Dil Chahata Hai- The novel. Review on The Finishing Line - Oven Slot

It is one of the greatest pleasures a book lover can experience, the experience of randomly browsing through books, finding an unknown author, buying the book in the hope of pleasure and finding the expectation fulfilled beyond desire.

Bibliomaniacs will readily empathize with my description of this sensation and alas, considering the state of literature this feeling has grown to be increasingly rare.

The reason why I have explained this sensation in length is because these thoughts flashed my mind when I reached the end of the book , ? The Finishing Line? written by Owen Slot , Chief Sports Reporter of The Times in his normal avatar. The book is a story of three bachelors, Will Tennant, Jake Smith, Alex who remain unmarried and seeing their friends getting married around them. They feel a sense of inadequacy over their inability of getting married to a girl of their choice.

It is a story of the social ineptness of the three individuals in a very humorous manner. The characters are vividly delineated and one can empathize with the situations the characters go through. Will has managed to befriend Jennie, a television cookery show host who is extremely beautiful and is a celebrity to boot. His friends envy his luck and Will himself cannot believe that Jennie is in love with him. His insecurities and the way he approaches her fearing whether any wrong move might end up in losing her forever. His gaucheness is extremely endearing, and I think many males have undergone this situation in their life when wooing a beautiful girl.

At the same time Jake who is a sociopath finally manages to fall in love with a girl who is the wife of the guy whom Will has been defending in the court as his divorce lawyer. Will also faces a crisis in his career and is caught between his principles and his desire for advancement.

Meanwhile Alex who is a butterfly as far as woman are concerned falls head over heels over a girl who has a bad record to boast of- she was the girl to whom Will had proposed and whom Stephanie had rejected breaking Will?s heart forever and also putting him off the idea of marriage.

The romance between Will and Jennie goes through a stormy period with both of disregarding each other plunging Will to further depths of misery. Do all of them get what they want? The games people play while in a relationship is itself a subject worth analyzing, more so when it is described as vividly as it has been in this book. The book is remarkably well written and there are times when you burst out laughing on the antics of Jake, Will and Alex.

It is a book of male bonding and a story of relationships building and breaking. In short, it is the English? Dil Chata hai ?. People who liked DCH would definitely like this book. I should also tell readers that there is no fantastic use of language or any social comment in this book. It is plain old ?fashioned story telling at its very best.

It is a very good first time effort, I should say this that we are going to hear a lot about Owen Slot in future