Paper Moon

Read this book! It’s absolutely worth the time. The author’s writing style and depiction of setting helped make this book even more entrancing. The engrossing and transformative story of Fiza is at the heart and soul of this book and I’m so glad to have read it.

This book is a breeze for all Eng Lit types (including me). It has a particular and special universe - a mindspace of books, reading, the liberal and performing arts (I had Ella Fitzgerald singing 'Paper Moon' on a loop in my head right through the time I spent reading this book) and a geographic space, mostly Bombay with a sojourn in London.If you inhabit these spaces culturally and emotionally, this book is a real treat. In terms of narrative style, there's a rhythm and cadence that is soothing, quite the type of book you'd want to curl up with and use to wrap yourself in a cocoon. You get to trip around Bombay city, visiting watering holes and hangouts, enjoy the seasons, especially Christmas in Bandra, and land up in hospital too, just to keep things grounded.This novel lives and breathes through its cast of authentic Bombay characters - real people - and their relationships. Mother and daughter; daughter and (absent) father; siblings; friends and lovers; business associates and colleagues. Stuff happens. You deal with them. Sometimes not. It's complicated. It's the challenges life throws at you that define you. But in the end, you come out swinging. Attagirl, Fiza!

Fiza Khalid has a simple life, a loving boyfriend Dhruv, and mom Noor who is an erstwhile famous singer and RJ. she spends her days attending lazy college lectures and frequenting the library with Dhruv.A few months later, as she was recuperating from a sudden breakup with Dhruv, Fiza gets another shock in the form of her father’s death. A father who separated from her mom when Fiza was less than a year old, to never look back or meet again.There are more surprises in store as she inherits a good fortune from her estranged father who willed her the amount to open a bookshop in Bombay.After her initial trepidation, Fiza sets up her own bookstore ‘Paper Moon’ near Bandstand with the help of her father’s friends. A café is soon added, and the store has better sales than she anticipated.But before she gets to relish her new adventure, Dhruv is back in Bombay from the US for holidays, and also back in her life. And then there is Iqbal, a mysterious person who sends her flowers daily.As Fiza tries to clear the confusion in her heart for Iqbal and Dhruv, the reader is taken on a trip of nostalgia through Bombay of the late 90s and early 2000s.This story is a treat for all book lovers as the pages are sprinkled with extensive reference to all genres of books, authors, and literature and drama. Fiza is an English literature student. The author beautifully captures the journey of Fiza from being an awkward college goer to a confident businesswoman.Bombay of yesteryears is used as more than a backdrop and is the soul of the story. As a result, the reader is taken through every nook and corner of the city along with the characters. The cover, on top of that, further tempts the reader to pick up the book.The narration moves at its own pace, so the book is best suited for those who prefer to devour the prose rather than rushing through the story. I however would have loved more depth to the main characters as some of their decisions come across as sudden and random.Also, the romance part does not leave the same impact as the other two pillars, books and Bombay, have on the story. Lastly, I wonder if the open ending is a hint towards a sequel?A book unlike what you would often read, pick this one for a lazy afternoon read.

