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Rochelle Potkar is a blogger, a fiction writer, a poet and more. She has been writing stories across various genres for the past 8 years. The Arithmetic of Breasts & Other Stories was nominated for the Digital Book of the Year Award 2014 by Publishing Next, Goa. Does it work? Let’s check it out.
The blurb goes like this –
A cluster of 7½ literary short stories presenting the romantic-sexual facets of: Narain who lusts for Munika, Old Jaganlal who wants a favour from young Dia, Jackie who is in love with Nic, a surgeon who is changing more than a patient’s hairline, nose, lip, and chin, Shonali and Neel who are realizing that infidelity might not be such an easy thing, a woman who walks the tight rope between tradition and sexual exploitation, and Sunil who meets the woman of his desires through an adult dating site. Through these stories, Rochelle Potkar explores the intensely personal ‘unrelationship’ that exists alongside its conventional and socially articulate twin, the relationship.
The book has quite a catchy title and cover which makes you curious on what to look forward to. Rochelle has explored various human emotions of love, passion, lust and desire across all her 7 stories and 2 half stories as she calls it. She describes each sequence aesthetically without making it sound dirty or awful to the human mind.
Each of the different characters across her stories seem so life like. A lot of us would associate with them in some form or the other. Another lovely aspect about Rochelle’s writing is the way she has explored the different human relationships. From talking about widowers to those who are cheating on their wives; from young men who are desperately looking for women to those who have actually fallen in love in the most dramatic of ways, each story is a beautiful expression in itself truly like poetry in motion.
While all the stories are beautiful in their own little way, my personal favourites (in no particular order):
The Scent of a Conscience
Sky Park
The Room with a Sea View
A place they call scary
Moreover, the Arithmetic of Breasts which explores every human emotion during all the phases of human life is a journey in itself. What Men Want tries to explore the feelings in a man’s mind as he looks to find a woman through an adult dating site.
To be honest, I couldn’t find anything negative in this book.
All in all, if you are in for reading something compelling and full of human emotions, go for this one. They are some of the most lovely short stories I have read in a long while.
Rating – 4.5/5
Linking to Indispire Edition 74
Linking to NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month – July – My post no 15 for this month.
Alok Singhal
Good review, Aseem!
aseemrastogi2
Thanks Alok :).
kokilagupta
Great review Aseem 🙂
aseemrastogi2
Thanks Kokila :). Good to know you liked it. Welcome to my blog :D.
simranakaur
Wonderful review 🙂
aseemrastogi2
Thanks Simran :). Welcome to my blog :D.