Love to Hurt You-Rahul Saini

Book: Love to Hurt You

Author: Rahul Saini

Publisher: Juggernaut Books

Quoting the Blurb of the book, “They say everyone wants love and happiness, but what if that is not true?”

I usually start by writing the blurb of the book, but in this case, I’ll skip that part because the essence of the book lies in its mystery element. Love to Hurt You by Rahul Saini is a novel that goes deep into the human psyche to bring out the deepest, darkest desires and explores the very basic needs that we have as humans. The plot of the book explores three parallel storylines, that of Sasha, Garun and Maya, each of whom is an unique individual with specific character traits. The book runs on parallel tracks till the moment each of them meet the other under not-so-normal circumstances. The storyline is very crisp and the author has built up the plot in an amazingly strong way. The moment where the characters cross the paths was unexpected and I specially loved the manner in which Sasha and Garun cross each other. The emotions at that point were raw and intimate and that lent a very different flavor to the story. The climax of the book was very poetically justified and while I would have wanted the story to go on for a bit longer before it ended, the climax works for me the way it was as well, but not that convincing enough.

Talking about the character arcs and development, Sasha, Garun and Maya are 3 characters that seemingly have nothing in common, yet are bound together by the common human need for intimacy and love. Garun is shown to be a happy-go-lucky guy, who craves fame and money and nothing else. His motto is to make money, no matter what the costs. Sasha is a sucker for pain and loves to dominate people and seeing them in pain excites her. We also see her develop a feeling of jealousy and angst towards the end and we realise her character has more to offer than what we initially see. Maya, as a character, seems to signify the human side of humans, one who loves unconditionally, believes in people and is vulnerable to emotions.

The title of the book, Love to Hurt You can be interpreted in different manner. For Sasha, it is a way of intimacy, for Garun, it is a way to make money and doesn’t care if his love hurts you and for Maya, Love is what is hurting her. This amazing work on the title deserves a separate mention and commendation.

For me, this book scores a 3.88/5.

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