ARC Review: Pretty Vile Girl by Rickie Khosla

Everything she touched turned to gold, everything she said turned to scandal, everyone she wanted out of the way…died.

Beautiful, talented and wildly sexy, Jazmeen is Bollywood’s most in-demand starlet, and in a relationship with to one of the country’s most powerful politicians. Even though she’s known for her outrageous candour in interviews, no one could guess at the dark secret she’s carried for years. And no one will escape her vengeance, not even the prime minster.

Following her journey from her loving family to an orphanage run by a sadistic matron, from the fringes of the Mumbai underworld to the casting couches of Bollywood and beyond, Rickie Khosla crafts a racy, pacey and explosive debut about a woman who’ll do anything to settle scores and get what she wants.

Disclaimer: A huge thanks to Bloomsbury India for the Review Copy but the thoughts, opinions and feelings expressed are my own!

Holy Shiiiizzzz! What did I just freaking read?

I mean; I was expecting a salacious and exciting read with some murder mystery and thriller thrown in – but what I got was a candid and disloyal look at the main character’s life and her quest for revenge!

This story follows the life of Jazmeen, a beautiful, talented and the scandalous icon of Bollywood. But it is also about her journey to reaching that exact station in life that makes for a more interesting read – it’s her journey that takes the attention of the reader; and the way she is ferocious in her quest to exact revenge for past deeds done wrong.

I honestly do not know how to feel about Jazmeen – she is a complex character, on one hand you get to see and admire her tenaciousness in reaching for her ambition and on the other hand, you get to see the calculating nature of the woman that she actually is. And how easily to manipulates the lives of people around her.

The author does a brilliant job of being uninvolved in the plot of the story; usually you get to see the snippets of author peeking out from behind the character’s rationalization but here I did not; at least I hope I didn’t (the shrink in me wouldn’t be able to handle the alternative!).

This is a fast paced novel, with the perfect combination of twists and turns and sensuality that isn’t quite in the face of the reader – that is a difficult combination to achieve and the author does so flawlessly!

The only issue I had was that at times the story seemed to be dragging (this is an uncorrected proof; so hopefully it would have been resolved in the final copy!) and could have done without at least a few pages and still retain the fun and twisty quality of the book.

This is the exact kind of book that you read when you want to get lost in a world that it isn’t our own – maybe late at night when you are unable to sleep OR you just need to get lost in a world that isn’t your own for now!