Book Review: 300 Days

I remember complaining to one of my friends that I need a simple, ordinary love story to read. You might be surprised to hear that those are rare, these days. I have had enough of vampires sucking blood, werewolves fighting with their clans for a mortal and how could I forget offspring from the future come to haunt you. I was ranting on why it was difficult to give me a simple romance for once. Then I got 300 Days by Bragadeesh Prasanna in exchange for a review.
You know what it is – an uncomplicated love story a boy meets girl, boy likes her, boy gets her and then boy doesn’t – he grows up. The story that would be easy to relate to almost everyone, the kind that we hope happens to us just to experience the warm gushy feeling and then suffer through the gut punching pain all in the name of love.

Book Name: 300 Days
Author: Bragadeesh Prasanna
Genre: Fiction – Romance
Characters: Jai, Sravani, Sai, Sindhuja, Chris
Setting: India

Jai meets Sravani in the midst of a forest, during a trek and falls head over heels for her. Sravani is a shy girl who is already in a committed relationship with Sai. The story narrates how Jai convinces Sravani that he is the one for her and to break up with Sai after two years of silence. But when things seem to settle down for the couple and they decide to tie knots, their world turns upside down once more. 

The story also narrates the relationship of Jai with his best friends Sindhuja and Chris and their lives is drawn parallel. I liked the protagonist, even if he was the typical south Indian guy and did not do anything that is impressionable. Yeah the kind of guy we usually friendzone at the first instant – the kind of guy we run to when we have an issue. I liked him, but neither do I approve nor would want someone to do the things he does, for me – so yes I feel obviously like Sinduja. (I will get to that later). 

I can not say the same thing about Chilakamma, oops Sravani. Having met enough number of Sravani’s in my life understanding her shouldn’t have been difficult, but I felt nothing towards her. Maybe that is due to the one dimensional development of her character. I loved Sinduja, she seemed my kind of girl; someone I could be friends with, and cursed the author for never giving her her dues, apart from the long ‘marketing dialogues’ (using Sravani’s words) on their sibling love and everything else. What is the deal with her and Vinod? 

I understand the stale state of relationship between Jai and his family, but it is really odd to see him being so attentive to Sravani, Sailu and their family and even Viji and then completely leaving his family out of the picture. Is there something I am missing about his character? I loved the writing style of the author. There were too many instances in the story that made me feel as this is as real as it can get. I somehow predicted the end was not going to be something that I was rooting for, but I was okay with the ending as it made sense. 

I loved the beginning of the novel in terms of the language. I did not even have to wait for something to happen, because I was reeling among the words. The critic in me wanted to go past the mundane trek itinerary, which had nothing to do with the story at all, but the language lover wanted to stay. There were too many conversations between Jai and Sravani – I mean too much to even care for. I don’t want a peep into someone else’s diary, especially if it was not going to contribute to the pace of the story. 

The pace of the story wavers; it was slow – accelerated – then a bit drag and all of a sudden at a jet speed and there we are at the end. But having said that, I couldn’t put the book down even when the pace was slow. If you love a simple, no nonsense love story with beautiful language 300 Days  could be your pick.