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WORK TITLE: My Last Love Story
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1/3/1973
WEBSITE: http://falgunikothari.com/
CITY:
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: Indian
http://falgunikothari.com/blog.php
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born January 3, 1973, in Mumbai, India.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
Also author of Soul Warrior, 2015; author of a blog.
SIDELIGHTS
Falguni Kothari is a writer. Born in Mumbai, she moved to New York in 2001 where she turned her attention to writing while raising her children. Kothari’s writing is influenced by the stories of strong Gujarati women that her grandmother told her as a child.
In an interview in USA Today, Kothari talked with Joyce Lamb about her writing process. She admitted to being both a pantser and a plotter under certain situations. Kothari explained: “It does seem to depend on the book. I find with contemporary romance and women’s fiction, I like the unpredictability of pantsing. Like allowing the characters to call the shots. With my mythic fantasy, and the romantic suspense I’m currently working on, plotting out scenes makes for less headaches and screaming.” In the same interview, she also described her ideal scenery when writing as being “complete and utter darkness with just the light of a blank page” on the computer screen. In a separate interview with Lamb in USA Today, Kothari also talked about her inspirations. She admitted that “just about anything inspires me. Naturally, things or issues that hold a personal meaning to me or to someone close to me will take precedence. In my debut romance, It’s Your Move, Wordfreak!, I took inspiration from my love of Scrabble and the fact that a good friend had found her husband through online dating.”
Kothari published My Last Love Story in 2018. Thirty-year-old Simi Desai attempts to cope while her husband, Nirvaan, suffers from cancer. With just months to live, he confesses to having two last wishes before he passes on. His first request is that she agrees to have his baby so a part of him will always be with her. Simi has apprehensions about pregnancy and does not like the sound of the drawn-out artificial insemination process. His other request is for Simi to reconcile with Zayaan, her former boyfriend and Nirvaan’s best friend. While Simi and Zayaan are still mutually attracted, she has concerns over the way his Muslim family sees her. From their California beach house, Nirvaan plans a series of adventures for the three of them to enjoy his remaining time and to create an environment where Simi and Zayaan can say goodbye through their shared experiences. Nirvaan also hopes to impart to Simi that he encourages her to learn to move on in life without him and allow her heart to be open to other men.
Booklist contributor Shoba Viswanathan found the novel to be “an unexpected read in many ways, leaving the reader questioning many common and easy assumptions.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly noticed that Kothari writes “with respect and honesty.” The same contributor concluded that “the book’s highs are very high, but the lows are pure soap opera.” A contributor to the Harlequin Junkie Website confessed: “I have to say that my feelings were all over the place with this book. Not necessarily in a bad way. I really liked the storytelling and how Falguni Kothari was able to convey Simi’s every emotion as we followed her thoughts.” The same reviewer writing in the Harlequin Junkie Website stated: “Poignant, heartrending, and possibly a tad controversial–thanks to the trio’s unconventional relationship–My Last Love Story undoubtedly makes an emotional impact on its reader.”
Writing in Kirkus Reviews, Bobbi Dumas claimed that the author “has set up an emotionally sinuous book that examines a very special set of relationships through a multi-faceted lens, even though that lens is told completely from Simi’s perspective. However, the perspective is very smart and aware.” Dumas pointed out that “Simi understands everyone’s weaknesses, including her own, but she is honest about them, even when she comes across as selfish, insecure, secretive or vulnerable. Even when she’s describing their family’s issues with her, and how they perceive her,” appending that the novel is “a fascinating study of love, selfishness, self-sacrifice, friendship, devotion and loyalty.” Dumas reasoned that “Kothari has written a very different kind of love story, but it is one that examines and explores very real, very complex questions, and on top of that, does it in a context of three Indian characters, from three different religions, facing these issues in a brand new place, knowing no one but each other.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 2018, Shoba Viswanathan, review of My Last Love Story, p. 38.
Kirkus Reviews, January 18, 2018, Bobbi Dumas, author interview.
Publishers Weekly, November 27, 2017, review of My Last Love Story, p. 43.
