Chicken Soup for the Indian Couple's Soul - Book Review

I’ve been reading chicken soup for soul books since I was a teenager. The most refreshing part of chicken soup stories is that they are precise, short and sweet. And this one is no different.

This book is about love, friendship, differences, commitments, understanding and an unspeakable bond shared between couples in the Indian Society. 

The book is divided in 8 sections featuring various oddities of love.The stories range from college romances, to discovering soul mates, to newly married exciting love and struggles with adjustment, to bitter relationships, to family bonding and nurturing kids together, to coping with death scenarios to old ages support and nostalgia and even struggling to keep romance alive in day to day lives of middle aged couples. There is a story on every type and every stage of love any person can relate to. Each narration has its own flow and speaks out to the reader enveloping in the experience.  The emotions are so strong and animatedly expressed that they can well up in your throat as you reach the end.

The writing style mostly is personal narrative with exceptions to some stories in third person narration.  The Last chronicle of the book Endurance has been attempted at novel style of writing which is refreshing to read. Either ways the stories are simple and straightforward. Each tale is about 2-4 pages short aptly written with no extra frills and cuts here and there. You can skip forward and back to read stories to in sue mixed emotions like love, drama, tension, disappointment, sadness and strength. That’s what the best part of reading short anecdotes is!

My personal favorite is Pieta under the section The Family. The writing style of the story is much untailored but very skillfully written. It describes the frustration and the anguish of an Indian couple trying to conceive with no avail but with a very dramatic and touching end.  Some of them are a little insipid with almost zero emotional drama as in most stories (As you read stories you tend to have a raised expectation from the next one). Stories like a Separate room, Falling in Love….Indian Style, More than just a car are effortless account of recounting moments in a relationship and fail to inspire but are good read anyways.

Rest novelettes are sure to strike an emotional cord inside you.

All things considered, a great read. It is a kind of book which needs to be absorbed in a balcony on a pleasant evening or lazy morning with a cuppa in hand and a picturesque view around. This book surely can’t be read in a jiffy. Take your time and live all the characters one by one. Somewhere somehow it reassures us of the goodness that comes from being in a relationship. It inspires us to work on our failed relations, forgotten romances and how to live life with unfavorable circumstances and becoming pillars of strength to your love and this itself is an achievement of the book.

The contribution by the authors is commendable for such articulate writing of their life events. Kudos to Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Rajyashree Dutt for such a marvelous compilation!

I would recommend this book to every person who is a better half and who is aspiring to be one. If you like fast and pacy reads on sensitive and thoughtful themes, you can certainly try this. In all likelihood, one or the other yarn might be yours!

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