‘Too Good To Be True’: Prajakta Koli’s debut novel is too perfect to be good

A billionaire CEO and a law student working part-time in a bookstore — the man a few years older than the girl, and the two falling in love instantly, and irrevocably, forms the plot point of actor-influencer Prajakta Koli’s debut novel ‘Too Good To Be True’.

Shaped on the lines of Mills & Boon, with some scenes from romantic movies thrown in, and you have a 310-page book. “I hope this book sets the romantic bar in your life so high that everyone you meet brings a ladder to the first date. Don’t settle for less, cutie,” begins the book, and you see the sage words unfold with every page.

The kurta and jhumka-wearing protagonist Avni meets Aman, the suited ‘sexiest man alive’, and the duo loves, squabbles, loves more, then fights more, and just like that, you are at the end of the book. In between, there is talk of mental health.

Common tropes of morning affirmations, sliding into LinkedIn to stalk one’s crush and yoga with pets, this is a book set in current times. Thrown in are romcom-fed fantasies. Sample this: a girl trying out various dresses as her girlfriends cheer on (‘Sex and the City’); a private elevator with a liftman leading you to the three-floor penthouse owned by the Greek God (‘When the Doorman Is Your Main Man: Modern Love’), and his family home in Mussoorie, a mansion right out of ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...’

One dives into the book and is easily taken in to begin with. It seems to be a pretty love story. After all, there are only seven basic plots, why find fault with this one? With every turn of page, however, he raises the bar. One almost groans at how Aman goes from good to better to the best, wishful thinking of all the teens in the world put together. Take this, for instance: Aman flies Avni from Mumbai to Dehradun to meet the parents in his private jet embossed with his family name, Raina. And the caring parents send their chopper for the 29-km ride from Dehradun to Mussoorie so that the delicate girl isn’t inconvenienced by the winding roads. There’s freshly squeezed apple juice from their orchards… Oh, wait, they also have a tulip garden, not neat rows in a lawn, but a la tulip fields of The Hague!

What the author (or AI) probably sold as her USP — the ‘perfecter’ (rather than the perfect man) and his family — becomes the downside. The lovers of romance like to be swept off their feet, but there has to be some semblance of reason in it, no?

As for the language, one puts up with it all — there are cuss words and a lot of slangs, keeping in mind the target readers. However, when the book reaches the sentence, “The professor stopped professoring, the students stopped studenting and my brain stopped braining”, you put your hands up.

So, in conclusion, the book is for the celebrated MostlySane’s 17 million followers on social media. Anyone into books, classics, or chick lit, can safely skip it.