USA Today, November 6, 2015, Joyce Lamb, author interview; May 16, 2016, Joyce Lamb, author interview.
ONLINE
Falguni Kathari Website, http://falgunikothari.com/ (May 3, 2018).
Harlequin Junkie, http://harlequinjunkie.com/ (January 17, 2018), review of My Last Love Story.
About Falguni
Interviews | News | Articles
Short Bio:
Falguni Kothari is the author of unconventional love stories and kick-ass fantasy tales. Her four novels, most recently My Last Love Story, are all flavored by her South Asian heritage and expat experiences. An award-winning Indian Classical, Latin and Ballroom dancer, she currently spikes her endorphin levels with Zumba. She resides in New York with her family and pooch.
Long Bio:
Once upon a story...
I was born and bred in Mumbai, married young, had my children young, before my family moved to New York in the Spring of 2001. If anyone had asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, while growing up, I'd never in a million years have said, "an author." Honestly, I abhored writing...at least, the school version of it. But, I love stories. Always have, always will. I don't remember a time when I haven't been entertained by stories.
One of my fondest memories is of my grandmother and her masseuse (aka maalishwaalibai) telling me stories of my Gujarati heritage and mythic India. Anecdotes about gods and demons, heroes and epic battles were all too common a debate to wake to most mornings. What stood out, as I grew older and the stories grew more complex, was that both my grandmother and the maalishwaalibai even though they were more or less formally uneducated (neither one went beyond a very basic elementary school education), were telling me tales about women of legend. Women who'd broken the shackles of time, place and culture and become heroes in their own right. Women who just might've been the world's, certainly India's, first feminists. Women who respected and loved men who respected and loved them in turn.
Needless to say, the stories made an impression on me. And now that I've accidently (most fortunately) fallen (er, have been pushed by my mother) down the writer's rabbit hole, those are the stories I wish to tell: the forever kind.
Interview: Falguni Kothari, author of ‘My Last Love Story’
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By: Joyce Lamb | May 16, 2016 12:01 am
Falguni Kothari
Falguni Kothari
Joyce: Welcome to HEA, Falguni! Please tell us a bit about My Last Love Story.
Falguni: My Last Love Story is an unconventional love story about a fate-battered young wife, Simeen, who has come to fear happiness and love, and her terminal husband, Nirvaan, who wants his wife to stop living in fear and to accept life in all its bitter glory by leaning on Zayaan, their best friend and the man Simeen had once rejected. This novel explores the themes of friendship, togetherness, loss and true love.
Joyce: What inspires your book ideas?
Falguni: Just about anything inspires me. Naturally, things or issues that hold a personal meaning to me or to someone close to me will take precedence. In my debut romance, It’s Your Move, Wordfreak!, I took inspiration from my love of Scrabble and the fact that a good friend had found her husband through online dating. The plot of My Last Love Story came to me because I’ve seen firsthand what disease and trauma can do to a family or to a friendship. And how warriors can be found not only on battlefields but even inside hospitals.
Joyce: Do you write by the seat of your pants (pantser), or do you carefully plot your stories (plotter)? Has that changed at any point in your career or maybe it changes depending on the book?
Falguni: I am both, a pantser and a plotter, depending on the book I’m writing. I’ve found that pantsing while writing pure romance makes the writing process surprising and my stories delightful. I thought it would be the same while writing fantasy, but I found out the hard way that some stories need careful manipulation, especially if you’re writing in multiple POVs. I have to admit that I do enjoy the freshness and fluidity of pantsing much more, though.
Joyce: What are three romance novels on your to-be-read list?
Falguni: These three books are on my TBR not only because one or all of them have won awards recently or are being talked about in romancelandia, but also because I know and love the authors personally. A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev (comes out in September), Let It Shine by Alyssa Cole (won an RT Book Reviews award this year) and 10 Days in August by Kate McMurray.
Joyce: What would be your dream vacation?
Falguni: This is what I wish to do for my 25th anniversary which comes up in 2018: I want to visit 25 different countries (at the very least, 25 different cities) within that year, with or without an accompanying husband. Last stop will be Scotland.
