By Shubham Arora. Grade: A

 

One Last Time is Shubham Arora’s second book after Love Chemistry which was published in 2011. The book is a fresh deviation from the everyday boy meets girl story.

One phone call changes it all for him. Her phone call. After one full year. She is in the US, informing him about her marriage. She wants to meet him.

One Last Time by Shubham Arora

He had moved on, at least thats what he had made himself believe. Unsure of everything, he books a flight from New York to Carolina to give his past the final closure.

The journey brings all the painful memories back to him. They have both come a long way since they first met as kids and then again as adults, before parting ways and . . . moving on.

But flight 1549 is not destined to reach its destination. Unaware and oblivious, he is lost in his memories of her.
Ambala. New Delhi. New York.
Love. Career. Distance. Longing. Separation.
Will he realize her importance in his life? Will she ever find out who she is actually meant for?

What if he doesn’t live up to the day to meet her one last time?

Yes, it sure is a romance novel, but the narration and the plot idea is what sets the book apart from the rest. Telling a love story from the POV of one of the Hudson river plane crash victims is a very novel idea indeed. The book tells the story of Ishaan and Tithi through the times when they first met as toddlers to the present time, almost two decades later. It is almost a year after their break up that Ishaan gets a call from Tithi, as she tells him about her fiance. Ishaan is on his way to meet her and tell her how much he still loves her. Will he get the last chance to say it?

 

The best part about the story is the fact that the author has narrated a romance without making it even a tiny bit cheesy or corny. The characters are very believable and come to life as you read the book. I particularly loved how the author blended the past and the present. How each incident in the present sends Ishaan into a flashback mode as he remembers the incidents from the past. These flashbacks give the story a new depth and defines the characters better. The book will take you through a journey of two people and make you both cry and laugh at the sorrow and joy of the protagonists.

 

The only thing which I perhaps didn’t like is the over use of the word “cognizant”. It is not a term people use in everyday speech and over-using it disrupts the flow of the book. Apart from that minor problem and a few typos here and there (which is of course not the author’s fault), the book is a really pleasant read. Simple words, simple plot, lovely story telling. Worth giving a read.