Zoya Factor

This book is like raisin bread- nice when the raisin's around, boring the rest of the time.There are some funny moments, but the rest of it is so-so.Tell me, what does this heroine look like again? All I recall are her thundering... no, not thighs,.. cheeks! Okay, so she has fat, hanging cheeks. What else? What, other than her cheeks, does anybody find appealing in her? She's immature, insecure, obstinate, jumps to conclusions, has big hang-ups about where she lives, how she talks, her origins, her looks, her clothes... it's like reading about a teenager.So yeah.. if she'd been 17, it would have been like The Princess Diaries or any of those teenage novels. However, since she's a decade older, she vacillates between being annoying or childish.About the rest of the book: premise is good; many of the descriptions of cricket-mania are spot on; many of the secondary characters are well-developed.Pity about the heroine.

The writing style is very casual & funny and will strike a chord with those who are familiar with Hindi slang, cricket, Indian beliefs in luck, Goddesses..I thoroughly enjoyed the book and loved the protagonist Zoya!

Like- story intertwined with cricket.Bad- too lengthy and meaninglessVery predictable endingThe author should have better clarity of thoughts.

I saw the movie, was intrigued by the premise and picked the book. It was a good insight into a slice of life I have no experience with. Parts of the book were tedious.

Sup[er funny and awesome writing.I fell in love with Zoya and Nikhil. Hope they do justice to the book when they make the movie.

It is an easy read. Quite entertaining. Just what you would expect from a chick lit. Should make for a good story for a Bollywood movie.

not as good as pricey thakur girls. The storyline is corny, mushy and not very believable. Pricey thakur girls was a far better effort I don't know which came first

Love this book after having read her other 2 books. She brings a unique Indian chic lit to you with faces and places you recognize. Her style of writing is light and engaging. A delightful read

Whilst I read a lot of Indian contemporary fiction, I sometimes dip into the world of Indian 'popular' fiction as it's often rather more insightful about Indian life than its literary sister. I have read - and mostly loathed - most of Chetan Bhagat's so-called novels and on each holiday in India I pick up a few more cheap paperbacks of the type designed to make lots of money and sell to the kind of people who don't read more 'worthy' fiction. I spotted a review of 'The Zoya Factor' on a friend's Goodread profile and was surprised to find I could get it in the UK from Amazon as a £1.89 kindle edition. How could I lose?As it happens, losing and winning are at the heart of this fun little novel. Only in India could a light-hearted romance combine young (actually not SO young - the heroine is in her late 20s) love and cricket.Zoya was born at the moment that India won the 1983 World Cup. Thankfully it was the ODI - one day international -format or goodness only knows how many thousands of pages this book might have run to if she'd been unlucky enough to have been born at the end of a full 5-day format contest. Somehow she has reached the age of 27 without realising that the team she supports ALWAYS wins but when she finds herself having breakfast with the pitifully poorly performing Indian national team and they go on to win for the first time in a long time, the team adopt her as their lucky mascot. It's her national duty to travel with the team to the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand to ensure they do their best. And since the team captain Nikhil is a bit of a hottie, what good patriotic girl could say no to an offer for an all expenses paid trip to Oz?This isn't high literature. It's not quite 'chick lit' either - or if it is, it will go down in history as the first of its genre to ever attempt an explanation of the Duckworth-Lewis method for scoring games called off due to bad weather. Zoya is a likeable character and her love interest does a good neo-Mr Darcy, strutting about and being arrogant in between throwing her crumbs of encouragement.Like a cricket match - even in the one day format - this book goes on rather longer than it can truly sustain interest but it's still good fun. It asks some interesting questions about whether 'luck' is real, whether it's OK to rely on or exploit luck, and whether luck denies talent. It's not written for an international audience (so don't go looking for a glossary of terms, or translations of the Hindi phrases that crop up frequently) but it's more charming for that. Nothing peeves me more than getting to 95% of a Kindle and finding it's finished and the next 5% is translations of every Hindi word in the book. Don't know the words? Don't worry - it's all pretty clear in the context. You won't learn loads of swear words (I've got quite a good collection - thanks to years of reading Khuswant Singh) and you won't have to worry about any squelchy 'adult' behaviour beyond the odd kiss.If I took the three most recent novels I've read set in India and about cricket, I'd put this one after Aravind Adiga's 'Selection Day' and way ahead of Chetan Bhagat's 'The 3 Mistakes of my Life'. Cricket is a tough topic for international readers but this is one you really can read without needing to know too much about the beautiful game.

Loved it, Loved it,. Loved it!!! I am a cricket fan and couldn't help enjoying this. It was slow to begin with but then once the main character came into her own with the star player of the cricket team - it was a laugh out loud story the rest of the way through.

Great read for an Indian audience! A bit slow at the start but couldn't keep it down once it took off!!!

Oh my God! 500 pages on a plot line that makes a woman lucky for Indian cricket and is made to go on the World Cup tour with the team. And she gloriously makes a fool of herself getting involved with the captain. She a nothing but a lowly advertising executive otherwise. A very unimpressive character with a long and boring story.

It took a little while to get into this book, but once I did I really enjoyed it. Although published in English, there were a lot of Indian expressions and phrases in here that I didn't understand and couldn't help feeling it would have helped if I had. Harper Collins, if you're reading, some footnotes might have been useful.I love cricket and enjoyed reading about it from another woman's perspective. However, I wonder if the author ever intended for this book to be read outside of India? She occasionally has her heroine express her fear of being surrounded by "white people" during her trip to Australia. This took me by surprise, as the rationale for her fear is never explained.This aside, it follows the traditional chick lit path with the heroine over analysing the actions of the hero and almost ruining their chances of happiness. But it provides a wonderful insight into India's culture, their obsession with cricket and is generally a good fun read.