Joyce: Have you ever had a really bad date?
Falguni: I have (shudder). Against my better judgment, I agreed to go for a pity date with a boy who had a crush on me in college. He’d been hovering around me for a while, looking all puppy-doggish. I regretted it instantly. Not only did we have nothing to talk about for the whole 30 minutes it took me to slurp my milkshake down, but the creep somehow took this to mean I was interested in him. He began stalking me. Crank phone calls at home, weepy drama in the college quadrangle — the works. I had to be really mean to him for it to stop.
Joyce: What are you working on now?
Falguni: I have just this past month signed a three-book deal with Om Books, India, for my mythic fantasy series, The Age of Kali. The first book, Soul Warrior, is out already in the U.S., and will be available shortly in South Asia as well. I’m working on book two in that series.
Joyce: Thanks, Falguni!
About My Last Love Story:
Perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes’s, Me Before You, My Last Love Story is a poignant, romantic tale about the complexities of trauma and whether love can right a wrong.
I, Simeen Desai, am tired of making lemonade with the lemons life has handed me.
Love is meant to heal wounds.
Love was meant to make my world sparkle and spin.
Love has ripped my life apart and shattered my soul.
I love my husband, and he loves me.
But Nirvaan is dying.
I love my husband. I want to make him happy.
But he is asking for the impossible.
I don’t want a baby.
I don’t want to make nice with Zayaan.
I don’t want another chance at another love story.
Find out more at falgunikothari.com.
Exploring Life & Love Stories - An Interview with Falguni Kothari
By Bobbi Dumas on January 18, 2018
If you caught last week’s post, you’ll know that I’m interviewing authors who are at different stages of their careers. I started January with an interview of Rachel Gibson, a long-established, highly popular romance novelist who’s revisiting her first and most well-known series, The Chinooks.
Last week I interviewed Sonali Dev, and we talked about her fourth (beautiful!) book in as many years, plus her writing process and her desire to use storytelling as a way to make a difference in the marketplace and in how we view and interact with cultures we perceive as different.
Today I’d like to introduce you to Falguni Kothari, whose first romantic women’s fiction novel and US publishing debut, My Last Love Story, releases next week from Harlequin’s women’s fiction line, Graydon House. I say her first “women’s fiction" and "US publishing debut,” because Kothari has traditionally and independently published a number of books in a variety of genres since her first book, It’s Your Move, Wordfreak, came out in 2012 from Rupa Publications, an Indian publisher. In fact, My Last Love Story was originally self-published, then picked up by Graydon House, while Soul Warrior, the indie-pubbed first title in a fantasy series, was recently picked up by another Indian publisher.
Falguni’s publishing journey is unconventional, as is this lovely and heart-wrenching book. The main character (and first-person narrator) is Simeen Desai, whose best friends since her teen years are her now-husband, Nirvaan, and her first love, Zayaan.
Continue reading >
It’s a complicated relationship, especially since Nirvaan is dying of cancer and has decreed that the awkwardness among them since he and Simi were married must stop.
And what Nirvaan wanted, Nirvaan would get.
He’d say, “Jump.”
We’d ask, “How high?”
He was dying. We were not. It was that simple.
Of course in the end, it’s not that simple. Nirvaan wants a baby, Simi is much less sure. Nirvaan understands more about her convoluted feelings toward the men and their long-standing friendship than she thinks he does. Zayaan has never completely overcome the hurt of losing Simi, especially since he doesn’t know the very complex reasons she broke up with him.
In other words, Kothari has set up an emotionally sinuous book that examines a very special set of relationships through a multi-faceted lens, even though that lens is told completely from Simi’s perspective. However, the perspective is very smart and aware.
Simi understands everyone’s weaknesses, including her own, but she is honest about them, even when she comes across as selfish, insecure, secretive or vulnerable. Even when she’s describing their family’s issues with her, and how they perceive her.