Rather than rehashing the plot (Fiza Khalid dates Dhruv Banerjee, she loses father, she gets inheritance for starting bookshop, adventures faced while running it, Dhruv and mysterious Iqbal compete for Fiza’s heart, etc.), I figured I’d share some some random points that popped in and that I jotted down while reading this book.This happens to be my first Amazon review, and I wanted to make sure it is for something I would read again and again, glass of rose sharbat at the side. It’s what I call ‘comfort food in prose’!TL;DR: A must-read for all those who want to explore Bombay through the eyes of a dreamy-eyed girl who has to choose between heart and head, between a dream of words and the reality of a future.1. This is about as ‘Bombay’ a book as I have ever read, with a close competitor being What Maya Saw by Shabnam Minwalla, and the two reads make for a joyous trip down the streets, sights and smells that make up the City of Dreamers and Doers. It’s just that this book has ICQ where that one has Instagram, and that one is a moral battle of Genuine Good versus Pretence and Artifice.2. I am nowhere close to an English Literature background, having studied Computer Science, and I don’t know seven in ten books or songs mentioned — I will draw a blank at the mention of ‘Trainspotting’ or George Michael, as I was born in the time frame the book is set in — but it runs in the family, and my mom in particular was able to relate immediately. Being a Bengali helps, with the layers of education and erudition that it entails. I especially chuckled at the untranslated ‘chhele’ and ‘chingri’ in a sentence.3. I had been holding off on this and Lallan Sweets for the longest time (even though Kindle was really pushing them in its recommendations), given that I wasn’t so used to reading books set a decade or two ago instead of the Her(e) and Now. How wrong I was. Now that I’ve got my hands on them, and have all but finished this one in a couple of days, I will see what worlds Srishti Chaudhary can create with her pen!4. Of course, a romantic track was needed to carry the book forward, but it could well have done without. I far prefer the parts set in Mumbai with its colourful cast of characters — faithful Ismail, unsure Rosy, supportive Bharti — than those which venture into London and Edinburgh. I was rather at sea with all those mentions of the National Gallery and Muriel Spark, but then again, I’m not an English Literature MA, am I?5. I can kinda-sorta relate with Fiza, and how she navigates dilemmas of the heart and the head. The uncertainty, the naïveness, of a 22-year-old setting out on a business venture: anyone can relate to that. Not so much all the namedropping of books and films from a certain era. All the same, I enjoyed how she interacts with her songstress of a mother Noor, and the trustworthy coconut-seller Ismail, with cameos from Rosy (a teenage girl at the bookshop who has to choose between right and wrong) and Marc(el), a flamboyant architect without whom Paper Moon (the book and the bookstore) wouldn’t have the same charm!6. Yet, I was slightly less fond of Fiza’s mercurial pasts and presents (Iqbal, Dhruv, Vivek), and I felt that the author could have expanded a bit on Fiza’s buddy Kavya, Bharti Aunty and especially the lawyer D.K. as he is a genial soul. But I did soften up a little at the parts where she meets Gayatri, the woman with whom her father had a child, and when she breaks down in the middle of a TV interview. We’ve all had roadblocks like those.7. Quotable quote: ‘all that press that irrational fears get, when it’s the rational ones that upend us every time’ — this will be my WhatsApp status going forward. About as fitting a quote as ever.As an aside, my favourite bookstore is not some charming old dusty building but the erstwhile Odyssey in Express Avenue mall in Chennai, which sadly didn’t last for a long time. Starmarks and Landmarks have come and gone. I do wish, though, that India had a large number of swanky public libraries like my adopted home of Singapore does.P.S. Last Sunday (26 March 2023) I was most surprised when my mother woke me — the Kumbhakarna of the family — with a call of ‘REHANA MUNIR!’ Turns out she (Rehana) had written an article for TOI on ‘why we still heart Goa’, and the book club my mom’s part of was furiously discussing how TOI is pandering to the lowest common denominator by using ‘heart’ as a verb, as proof that the paper had gone to the dogs.But that’s for another day, and I am happy to say that Paper Moon is a sparkling read, a nostalgic ride celebrating the best of Bombay. Now if only Rehana would write another one...

There are many levels of book loversThere are readers, then there are big readers one with book shops and library fetish, then there are those who review what they read and discuss about them and even go to book clubs or good reads, then there are ones who want to write someday and finally the ones who want to spend their lives amongst books with a dream job in a library and if money is a non issue then have a bookshop someday.And there you have it Paper moon- a love story by a reader to their ultimate dream of owning a book shop. And of course money is not a problem with a surprise inheritance and a purpose. And all those parts were appealing to me in every way, further the book shop was named after a classic song and based in the heart of Bandra in my fav city Mumbai in a refurbished vintage home. This probably ticks all the items on my checklist if I ever do open a bookshop.However after the initial love for reading and passion for the book shops, it soon turned into a full chiclit - a girl with complex daddy issues stuck in a love triangle, wooed by two men but not the way she dreamed. They were no Darcys and Heathcliffs but a millennial boy friend and an old poet lover, and these three men coupled with a mercurial artist mother makes her literally abandon her book shop. However the times of pride and prejudice, to Roman holiday, and then again ending with the prime of Jean Brodie.The bookshop once settled, jumped into another book lovers dream with a visit to the most famous setting of classic novels and the genesis of all English fiction world- the London and the book festival. Honestly I enjoyed her love for the cities of Mumbai, London and Edinburg. I have enjoyed the stories and the cities. The rainy grey London to the rainy chaotic Mumbai, the Edinburg’s literary cobbled streets bars to suburban Bandra corners and Colaba corridors, from east Gough London bars to fancy Bandra Totos. There is recurring mention of Armaan Khan or let’s just say it - Salman Khan, which seemed like an unnecessary diversion or to satisfy the need for a punching bag for the cheeky intellectuals. You hate to love them but you can’t ignore them.Overall a fun read but below expectations, with the promise of an intellectual love story around books, it ends up being a chiclit with not a happy ending but a euphemism of feminism and self love. I can take that but only of the book is to my taste and mood. I think relationships have to be simple and effortless, if they are unclear or tiring then they are not worth it. And at other times they need effort and hard work.3 stars for the treat to a book lover and probably some tips how to be lucky to get a book shop gift but in lieu of a dysfunctional family.

It's one of those books that you read to feel good.A girl called Fiza lives with her mom in Mumbai, her father had left them when she was little. Her entire life, she tries to figure out the notion of a father or fatherly. The absence of her fathe has affected her on subconscious levels and she is aware of that, Noor, her mother, is a mess on the other hand. As she graduates from St. Xavier's in literature, she receivesWhat I love about this novel is it's simplicity, Rehana Munir has added a lot of her real story in Fiza but with a little exploring to the fictional side. So, the character Fiza and her life seems real and majestic. Throughput the entire novel, you cannot really predict what's going to happen. The way the story unravels is simply sweet.