Name: Failure To Make Round Rotis
Author: Mehak Goyal
No. of Pages: 199
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: Juggernaut Books
Price: Rs. 399/-
Published in: 2023

How did I get it? From the publisher.

THE BLURB SAYS:

In this powerful debut collection, Mehak Goyal writes vividly of the experiences of young Indian women today. She explores the doubt that you carry while adulting, the toxic relationships you chase because you deem yourself unworthy, the guilt and insecurity that haunts you when you finally find that deserving love, the tug and pull of love and hate with yourself, the dark reality of arranged marriage and the unfair expectations and casual discrimination that women face every day.

Every poem will resonate. Every line will draw blood.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mehak Goyal was a computer science engineer and startup founder before committing herself to writing. This is her first book. She lives in Chandigarh.

MY THOUGHTS: 

The Writing:

This collection of poems are not a bunch of traditional flowery poetry. The first part of the collection is about childhood and related events. Then it moves on to adulting, relationships, love and matchmaking.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

I liked the overall theme of the poems, everything that a young woman in our modern Indian society goes through – conventional notions of how a girl should behave, the position of women in our society and homes, conditioning to become a wife, toxic relationships, sexuality, and womanhood. The illustrations and formatting of the book have given it an interesting angle.

But the poems themselves didn’t work for me. I felt most of them couldn’t convey the feelings they were meant to. The poems felt more like sentences and dialogues arranged like poems (e.g. “A Sunday Brunch”) to me. In several of them, the analogies seemed contrived (e.g. Loneliness I).

In a nutshell:

In style, the poems are very much like those of Rupi Kaur. Call me old school, but I am not really into this style of poetry, the ones that forgo rhyme, rhythm or eloquence . Instant poetry doesn’t appeal to me.

Honestly, I feel I am not the right audience for this book. But I am sure the young adult women of our country will undoubtedly connect with the poems at many levels.

I thank the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.