In other words, a fascinating study of love, selfishness, self-sacrifice, friendship, devotion and loyalty. There’s no time to waste here, Simi is saying, and I get it, but that doesn’t help me heal all the wounds I need to in order to get things the way they need to be for Nirvaan to be happy. Then again, what do Zayaan and I need to be happy? Where do those things connect with what Nirvaan wants, and where do they diverge? And what do we do about it?
Kothari has written a very different kind of love story, but it is one that examines and explores very real, very complex questions, and on top of that, does it in a context of three Indian characters, from three different religions, facing these issues in a brand new place, knowing no one but each other.
I was fascinated by the book and caught up with Falguni Kothari to ask her some questions about her inspirations and choices.
We started with the characters, who meet at a party on Simi’s fifteenth birthday, soon after the death of her parents. Nirvaan, Zayaan and Simi are, respectively, Hindu, Muslim and Parsi, but all live in the same upper middle class neighborhood in Surat, a city in India known for its textile production. The three become close friends and do everything together, including some fairly tame sexual exploration, but when Zayaan and Simi become a couple, it complicates things.
And since there’s a lot to unpack in that setup, socially and culturally, I asked Kothari her thoughts on some of those storytelling decisions.
“India has a culturally conservative reputation but the more rules you have, the more likely it is that people are going to resist a little. Especially teens and young adults, who can be very daring. I also wanted to show that, in urban areas, young people from different backgrounds will interact a lot more than you might expect. It is not unrealistic at all that these three friends would have met the way they did, and that their own behavior and interactions would reflect both their individual backgrounds and the ways they rebelled against them.”
In the end, it is a tragic act that drives the three of them apart, and Simi turns to the more light-hearted Nirvaan over the brooding, intense Zayaan. They are still friends, all of them, to some degree, but the triangle has lost its ease and balance.
Years later, when it becomes clear Nirvaan will not survive his final bout of cancer, he decides to rent a beach house in Carmel, California and live his final days surrounded by his two best friends. He also wants to have a baby and exhorts a promise from Simi that she’ll pursue in vitro fertilization.
Meanwhile, both Nirvaan’s and Zayaan’s families have problems with Simi, and the friends have to sort out what matters and what doesn’t, given the unorthodox arrangements Nirvana has made.
Kothari is very interested in writing about modern India and the immigrant experience. “There’s just so much to explore,” she reflects. “Zayaan settles in London and becomes a renowned scholar in world literature, sociology and Islamic studies, because he’s fascinated by how populations and religions move and settle. As am I. These friends come from different backgrounds and wind up in the same place, then wind up around the world. It’s a huge part of India’s history and culture, even today, with so many Indians moving to America, Europe and everywhere else. It intrigues me. Immigrants have been a huge part of Indian society for the past thousand years, and now we are moving into other cultures and societies, while still navigating it within our own cultural identity at home.”
With the three friends facing Nirvaan’s illness and imminent death in Carmel, it’s almost as if they’ve created their own society. There has always been a sexual and romantic tension among the three of them, which has moved from playful to competitive to painful. Now is the time to heal long-standing wounds, and while no one says it out loud, there is the implied desired outcome that Nirvaan wants to see his two beloved friends wind up together, after he’s gone.
It’s a whole new emotional frontier they’re exploring, with its requisite negative social impact, their own discomfort with the situation, and an examination of what they want vs. what is expected of them, from their families, the community around them, and their own desires and expectations.
Kothari does an amazing job of telling a variety of perspectives from Simi’s own experience and point of view. “There was this sense,” reflects Kothari, “that the friendship that’s sort of a love triangle is okay in the context of teen exploration, but those are things you put away when you get to adulthood. I wanted to explore this very complicated situation Nirvaan is trying to engineer, but had to figure out a way to do it so the parents wouldn’t object. A young man dying from cancer is tragic and horrible, but it’s also a way to get around a lot of judgment. There’s a true selflessness in those last days, from the patient and from the people who love him.”
It’s a story element that also interests Kothari on its own. “I had a dear cousin who died very young from cancer. I dedicated this book to her. She taught me a lot about death and also how to live, to not take things for granted.”
