Customer Reviews

Bollywood Boy (John Murray Paperbacks)

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The journalist who wrote this book infused her own feelings and opinions into every word. Bollywood Boy is not an objective work, nor is the writer's voice interesting or accurate enough to allow her bias go unnoticed. She fell in love with her main character and selfishly and rather dully used everyone she came in contact with - including us, the readers - to get where she wanted to be. It would have been great if this book were really about Hrithik Roshan, or the Hindi film industry, or the Indian people. It was just about Justine's crush. The publisher obviously doesn't know the subject matter well enough to know that there is little substance here, but did he have to, to at least recognize bad, self-indulgent writing? The arena remains clear for someone else to actually write about Roshan.

Just read this book and was pretty disappointed. It's not all bad: The writing is breezy, though at times a bit overblown (her extended descriptions of Bombay as a beautiful woman, say). And there are some funny and illuminating moments in it (the teenager who has to lie down after watching Hrithik dance; the 45-year-old bank manager and mother who compares him to Jesus.) I also had no idea that Hrithik has TWO RIGHT THUMBS (literally, webbed together) but there they are in that magazine cover reproduced in the book.

But the big problem with the book is that HARDY DOESN'T TALK TO ANYONE IN THE BUSINESS except a handfull of people she runs across basically by accident. Sure, she can't get an interview with HR for more than a year but, you know, she gets his big-time-director dad on the phone right away -- why not ask HIM some questions? She relates each time she gets the brushoff trying to reach HR ("sorry, he is out of station") but doesn't think to start calling other people in the business? Surely at least a few would have talked to her. And couldn't she have come up with some better questions for HR? SHE HAD A YEAR TO COME UP WITH THEM!

So instead of interviews with real live film people and/or a decently rsearched history of Bollywood, we essentially get Justine wandering about randomly for 250 pages and chatting about Bollywood with whoever she happens to meet. Her favorite sources? The juice seller near her apartment and the gals at the beauty salon.

Bollywood is all about goofy dancing, singing and simplistic storylines made more complicated and illogical with over-the-top hambone acting. So where is that expressed in this book? After awhile you begin to realize, like actors in the West, these people are not any more interesting than the guy who delivers your mail.

I just got completely bored at the repetitiveness of it all. I think a book on Bombay itself or on the film industry without the name dropping would have suited the topic better.

Also, what is up with the pink backdrop for the cover? Seriously, the color "pink" is what Indians associate with a Bollywood Boy? Looks more like a cover for a Hillary Duff expose.

This book was fun to read but it could've been better if she hadn't spent so much time detailing the dozens of times she couldn't get an interview or speak with Hrithik Roshan. That was boring.