Just Missed By Himanshu Bhatia | Book Review

When it comes to books (or for that matter, any media) everyone has his/her own preferences. We, as book reviewers are lucky to be exposed to various genres :). Though you must have seen more thrillers and mythological stuff reviewed at ThinkerViews, we love to read romantic books with a certain flair.

Personally, having too much adultery (in the book) is the biggest turn off for our team. If you have good content and a solid story to tell, you don’t rely on such content to sell your book.

Of course, everyone is free to choose what he/she like.

Recently we came across Just Missed by Himanshu Bhatia in this genre. We are thankful to the publisher (FingerPrint! Publishing) to provide us a review copy of the same. From our team, I got the chance to read it and the reviews shared here are uninfluenced and unbiased, as always.

Book Cover:

Let us take a look at the cover page of “Just Missed”.

Book Plot:

Let us take a bird’s eye view of the story.

Siddharth aka Sid is a sincere, career-oriented guy whose next destination is achieving a VP level position in the company.

Shreya is a charming and intelligent girl working in a corporate.

Shivam Malhotra is a happy-go-lucky guy who doesn’t leave a chance to flirt with a girl and you may find him acting over-smart at times.

They all belong to different circles in terms of professional and personal aspects. It won’t be wrong to say that their worlds are different. But, if they are destined to meet, they meet, right?

Siddharth is doing good on his professional side and his parents are rightly thinking that it is the right time he should get married. Same with Shreya. While exploring suitable candidates for themselves through a common matrimonial site, they meet each other. Shreya belongs to a Punjabi family and enjoys eating non-veg while Siddharth belongs to a pure vegetarian family. One of them always preferred tea while the other is a coffee fan!… So can they be compatible with each other?

On a trip to Thailand Shreya meet Shivam. Their interactions went wrong and she started hating him.

Nandini is Siddharth’s elder sister who loves his brother a lot. She kept a secret from her family.

How all these characters’ lives are entangled with each other moves forward is the rest of the story. Over the course, you meet Siddharth (aka Sid), Shreya Malhotra, Nandini, Mithilesh Arora, Shivam Malhotra, Riya, Anjali, Kanika and others.

Views And Reviews:

It is not always that we love exploring new things, sometimes, the proven path is also preferred-one to walk on. Himanshu Bhatia, the author, in this book, does the same thing. If you love Bollywood films, you feel deja-vu at various junctures. The good thing is, it doesn’t make the story less interesting. It is rightly said that humankind is advancing with the same stories told in different ways.

Strong characters – is one of the most positive aspects of this book. Urban readers will link to these characters more, as they are not only doing corporate jobs and living in metro-cities, but they do have quite a high-society lifestyle. The characters come from the world we all want to live in. Or rather I would say they remind you of some films. But, that’s also one of the reasons we love movies, right? We see the dreams getting realized on the screen and we tend to dissolve ourselves (for a limited time though) into the fantasy world. Don’t we. And, we develop a bond with those fictional characters. Same way, you may or may not belong to the same environment, you will feel connected to the characters of this book. And, I consider it as a success of the author.

Being modern doesn’t mean that you forget your values. The characters follow this philosophy. For example, in the first segment of the story, you will come to witness a scene where the protagonist gifts his father a car. Well, it is a costly gift and it shows their lifestyle and financial status. This gesture also shows the emotional bond and respect of the son towards his parents. Same way, despite being a pure-veg family, the parents are happy to welcome a girl with quite an opposite food-choices, to their home as a daughter-in-law when they found that the girl and their son is quite compatible. This selflessness and prioritizing the happiness of the family members our one’s own likes and dislikes; is the core of the social tapestry and strong “Indian family system”.

There are coffee-shop dates, board meetings, text-chatting, conversation breaks, girls-only trip, family functions, flirting, respecting the modesty, love and joy, sadness and empathy,… almost all the aspects you expect in a full-fledged entertainer. The book is a good choice to be depicted as a soap-opera or web-series 🙂

While reading the book come across many wisdom lines that come naturally as a part of conversations going on, and yet touch the right chord. For example:

>Dad rolled his eyes and said, “Sid I am not listening to you. I know your greed for the next level would never be fulfilled.”

Very true, indeed. And at the same time, you will find lines with sarcasm that will amaze you.

I gifted Dad and SUV, and he asked for my bachelorhood as a return gift! What injustice!

Here is another interesting conversation:

“Dad, it doesn’t look good. I mean who makes their own matrimonial profile?” I tried to escape the task.
“I think you made your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles yourself, didn’t you?”

And yes, you will also find some interesting wordplays and lingos in the book, for example:

D2S2: Dedicated, Distinctive, Smart, Strategic approch

And if you are a romantic soul, there are some poems for you to enjoy in the book.

I also like the fact that the characters are stronger irrespective of their gender and there are no fake lectures on feminism. The absence of vulgarity and titillating adulteries are other positive aspects of the book.

Summary:

A filmy love story set up in contemporary times around the realistic urban character. If you love reading such romantic books, you will enjoy this one.

Around 7.5 stars out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy – Just Missed By Himanshu Bhatia – Paperback – Amazon India
• Buy – Just Missed By Himanshu Bhatia – Paperback – Amazon US

Over To You:

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