You Won't Lose Weight

The one thing about Devapriya Roy's The Weight Loss Club is the fact that it as much to do with a handbook The Vague Woman's Handbook had. In other words, Ms Roy is on her way to become the leading Indian producer of Good Books with Lousy Titles, or in other words, GBLTs.

But that is only one part of her three-pronged anti-marketing strategy. The other two are even more significant - she doesn't promote her books, and most importantly, she writes well.

The misleading title, the hideous caption, and the obnoxious cover: what were you thinking, Devapriya?

Despite its lousy title and repulsive cover The Weight Loss Club comes across as a pleasant surprise. The one thing that is (and has always been) true about the girl woman lass chick girl lady kid is the fact that she writes well - good enough to make me envy her style.

So what is it about her style that makes it stand out? Perhaps the balance: she portrays characters and makes you visualise scenes without intimidating you with a formidable vocabulary. She tells serious tales that will leave you gasping and smiling.

The characters, as in The Vague Woman's Handbook, are very well drawn-out, each one being significantly different from the other; and yet any of them can be your next-door neighbour, or even someone at your own place. Do not be surprised if you find yourself nodding and smiling when you come across a familiar character or a known everyday situation; it's only that she manages to portray them beautifully with an excellent eye for detail.

The book is definitely more complicated than The Vague Woman's Handbook, as are the characters. Devapriya has definitely evolved as an author. The characters are grayer than before. The way she has been able to venture into the psychology of characters is uncanny, even eerie, making you think "how does she know?"

However, as is often the case, the innocence that had got us hooked to The Vague Woman's Handbook is lost in Devapriya's migration to the next level. The characters are also intricately interwoven, which means that the book doesn't remain simple any more. You do not get to see the entire picture from a single person's perspective: all characters play pivotal roles in a tale well-told.

Okay, maybe there is a droplet or two of mush splattered here and there (and even a cheesy line or two), but I guess kids often end up doing that. For almost the entirety of the book, however, she shows an extremely mature understanding of commonplace, everyday characters as her skills of observation peek through every chapter.

Do buy it if you are in awe of Kolkata; or hate people who are indifferent to the Book Fair; or know what walking Gariahat is all about; or think families are a cool concept; or have taken college fests seriously at some point of time; or dream about food for extended periods of time; or take hard-boiled emotional stuff called bonding and camaraderie rather seriously; or have even the slightest idea regarding what knotty dresses with multi-coloured gamchhas are. Okay, maybe not the last bit.

Most importantly, buy it if you love love*. Don't buy it if you want to gain weight reading an engrossing page-turner and skip gym or yoga or whatever obnoxious activity you perform out of compulsion. Yes, she does have that rare quality of making you want to read on - perhaps the single-most important attribute that separates the quality authors from the average ones.

And then, there's also the fact that a famous mathematics tutor is called Boraho (you either get it or you don't). It also features multiple references to a Mila Kunis movie for the grand effect.

Thanks to her suicidal triple whammy the book won't sell as much as the ones written by The Voice of the Youth or the King of Mythology. There will probably be one - just one - copy of this book sold for every hundred Durjoy Dattas or Ravinder Singhs.

What you can do, however, is buy that one copy.

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* this is not a typo