Book Review: Cold Feet

By: Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

“Cold Feet” by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is a story about five different women dealing with love in their own way. The novel began with a bachelorette/ spinster party, and there four (of five) protagonists: Amisha, Shayna, Ladli and Akshara are introduced.

Amisha, the “bride-to-be”, feels that she has found herself a perfect life partner. But the moment she decides to tie the knot with him, she realizes the need to push the boundaries. She has some really uninterested roomies. Akshara sounds to be a bit more desperate, while Ladli is quite clingy. The entire story explores the lives of these fives girls; their love and sex life. Though the narrative is a bit elaborated, yet the author leaves a lot for the readers to think. And, this thinking has a scope in the novel’s situations like their behavior with each other, and during their interaction with anyone else.

The common themes that exist here in this novel are love, sex and the need for being in relation. Akshara has love for her best friend and she plans to take things further with him to settle down in future. However, gradually, she realizes that he may give her everything like facilities and other benfits, but he won’t be able to give her his love. Therefore, being heartbroken, she decides to back out, but does she really backs out? You will have to read the novel to know that.

On the other hand, Ladli is over-obsessed with the man who has no intentions of doing anything more to do with her. Shayna dates an older man quite indecisively and hesitantly. She’s not sure if she can take this relation as accepted or not; or whether its an ideal situation for her. He has none of the qualities she forsees and expects in her better half.

The bride-to-be, Amisha, is all about wedding preparations and bridal jitters. The last protagonist remains unnamed until fifth chapter. She stays with Bidisha aunty as a paying guest. This is the story of five women whose lives are entwined. There is jealousy in between the girls and a lot- a typical woman story. However, the book ends with a note where certain situations are resolved whereas others are left hanging.

Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, author of “The Life and Times of Layla the Ordinary”actually tries to justify a piece of write-up in various ways. Since the novel Confessions of a Listmaniac dealt with a teenager’s story she used her nickname as a nom de plume for the novel to justify and relate with it better. She has also penned down “You Are Here” and “The One Who Swam With the Fishes.” She is a graduate from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, decided to become an author at sixteen, and fixed her mind on that even after turning 33 and facing bleak financial reality. Her first book deal came out of her popular blog Compulsive Confessions where she writes under the pseudonym “eM”. She has been running this blog as a passion project for the last eleven years. She has worked as a journalist for years.

Publisher: Penguin Books

Available on: Amazon and Flipkart

Price:Rs 254 and Rs 188, respectively