Women’s Web is saying Goodbye! Please make sure you read this important notification.
Abirami Krishnan's How To Screw Up Like A Pro is a tightly narrated story that makes us wonder - have things really changed in the past fifty years?
Abirami Krishnan’s How To Screw Up Like A Pro is like a tightly narrated Bollywood Masala film, that lives up to expectations, and makes us wonder – have things really changed in the past fifty years?
“Most families have their share of rebels, adulterers, addicts, ambitious actors, reformed playboys, lovers of exotic animals and the occasional mute, right?”
The first sentence of the blurb ensures that you pick it up. Who doesn’t want to read about crazy families with a bit of drama and hysterics thrown in? Abirami M. Krishnan’s “How To Screw Up Like A Pro” lives every bit up to the expectation.
This is the story about a family consisting of two sisters, a brother, parents and two grandparents (one maternal and the other paternal), told through the eyes of one the sisters, Akola Suresh. An urbane, Chennai family with not-so-middle-class values that seems normal enough until skeletons in the closet start stumbling out one by one.
A brother with a pregnant girlfriend, a sister who is an aspiring actress, one parent with a history of mental illness and the other with a badly concealed history of an extra-marital affair, kids who address their parents by name, car accidents, and the protagonist who goes into coma, the devoted beau who takes care of her; the story has all the elements of a typical Bollywood pot-boiler.
The mother, Parvati Suresh’s character is the most interesting one. The author very subtly and very successfully highlights her struggles as a first generation working woman, trying to cope as a successful doctor with a rising career, an extended family of in-laws and an adulterous husband during the early days of her marriage. The strain of it drives her to the point of madness, causing her to vent it all out on her child. One can, strangely enough, identify with her character and the reader is left pondering whether things have really changed in the past fifty years or so.
The cover and the title of the book are misleading. The title, especially, gives no hint of the story that is to follow. However, the language is simple and unpretentious, the narration is compact, and each character in the book is well etched out. The book reads like a well-directed, fast paced Hindi masala movie and is ideal for a short flight or a long local train commute.
Publishers: Hachette India
Like Women’s Web and want to help us keep it awesome? Use our affiliate links below if you’d like to get a copy of Abirami Krishnan’s How To Screw Up Like A Pro.
Women’s Web gets a small share of every purchase you make through these links, and every little helps us continue bringing you the reads you love!
At Flipkart
At Amazon India
Founder @Tell-A-Tale - I gobble stories and spit out new ones everyday; travel addict, software engineer, storywriter for brands, mentor, Renaissance woman in-the-making. read more...
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Dear Women’s Web Community Member,
You may have wondered at our being on the quieter side during the last couple of months. Thank you for your patience, and we wanted to come back to you with a detailed note on what’s been happening at our end of things.
When we first began Women’s Web, as a blog from one woman’s desk along with a few like-minded souls, little could we have imagined the heights that it would soar to. Over the years, Women’s Web has published over 20000 stories (almost all by women), empowered countless women with the ideas, community and resources to chase their dreams, employed hundreds of women in core and project-based roles, and in the process, emerged as the OG women’s community in India. It has also inspired many others to build communities of a similar nature, all enabling women (and other-underrepresented groups) in their own ways.
Please enter your email address