12 Years: My Messed up Love Story

Book Name: 12 Years: My Messed Up Love Story 

Author: Chetan Bhagat 

Publisher: Harper Fiction 

Paperback: 432 pages 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Chetan Bhagat’s “12 Years: My Messed Up Love Story” is an excitingly fast-paced romance about two lovers whose relationship is complicated by age differences and emotional baggage. It is unapologetically Bhagat; it doesn’t shy away from messy drama and crazy entanglements.

Overview:

Chetan Bhagat’s latest book “12 Years: My Messed Up Love Story” is a modern, contemporary Indian romance that takes a deep look at the complexity surrounding love across generations. The book tells the story of Saket Khurana, who at the time of writing the novel is 33 years old, was formerly a successful entrepreneur, but has decided to leave that behind and pursue stand-up comedy, as well as a younger girl named Payal Jain, who is 21, is an up-and-coming private equity executive from a traditional conservative Jains' background. The two of them fall for each other while in Mumbai, experiencing passionate chemistry, emotional struggles, and societal resistance to their relationship.

Book link: 12 Years: My Messed up Love Story

Tone and Themes:

1) Romance with an Age Gap: The difference of 12 years between Saket and Payal illustrates their differences culturally, emotionally, mentally etc. And is not just a number but will assist in exploring generational differences between Millennials and Gen z from an author's perspective.

2) Society's Expectations: The author's take on the traditional Indian beliefs regarding Marriage, Gender roles, and Honour of Family is captured through this Book

3) Vulnerable Emotionally: Saket, due to societal expectations, has many emotional problems after his divorce and payal has even more guilt, longing for a parent, and discovering who she is, when she rejects her upbringing.

The Writing Style & Reception section of this compares the writing style of the author to other novels of the same genre, and presents a range of critical opinions about how people view Bhagat.

While it is true that the writing style of Chetan Bhagat makes his novel more relatable to readers, there is criticism about the extreme and unrealistic way in which he portrays some aspects of a man's life. Some critics have accused Bhagat of creating an unrealistic portrayal of a man's life because he has portrayed such extreme events within his novel.

The second phase discusses the criticisms of the masculine tone of the novel; Bhagat defends the masculine tone of the book by citing the need for realism over extreme politically correct behaviour. In the third phase, the heaving waves of the novel's plot mirrors the heaving waves of the reader's emotion. The pace of the story is so fast it can almost be described as "explosive". People that like "high-drama" will be fascinated by what happens within the story.

The final phase show how Payal and Saket came to experience their AHA! Moments. While Payal was able to express her inner struggles with her two conflicts between her obligations and responsibilities and her own feelings in a more subdued manner than Saket was. Whereas Saket is caught between the pain of unrequited love and the hope that was brought about by Payal, and will therefore be able to use that hope to reach a state of inner peace.

In my conclusion, I explain how Chetan Bhagat expressed very strong emotions throughout this novel. I wanted to reach out to all types of readers and help them connect with these emotions; either as someone who enjoys reading books, or someone who may have read many books.

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