Review #715: The Bitter Pill Social Club by Rohan Dahiya

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

----Leo Tolstoy

Rohan Dahiya, an Indian author, has penned a satirical contemporary fiction called, The Bitter Pill Social Club that revolves around a family based in Delhi, India, who lives for their selfish reasons and most importantly for their social status amongst their friends, relatives and Instagram followers. The sarcastic yet very vivid portrait of a filthy rich family who lives on their own terms, without realization that they are destroying lives as they go on with their Insta worthy life. But soon tragedy strikes this family and it is high time for the family as a whole to realize their mistakes before they lose themselves to the social media frenzy.



Synopsis:

Witness the private life of the world’s most beautiful animals.

You know exactly who they are. The ones who walk right past club lines, who get what they want before they ask for it. It’s a familiar cast: the centre of attention, the shameless flirt, the loudmouth, the narcissistic writer. You’ve seen them all. You’ve felt their Gucci-anointed aura. Laughing and dancing. Kissing the wrong people at the wrong time. Swaying to their own beat. Going out every night they’re sad. Finding solace in the crowd in a city paved with mildly good intentions and cocaine lines. A city of smooth talkers, armchair activists, and the rich brats of Instagram. A place to talk pop spirituality and purple prose in connoisseur-only jazz clubs.

The Bitter Pill Social Club takes a look at the lives of the Kochhar family, who find themselves drifting apart in the city of djinns, gins, and fake friends wrapped up in cigarette smoke. As one of their own gears up to tie the knot, three siblings come home to the neurotic parents who raised them. Meanwhile the parents face the family patriarch’s constant judgment. Divorce, disappointment, and disasters ensue as the entitled Kochhar brood dodges old lovers and marriage proposals.


The Kochhar family has forever lived for the 10k likes, 500+ comments and 200+ shares in the popular social media platforms. Sana is the popular one amongst her peers and is on a lover hunt to satisfy her Insta followers. Her mom, Tina is and has been forever absent from her daughter's or her soon-to-be-ex-husband's lives and has always loved for herself. Sana's dad, Hassan has always been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons and has finally made up his mind to cut all ties from an unemotional wife like Tina. Hassan's sisters' lives, a.k.a., Geetu and Kama are equally scandalous and dramatic. But all of the lives crumble down one after another after a major tragedy strikes the whole family, and eventually, they all realize the importance of relationships and self love beyond all.

The author has portrayed the portrait of a typical elite class Delhite family surviving the mad chaos of social media through likes and Insta worthy drama irrespective of other people's feelings in a very striking manner. The plot has all the elements to make the book a blockbuster one, sadly, all of the elements felt so disorganized that most of the time while reading, I found myself wishing loudly for this book and its story to end. Even though one will get a good laugh while reading this book, yet somehow, the confusing story line will overshadow the enticing charm of the book or its characters.

The author's writing style is really articulate and fresh, laced with enough emotions to make the readers feel the characters' ongoing plights. The dialogues are funny and full of sarcastic remarks, sadly, somewhere down the line, those dialogues became very rough and monotonous, thereby forcing its readers to lose interest from the characters' voices. The pacing is really fast and since so much happens with little or no explanation at all, hence this book is okay for an one time read.

The characters are terrible in this book, I bet readers won't be able to relate to individual characters. Though they sound realistic but there is no development, just a vague sketch of the characters, with whom the readers might try hard to relate to but in the end, will feel more confused about them. There are too many characters and their appearance and presence in the book is very choppy and felt quite messy, I could not wrap my head around the characters demeanor or voices all through out the story line. But when they commented something hilarious, it definitely cracked me up every single time. Otherwise, both the plot and the characters felt very bland.

In a nutshell, I would not recommend this book to anyone, yet if you enjoy something funny and mindless, go for it.


Verdict: This book could have been much better.

Courtesy: Thanks to the publishers from Bloomsbury India for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author Info:
Rohan Dahiya is a writer/visual artist based in Delhi NCR shuffling between café desktops and foldable pool chairs. His first novel Grey Skies was published last year and was well received for its exploration of mental health. On most days he can be found at Chapter 101, an independent bookstore in the city with a coffee cup not too far from reach. He derives inspiration from music recommendations, bad dreams, and the people he meets while traveling through the country.
Visit him here


Book Purchase Links:

• Amazon US
• Amazon India