Add this book Goodreads

Buy this book on Amazon

• Genre: Contemporary Romance
• Publisher: Maple Press
• Release Date: April 1st, 2017
• Pages: 304
• My Rating: 3/5 stars

Quarter Life Crisis is the story of Prachur, an engineering student hailing from Shimla who is in a long-term relationship with Neera. He is someone who is described as lazy and who doesn’t have any goals. However, he forced to face reality when his girlfriend gets pregnant. The book follows with the ups and downs in the lives of this couple.

It has been a long time since I read an Indian college romance novel. My experience with them hasn’t been great so my expectations weren’t high with this book. Having a child before marriage is a huge taboo in our country and so I was curious to see how the author handled this topic.

The beginning of this book takes place while Prachur and Neera are in their final year of college. The rest of the book takes place in their hometown Shimla. I liked that this book was set in a hilly region and not in a city like most contemporary Indian books I’ve read. Sometimes the book moves at a slow pace but it was still well structured. The book mainly shows the ups and downs of a relationship between a young couple and how it is made even more difficult with a newborn child.

The writing of this book is fairly good. I did have some problems with the narration and dialogue. Sometimes the characters talk in a very formal tone that is completely impractical and doesn’t fit with the setting of the book. The narrator sometimes uses extremely weird words that I have never heard of and no one uses anymore. This type of dialogue is only seen in classics and it doesn’t fit with a book set in the 21st century.

Prachur is a lazy person who even appears as cold sometime. He is a little irresponsible and needed the most character development. There were many points in the book where he says incredibly sweet things to Neera and on the other hand, there were times when I doubted his love for her. He talks about standing up for Neera but becomes a coward when faced with an actual situation. His sister is more helpful to Neera than him. His philosophies didn’t make sense to me.

Prachur is constantly trying to find his purpose in life or more like wondering about it.  His character does develop by the end of the book but I still think he could’ve been constructed better. I know it was important to the plot of the book that Prachur remained very average and a little lost but it didn’t make him a great protagonist to read about. One thing that I loved about him was that he held on to Neera because he needed someone strong and smart like her in his life.

I also really liked Prachur’s sister. She was very brave and strong. She helps both Pachur and Neera throughout the book and is very selfless. I loved the fact that the author included such strong female characters in this book.

The main focus of this book was Neera and Prachur’s relationship and the difficulties they face. It wasn’t overly dramatic and I appreciated that. I do think the book could’ve been a little shorter.

Overall, this book was an average read for me. It is not anything special but different than the books I usually read. It is described as a coming-of-age novel which I think is fitting to an extent.