My Last Love Story is a lovely, haunting book that explores so much of the best and worst of human nature, in ways that are inspiring and compelling. It’s not an easy book, nor a simple one, but it is so worth a read. I loved it and, if you love beautiful writing, complex characters and a thought-provoking stories, you will too.
#LovetoRead #TheRomanceofReading
I also asked Falguni for some books recommendations:
Jamie Brenner’s The Forever Summer is a wonderful mosaic of the intertwining lives of four women in a multigenerational family, who didn’t know that they were a family to begin with. It is the perfect summer read with a cast of captivatingly quirky characters I got to know intimately, family secrets I wanted them to unearth and an idyllic beach setting where it all unfolded, and where I wish to spend a summer. (Kirkus review)
Sonali Dev’s A Distant Heart destroyed me. Kept me up all night until I turned the last page. This book is about passion and love..."the best of it and the worst of it." It's about friendship, and guilt, and life and fate. It's about a girl whose health mocks her zest for life. And a man whose life has been sucked dry of zest. Rahul and Kimi can only be whole together. We know they'll make it...they have to...but their journey to that end is what grand love stories are all about. (Kirkus *starred review)
Kaira Rouda’s Best Day Ever is a page-turning suspense novel you won’t be able to put down. It’s like a car crash you can’t take your eyes off, where you’re both horrified and fascinated in equal parts. The best part is that you know from the first page that main POV character, Paul Strom, is an unreliable narrator, and yet you cannot help wondering how the book is going to end when you know deep down there can only be one way it’ll end. And then you’re shocked again. (Kirkus review)
There were more books that I haven’t been able to forget this year:
On Second Thought by Kristan Higgins
The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare
Before I Knew by Jamie Beck
Bless Her Heart by Sally Kilpatrick
5 questions with Falguni Kothari, author of ‘Soul Warrior’
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By: Joyce Lamb | November 6, 2015 12:00 am
Soul Warrior by Falguni KothariJoyce: Welcome to HEA, Falguni! Please tell us a bit about your new release, Soul Warrior.
Falguni: With pleasure! Soul Warrior is an urban fantasy novel based in South Asian mythological themes. Think Marvel’s Thor meets the Mahabharata, the oldest and longest epic in the world. It’s the first book in the Age of Kali series, and tells the tale of demi-god Karna, the legendary guardian of the Human Realm, who suddenly finds himself battling not only his usual repertoire of evil creatures but also old enemies and a long-estranged family. My hero has his hands and house full in this vaudevillian saga of magic, mystery, intrigue and romance.
Joyce: Is there anything strange/interesting that’s happened to you while doing research for a book?
Falguni: As a matter of fact, I’ve had several spooky experiences after I took to writing. Let me tell you about the one that scared me the most. While working on my very first manuscript, nigh on six years ago, I became so adept and involved in daydreaming about scenes that once I actually daydreamed Mumbai’s concrete skyline instead of the barren-treed, snow-laden streets I was driving through. Didn’t matter it was the dead of winter in the burbs of New York, I felt the heat of Mumbai on my skin. For a second, I was transported to another place, like some kind of out-of-body experience. That was beyond scary. And I make sure I’m not driving anywhere when I’m in the zone now.
Joyce: Do you write by the seat of your pants (pantser!) or do you carefully plot your stories (plotter!)? Has that changed at any point in your career or maybe it changes depending on the book?
Falguni: I am both, a pantser and a plotter. Yes, it does seem to depend on the book. I find with contemporary romance and women’s fiction, I like the unpredictability of pantsing. Like allowing the characters to call the shots. With my mythic fantasy, and the romantic suspense I’m currently working on, plotting out scenes makes for less headaches and screaming. If the story must follow a specific path to climax, plotting helps.
Truffles demonstrates the Death Stare.
Truffles demonstrates the Death Stare.
Joyce: Do you have a cat or dog who hangs out with you while you’re working?
Falguni: Yes! J My dog, Truffles, completely supports my writing career as it allows him to laze on the bed next to me at any and all odd hours of the day. He’s a natural-born alarm clock. That’s the Death Stare from the floor if I forget lunchtime — his, not mine.
