How Opal Mehta got Kissed, got Wild and got a Life - A Book Review

My First Ever Book Review....and the first ever Novel I have read outside of academics

For a eighteen year old....this is too good an attempt....Actually, I got into this only because of a interview with Kaavya Vishwanathan in The Hindu, that I read. It was refreshing and kindled interest in me, basically because, I have gone through this admissions things much before this....

so...goto-> Landmark -> get the book -> the guy at the counter gave me a smile suggesting me the popularity of the book...!!!!

The story looks to be a leaf taken out of somebody's life...and it can't be any other way...coz...its so realistic.....thats the one reason I was attracted to this novel....basically I am not a story reader guy, am always attracted to only reality writings...and I thought for the first time, I am detouring from that, but at the end, somehow, my choice of hooking on to this book, wasn't very different from my genre of books, just that it is a very popular one, that I am reading.....

The opening chapters of the book, straight take you into the groove, which was very well done, so that people dont be slack at the book, at the very beginning itself, interesting the tempo is maintained at the jet speed one is used to in the beginning, I was more amazed and amused at the language and the contemporairiness of the story and the author's dictum of the same....It was fun all the way....

The middle of the novel, is well in the expected levels, and one is taken into too much of details, of each of the exploits the protagonist, which I felt was lil too much, coz If I were the author, I would have trimmed those to nicety, but maybe I am not aware of the modalities of novelists...and maybe, this is how novels are written...it would take another novel of this kind for me to realize it.....

the mind for detail is very evident in the places when Opal goes to the hair stylist; the proud Mehtas planning HOWGAL with all the music CDs, recordings of The O.C et all, are very interesting....actually catches the pulse of youth in the United States today...


So the story goes ,like this,

Opal Mehta, a Desi teenager, whose only aim all her life has been to enter Harvard, which according to their parents, the ebullient Mehtas, will secure a future for her, for which she has been working meticuluously and following the plan HOWGIH (How Opal Will Get Into Harvard) crafted by the Mehtas, only to find it isn't enough , harrowingly at the near end of the admissions, when the interviewer Dean Anderson in Harvard laments on the need of well rounded people into harvard, and not Automatons......All hell breaks loose when Opal returns home, only to comforted by her parents with yet another plan HOWGAL ( How Opal Will Get A Life). Here goes the second innings, where Opal tries to be the cool girl and makes her best with the tryst to become the Hot Commodity in school. In the process of HOWGAL, she befriends the very few people she thought, she could talk meaningfully to in school, the science group...In comes her changed persona...and along with it numerous new situations...the parents arranged date with Jeff Akel, the peer-counselling sessions with Sean Whalen, the escapades with HBz, the act of getting wild with a party at home, kissing Sean Whalen, after seeing Jeff with another girl, swapping blackberries with Prsicilla Ming, which turns out to be her undoing tearing her image to pieces, when priscilla bulk-forwards her HOWGAL plans in an email to the whole class, How Sean Whalen breaks up with Opal and so many other things...which are literally fun and frolic...Then she meets her cousin which turns out to be for the better, then the second chance at Harvard, which quite ironicaly she flounders in a pool of tears, unknowingly blurts out the fermiculli theorem she is trying to prove, and after much trauma of waiting for the Harvard admission letter, it comes as a huge relief and all ends well....


Hopping onto the characters other than the Mehtas that really need a mention are Jeff Akel the School Students Union president, with political aspirations, the HBz ( Haute Bitchezzz) complete with the Asian Sensation Priscilla Ming( the cool girls in school) are very well knitted into the story, I thought the physics partner Natalie, could have been deliberated a llil more, considering the fact that she plays a great part during the closing stages of the story, the little cameos by Dean Anderson, the interviewer at harvard, the harvard host for Opal the second time around, med dropout cousin sister Kali, all do their bit. I have seen Dean Anderson ish people during my US Student Visa interview...and infact I was interviewed by a guy similar in sketch to Dean Anderson who rejected my student visa petition..:-(....so I was moved by Opal's situation and could readily relate to it....:-)

Sean Whalen, the love interest of Opal, what a character he has been in this story, starting from a no hope guy to the main love interest of Opal Mehta, his character was well etched, I should say.....the desi effect of the story was very evident and enjoyable, much like what we are used to in movies like Bend It Like Beckham & Bride and Prejudice...funny..I should say....the never say die attitude of the Mehta's was very inspiring...the cousin Kali..the dark horse of the story I should say, the fulcrum behind the change of attitude in Opal was a real smash of a charcter...

True to being a reviewer, only when Opal meets Kali at the Market place, does the USP of the story spill out...coz...I was wondering why Opal Mehta was just obeying her parents, when she didn't love doing what she was doing, I am talking abt HOWGAL....so Kali's character is a revelation both for Opal and for the readers....do what you think you will suceed in...... How many of us get that option, mainly because any caring parent like the Mehta's would want their kids to do nothing different from Harvard...rite????

Though Funny and amusing all the way, the understone has been staunchily put up..DO WHAT YOU LIKE and BE WHO YOU ARE...is the success recipe in life......infact, the story would have been a paradox if Opal hadn't toured HARVARD the second time around, when she got to know that's where she wanted to be, so in a way, she wanted to be in Harvard and she has been.....so I liked the way the story was summed up...though a little cinematic..like THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.....;-)


Eager in seeing how the movie shapes by in the hands of Dream Works....:-)

Good work...over all...I should say....a vibing teen author's bubbling book, its a fun ride, thoughout.....