Review: The Zoya Factor

The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Zoya Singh Solanki was born at the precise time that India won the World cup in 1983. She seems to have a rare gift – she is a lucky charm to the team she hangs around with and supports. The Indian cricket team and the cricket board seems to believe this too, except the captain Nikhil Khoda. Zoya is an advertising executive and a period of absence is worked out such that she accompanies the Indian cricket team for the cricket world cup to Australia. Zoya is soon viewed as a kind of goddess, whose blessings are desperately needed for India to win. Zoya and Nikhil share for the most part an awkward and complex relationship. Well, Zoya herself is a complex character and quite unpredictable in many situations.

The book has a good dose of wit which makes you smile. The story is fairly weak though even if unusual in concept. Also, the book overdoes the silly stuff – a large number of weak incidents & jokes. There is a large sprinkling of hinglish, which unfortunately does not add much to the book and only feels odd at many places – lacking variety and fairly uni-dimensional.

Yet, a decent book for the first one by the author and worth a read.


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