A Corporate Wifes Guide to Entertaining seriosuly?. Review on Lessons in Forgetting - Anita Nair

I have not written a bad review of a book till date. Cause, if I find a book not worthy I just stop reading it. I do not even finish it. But with Lessons In Forgetting, I did finish reading it. Not cause for the suspense-thriller it feigns to be, but just to know if the book really is worth its ending.

I really liked Anita Nair for her book Ladies Coupe. I still think that is her best book till date. Read her other book Mistress, and left it half way some years ago. And now again knowing that her books is made into a movie, I preferred reading the book before watching the movie. Now I have second thought about watching the movie.

Mostly I like Anita Nair's books for her characters, especially female characters. But in this book the other protagonist Meera is nothing but a UK chik-lit book's pathetic female. Novel starts with Meera and her analogy of herself with the greek mythology goddess Hera. I seriously fail to understand how she ruins the greek mythology to suit herself.  She is abandoned by her husband Giri at a high-society party that involve, writers, actors etc. And later Jak( Professor Jak ) is asked to drop her home. Jak the other protagonist of the novel.

He is a middle-aged divorced father of two daughters living with his aunt Kala Chitti and bed ridden 19 year old daughter Smrithi. The story is about what happened to Smrithi on one of her trips, that she has lost all the life in her and is a dead soul with nothing but a body of flesh. Jak believes that there is more to a fatal accident that caused Smrithi this living death. So he starts digging into Smirthi's past, life, her friends to know the truth.

I tried hard not to skip through pages where Meera comes into the picture. I hate this character. An abandoned wife living with here grandmother, mother and with her younger son. And Vinnie, a character who she meets in an elevator and somehow becomes her best buddy for life. Another waste character in the book. Book would have done good just with Jak's story, and Meera is the one who spoilt the book. There are many plots where Meera goes back to 3 or more of her memories with different people and the plot just loses its grip. Looks like a bad attempt by the author at jumping between past and present. By 200+ pages I almost gave up, but thanks to Papa Jak who kept me hooked on.

And on top of that she tries to throw in some gyan on female foeticide and show few characters in the novel as martyrs. Another failed attempt. And Meera and her excerpts from her book on "A Corporate Wife's Guide to Entertaining"? Seriosuly? What age do these women live in? I personally am very disappointed in this book.