Book review: Love is Vodka A Shot Ain’t Enough by Amit Shankar

If love is all about freedom and honest expression then how can one associate it with loyalty?

The story starts with 19-year old Moon sitting at an abortion clinic, wondering why she was there and who was responsible. The answer to both questions: LOVE.

And so we join Moon as she ruminates on her 19 long years and all the boys she has loved.

First is Ash, her first love. Five years older than her, he knew exactly what he wanted from life – to own a chain of flower stores across India and to marry Moon. But please, how can the daughter of a leading TV news anchor love a flower seller with a pathetic small time business background? The minute she finds a better option, she forgets all about Ash, but conveniently forgets to tell him he’s been dumped. After all, he’s her first love, he’s been her mentor and someone she really looked up to. And she can’t see him hurt. So the best strategy – ignore him and move on.

Enter Aditya, a cool copywriter at an ad agency where Moon is working as an intern. He’s the only one who doesn’t drool over her or send her a friend request on Facebook the minute he sets eyes on her. So of course she’s intrigued.

How can someone ignore her? As they eventually get to know one another, she falls for him. He’s the one with whom she goes exploring Delhi, talks with till all hours of the night, learns about his kinda musi – metal. Until one day when her friends take her to a gay party. And there, who does she see but Aditya – caught in a liplock with another boy. Because really, no “real” man can be cultured. If he is, he’s gay.

So out with Aditya and in with D – her boss and her mother’s kinda boyfriend. 25 years elder than Moon, he’s sophisticated and elegant – basically, a sugar daddy. And then he, too, dumps her, telling her:

…there are reasons and causes bigger than love. Everything happens for a reason and reason has no logic. We were destined to meet, so we did. We were destined to fall in love, so we did. It was all a design program set by someone else. We just followed it. The entire program was done to make us learn a lesson and move on….It was good while it lasted but I’m sure you would have figured out that it was going nowhere.

And after that, the poor girl still misses him.

And then there’s Nikhil, who is followed by…you get the drift, right?

And through it all Ash hasn’t been dumped. He begs for time. But he gets none. And when he calls her a whore, she asks him “What have I done to deserve this?”

At that point you just want to slap her. Hard. Not because of the numerous boys she strung around. Or all the boys she teased. But because she basically did all of this without ever telling Ash it was over. So if he calls her a whore, isn’t he kinda sorta justified?

And then there’s the horrible language (though to be fair, it’s decent in parts too), repetitive dialogues, and the protagonist Moon’s complete confusion, moronic monologues and total lack of ethics that makes you just keep on repeating: Really?

After all of this, if you still want to read about Moon’s conquests, be my guest. In fact, I’ll happily ship you my copy. No charge.

From me, though, it gets a big thumbs down.

Think you’d like to give it a go? Buy on Amazon

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