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Every once in a while, I stumble across a romance novel which reminds me why I stay away from that particular genre in the first place. Trending in Love is as clichéd as any romance novel can get. I wouldn't have minded so much if the story was passable but it didn't hold good in any aspect. It didn't take me long enough to realise that I'll probably come to dislike this novel. While I usually DNF a book if I don't like it, I marched through with this one because it was a review copy.
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Sanam is born to Dalit parents who struggled to settle in life. Understandably, her father doesn't want the same plight for his daughter and hence brings her up with lavish gifts. After an ugly brawl at a pub with an arrogant son of a minister, Sanam decides that she needs power to teach people like him a lesson and decides to study for IAS exam. When she joins coaching classes, she's met with sexist and misogynistic students and teacher and soon after quits to study on her own. While this happens in Delhi, there's another story unraveling in Kashmir. Aamir is a quiet yet intelligent guy who is troubled by the army and militants clash in his town. To support his family, he takes up a housekeeping job in a hotel and is later pushed to study for IAS by the hotel's owner who becomes his confidant over time. These two meet at the Officers Training Academy in Mussoorie.
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Like any clichéd story, Sanam garners hate towards Aamir when she notices people flocking to him for attention. She doesn't like being treated second or ignored by people and wants to be the center of attention at all times. But she also finds it hard to resist from looking at him often. He rescues her couple of times like a knight in shining armour and with each time, she realises that she actually likes him. When they finally accept their love for each other, a whole lot of drama unfurls that usually happens with most of the inter-religion relationships. But they somehow have a fairytale ending as most of the love stories do. My problem with this novel was partly because of the language used. It sounded amateurish and almost incomplete; something people use to write in their diaries.
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The characters lacked substance, mostly Sanam. I also couldn't help but notice how importance was given mainly to the female character's beauty; about how men couldn't stop looking at her and admiring her for the beauty she possessed and the hour glass figure she carried. I was tempted to abandon it more than once but was also hoping that it wouldn't have a predictable ending. Trending in Love is the sort of romance novel that makes me cringe in distaste because of all the predictable and unnatural scenarios that is probably most suited to Hindi soap operas. I definitely do not recommend this.
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Rating : 1/5.