science in college comes across as a bubbly drama queen with a penchant for Bollywood movies like DDLJ. Varun is the quintessential Mills and Boon hero who sweeps the heroine off her feet, even when she loses her footing and falls into his arms.
Many delightful characters pepper the book - Ayesha and Abhi (Varun's exuberant brother), Sharad (Gayatri's brother) and Nalini, and the older generation of the Kulkarnis and the Agarwals, each of whom have a definite role to play to push the narrative forward. If readers have read Manali's previous book, Love (Try) Angle, (another quirky title!), they will remember the delightful duo of Ayesha and Abhi who were the protagonists there.
The transformation of Gayatri from Miss Melodrama to Miss Mellowed Drama is achieved through the arch of the book, as she breaks away from the childlike character that she begins as to the strong and transformational co-founder of She Rose, a platform that helps women to blossom forth and become creatively independent.
As Dieter F Uchtdorf puts it so aptly,
"It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life's story will develop."
The chapter titled 'She Rose' is beautifully crafted and brings out the myriad roles played by women who support other women, Sheroes who disprove the stereotypes and who do not accept things lying down. The poem below is the culmination of as entire chapter that lauds these strong women.
"We're all Sheroes
We're all She who rose
Together we can, we must and we will
For a better today
Than yesterday,
For a better tomorrow,
Than today.
For one, for all."
About the Author - Manali Manan Desai: Manali is a full-time freelance writer and editor cum blogger. Currently, apart from her ad hoc writing and editing assignments, Manali runs a blog and is also a partner with Pachyderm Tales. In her authoring journey, Manali has written and published five solo books, been a part of a few co-authored books, and has helped new and aspiring writers publish their books as well. She has been a multiple-times bestselling author on Amazon with all her books ranking in the top ten in many categories. Her short story The Walls Have Ears, helped her bag the Best Short Story in 2019. She has also won the Best Author: Fiction Award, and the Book of the Year title in 2021 for her debut novel, Love (Try) Angle. Her short story titled The (Un)Blind Date, which is a part of her Christmas special anthology, Under the Mistletoe & Other Stories, won the best short story prize in an online contest before the book's release in December 2021.
