The Perfect Us by Durjoy Datta (Book Review: 1.5*/5) !!!

2086th BLOG POST

32^nd Book of 2023

There are days when you want to spend time with your bookshelf – and during one of these special moments, you find a book you ordered online years back but couldn’t read it due to other books piling up in the To-Be-Read list. A month back, I found Durjoy Datta’s book named “The Perfect Us” in my bookshelf which was released 5 years back. I had pre-ordered it so that I could read it before anyone else and see, here I am, talking about it after more than 5 years when the world has already read it. Haha! The book was released by Penguin in around 350-pages.

 

We know how public figures are socially available for us these days due to which we know when they get into relationship, marry and have kids. We also know their social circle through Insta stories etc. Durjoy has this very cool implementation of writing fiction where he tries to draft it in a way which represents his personal life due to which his readers always feel that it’s his own story. It has been more than a decade now – I have read all his books – and yet, I get confused if the story written by him is his own or a fictional attempt. “The Perfect Us” also falls in the same category.

 

Secondly, Durjoy ensures that as he is aging, he must write books for the people belonging to his age group itself. Hence, the life and challenges that he portrays directly resonates with the people in the same age-category as him. “The Perfect Us” speaks about the couple – Deb and Avantika (on whom Durjoy has already penned many books earlier) – who have finally considered becoming parents but unfortunately, due to physical and emotional reasons, they face a lot of challenges and hurdles in the process. Author tries to shed a light upon the life and lifestyle of such couples and parents who are going through a tough medical procedure which don’t only challenge them physically but their whole life starts revolving around the subject.

 

Author ensures that he talks about the modern facilities such as IVF, abortion and other practices which helps parents fight through difficult pregnancies. He beautifully describes the relationship that gets developed between parents and doctor in the process where the latter starts considering the parents’ success as their own personal milestone. Similarly, author has been able to reflect upon parents’ emotions right from the phase where they plan to have a child in their life. How they get attached to this non-existent baby to a phase where they first experience them in scan and eventually during last pregnancy months.

 

I would always ask my mother how do mothers get attached to the baby even before their birth and how do they miss them in case something unfortunate happens – This book has given all those answers to me. Along with this primary plot, Durjoy has also tried to prioritize the importance of having siblings and friends close to us in tough moments as they are the ones who makes it easier for us to move ahead in challenging moments. Similarly, there’s another plot with Deb and Avantika’s parents where we get to know the changing dimensions in the way this relationship is changing where at places- parents are like pillars whereas in few cases, they are enough toxic to not even make you feel as if you need them. Through the dialogues and conversations between them, Durjoy has tried to send the message to the new generation on how to manage them and when not to.

 

Well, as mentioned above, the book speaks about a lot of events which also provides messaging with it but the real problem lies with the length of the book. This 350-pages book could have been easily summed up within 150-pages itself making it more impactful and without losing any of the elements I mentioned in the review. Unfortunately, author keeps the whole book focused upon the parents’ challenge with no chemistry between both the main protagonists which makes it tough for the readers to go through the whole story with interest. It took me a month to finish this book because the plot is dragged so much with over-explanation and unnecessary irrelevant talks in between.

 

Yes, there are entertaining sections with the scripts Deb and Shrey are working over and their interactions with their colleagues. Similarly, there are few instances where the book really makes you smile reading about the thought process of characters in some situations. But these are not enough to keep us interested and excited. The twists and turns are definitely shocking and astonishing but they are not able to generate the same emotions within us. It sounds too plain. Even in the emotional moments of the story, we are not able to find ourselves controlling our tears. I am quite surprised how Durjoy couldn’t create even 1/10^th part of the magic that he is capable of. Something has surely gone wrong. I give this book 1.5 stars out of 5 – Unfortunately!

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Thanks..

 

WRITING BUDDHA