Joyce: What’s your ideal scenery while you’re writing?
Falguni: Complete and utter darkness with just the light of a blank page staring at me. I write best on my bed, in my pajamas, mostly in the dead of night. There’s something about being not fully awake that brings out my most creative side. So I’ve learned to write new scenes between midnight and dawn, and do all other writing during the day … in front of my muted TV.
Thanks so much for having me here.
Joyce: Thanks for joining us! J
About Soul Warrior:
Fight fate, or succumb to destiny?
In the dark Age of Kali, the Soul Warrior alone stands guard over the Human Realm, protecting its denizens from evil-willed asuras or demons. When a trick of fate appoints him guru to a motley crew of godlings, he agrees to train them as demon hunters against his better judgment. Suddenly, Lord Karna is not only battling the usual asuras with sinister agendas, but also rebellious students and a fault-ridden past.
Spanning the cosmic realms of mythic India, here is a tale of a band of supernatural warriors who come together over a singular purpose: the salvation of Karna’s secret child.
Find out more about Falguni’s books at falgunikothari.com.
My Last Love Story
Shoba Viswanathan
Booklist.
114.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2018): p38.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
My Last Love Story.
By Falguni Kothari.
Jan. 2018.336p. Graydon, paper, $16.99 (9781525811395); e-book (9781488027864).
The fact that 30-year-old Simi Desai's husband, Nirvaan, is struggling with cancer is but one among many
dramatic elements in Kothari's novel. Another is Nirvaan's advocating for them to have an IVF baby while
also trying to bring Simi and their mutual best friend, Zayaan, together again: they were a couple in their
teen years before a slew of life-changing events pushed them apart. This triangular relationship and each
characters' impulses and motivations make for a gripping story, along with the added dimension of religious
and cultural differences between the three protagonists. Simi's concerns about Zayaan's Muslim family is a
particularly heavy theme and becomes a subplot. Kothari's willingness to push boundaries and delve into
the nature of love, her ability to explore emotion without letting it slide into mawkishness, and her resolute
focus on staying true to the individual make this a book well worth reading. It is also an unexpected read in
many ways, leaving the reader questioning many common and easy assumptions.--Shoba Viswanathan
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Viswanathan, Shoba. "My Last Love Story." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 38. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525185576/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=20cde1bf.
Accessed 22 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525185576
4/22/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1524444939227 2/2
My Last Love Story
Publishers Weekly.
264.48 (Nov. 27, 2017): p43.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
My Last Love Story
Falguni Kothari. Graydon House, $15.99 trade
paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-5258-1139-5
Nirvaan and Simeen Desai are happily married and trying for a baby at the start of Kothari's ambitious but
deeply flawed contemporary romance. Simi is conflicted about the idea of having a child and not looking
forward to the long process of artificial insemination, which is necessary because Nirvaan is dying of cancer
and no longer fertile. She finds it understandably difficult to deal with his treatments, let alone undergo a
possible pregnancy and childbirth at the same time. Luckily, their mutual best friend, Zayaan, is there to
support them through Nirvaan's illness. Simi's attraction to Zayaan, his to her, and Nirvaan's hopes for the
two of them get tangled up with complicated issues in Simi's past, as well as the pain, fear, and grief of the
anticipated near future. Kothari (Bootie and the Beast) treats her subject matter with respect and honesty,
but the actual romance between Simi and Zayaan follows standard romance-novel beats far too closely
while the story of Nirvaan's slow decline is full of raw, honest pain, creating an uneven tone with
unfortunate spikes of melodrama. The book's highs are very high, but the lows are pure soap opera. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"My Last Love Story." Publishers Weekly, 27 Nov. 2017, p. 43. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517575664/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ecc19277.
