Title: Adulting

Author: Neharika Gupta

Publisher: HarperCollins India

Published: 25 August 2019

Genre: Fiction

Source: Review Copy

My rating: 3.5/5

Blurb:

Social media manager and popular blogger Aisha is flirty and flamboyant even as she battles personal demons that tell her she must stop eating if she wants to stay pretty. Ruhi couldn’t be more different from her friend Aisha. Working at Litracy Publishing, she feels grossly underappreciated by the editor-in-chief, who happens to be her mother. What keeps her going are her ambitions and her handsome author Tejas.

Bestselling novelist Tejas has a bad case of writer’s block. he leans on Ruhi for emotional support before getting enamoured by Aisha as he struggles to live up to everyone’s expectations, including his very own. Bold and unapologetic, this is a story of love and self-discovery, heartache and book launches.

My Take:

The story revolves around three main characters Ruhi, Aisha and Tejas. Ruhi was the editor of a publishing house named Litracy an imprint of White Dog Books. Tejas was a debut author whose book was published by Litracy. Aisha, a famous lifestyle blogger was hired by Ruhi as a social media manager at Litracy to promote books and enhance sales. Soon the three became close and their friendship ended up in an awkward love triangle.

Each character in this book has their own plus and minus as we all do. And so I have my own likes and dislikes too. I liked Ruhi as an editor of Litracy, how determined and hardworking she was but the way Ruhi handled Tejas break up and Aisha’s betrayal was quite immature and that made her appear childish in my view. It is natural to expect a little bit of appreciation for the work you devoted yourself to and when you have failed to get the recognition you deserve it will obviously bring disappointment so from Ruhi’s point of view her hatred towards her mother was understandable.

Aisha, on the other hand, was contrary to Ruhi. She was bold, confident and smart in her work. The way Aisha’s character presented was relevant to the fact that how one gives too much importance to their appearance over their health and how social media influences a person’s life nowadays. To be frank, I don’t like Tejas character at all. His attitude was intolerable and his mood swing was one hell of a thing that infuriated me all the time while reading. He was using both the girls (Ruhi and Aisha) in the name of love which made me hate his character deeply right from the beginning till the end.

In fact, I felt all three characters could have been developed in a bit matured way in handling specific situations. The love part has ruined what otherwise could have been a four-star read for me. But there were other things I liked and enjoyed reading. Especially the insight into the publishing house and the glimpse of their hectic work routine. Overall, it’s a nice one time read.

I would like to thank HarperCollins India for providing me with a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.