Accessed 22 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A517575664
REVIEW: My Last Love Story by Falguni Kothari
Posted January 17th, 2018 by Sara @HarlequinJunkie in Blog, HJ Recommends, Review, Women's Fic - Chick-lit / 4 comments
HJ_Recommends
In My Last Love Story by Falguni Kothari, After a few years of ultimately unsuccessful treatments and procedures, finding out that her husband Nirvaan was dying of cancer was a crippling blow to Simi Desai and to their best friend Zayaan. The trio, dubbed the Awesome Threesome in their teens, has always raised eyebrows with their unusual bond. And it has admittedly caused a few rifts between them and with family members over the years. But with Nirvaan wanting to live what’s left of his life to the fullest, Zayaan moves into Simi and her husband’s California beach house ready to embark on their final adventure together.
‘That was our naked truth. The three of us loved each other–without reservation, without malice. I wanted to know why it was wrong. Why were we kinky and deviant and different for accepting what was in our hearts and not trying to fit the mold?’
When it becomes clear that Nirvaan has more than just fulfilling his bucket list on his mind, trying to convince Simi to have his baby and push her back into Zayaan’s arms–who was her first love–she finds herself searching her heart for the right thing to do. Especially when secrets from the past come out, forcing her to finally come clean about a tragic event that happened on her eighteenth birthday. The fallout might prove to be too much for the trio to handle. Or it may be the catalyst to bring them infinitely closer together. Only time will tell which way it will turn out.
‘When you’d fashioned your whole life around a secret, it wasn’t so easy to give it up.’
Honest, raw emotions dominated the pages in My Last Love Story; a novel about friendship, a complex love triangle, one man’s brave struggle against cancer and how it affected those he loved. All of which was viewed through the eyes of his wife, Simi.
“Imagine I’m an ocean. You are the bright sunlit part of me, and Zayaan, the darker depths. I need you both to be who I am. I love you both. Always have. Always will. But, Nirvaan, you are my last love story. I don’t want another one.”
Possible Trigger Warning: Sexual assault, love triangle, cheating, and scenes detailing cancer treatments and the disease’s progression.
I have to say that my feelings were all over the place with this book. Not necessarily in a bad way. I really liked the storytelling and how Falguni Kothari was able to convey Simi’s every emotion as we followed her thoughts on her husband Nirvaan’s diagnosis and treatments as well as her history with him and their best friend Zayaan. I even found the unusual bond between the “Awesome Threesome” to be genuine and interesting. It was more toward the end of the book and one of the choices Simi made (which I won’t divulge so it won’t ruin things) that gave me pause. To me it felt like an almost callous, disrespectful thing for her to do and a tad selfish on her part. It had to do with the powerful connection she had with both Nirvaan and Zayaan and her tendency to almost play them off of each other, wanting them both in different ways.
Like you can see from the trigger warning, this will not be the book for everyone. And it will definitely toy with your emotions, even for the hardiest of readers. There were lovely descriptions of the connection between Simi, Nirvaan and Zayaan and the crazy/wonderful things they did in their teens together as well as the heartbreaking situation they found themselves in later on. I loved learning more about their culture and the religious views of their families. It was something that brought some tension and pain to their relationship, but I thought it was realistic from my (limited) understanding. I think with the way Falguni Kothari wrote this, readers will find themselves wondering how they would handle the same set of circumstances and how they would cope with everything tragic that happened to Simi. So even though I might have chosen to do things differently, I certainly felt compassion for her and liked that the book ended on a much more positive note than I at first thought it would.
Poignant, heartrending, and possibly a tad controversial–thanks to the trio’s unconventional relationship–My Last Love Story undoubtedly makes an emotional impact on its reader.
Book Info:
Publication: January 23rd 2018 (first published 2016) | Graydon House |
Promise me you’ll learn to cuss, learn to love again. Live again. Promise me you won’t give up on each other.
Simi Desai is thirty years old and her husband is dying of cancer. He has two last wishes in his final months: first, that she’ll have his baby so that a piece of him lives on, and second, that she’ll reconcile with her old flame, who just happens to be their mutual best friend. And so over the course of their last summer together, Simi’s husband plans a series of big and small adventures for this unlikely trio, designed to help them say goodbye to each other and prove to Simi that it’s okay to move on without him–and even find love again.
Beautiful and poignant, Falguni Kothari’s My Last Love Story will pull your heartstrings as only unforgettable love stories can.