‘Anuja Chauhan’s sequel to Those Pricey Thakur Girls confirms her reputation as one of our funniest novelists,’ says LiveMint about this book, which reanimates the eccentric and much-loved Thakur family. ‘I’ll make my sisters squirm like well-salted earthworms. I won’t sell. Even my jutti won’t sell. And if I die na, then even my gosht won’t sell!’ The late Binodini Thakur had been very clear that she would never agree to sell her hissa in her Bauji’s big old house on Hailey Road. And her daughter Bonu is determined to honour her mother’s wishes. But what to do about her four pushy aunts who are insisting she sell? One is bald and stingy, one is jobless and manless, one needs the money to ‘save the nation’ and one is stepmother to Bonu’s childhood crush – brilliant young Bollywood director Samar Vir Singh, who promised BJ upon his deathbed that he would get the house sold, divvy the money equally and end all the bickering within the family. The first word baby Bonu ever spoke was ‘Balls’ and indeed, she is bally, bullshit-intolerant, brave and beautiful. But is she strong enough to weather emotional blackmail by the spadefull? Not to mention shady builders, wily politicians, spies, lies and the knee-buckling hotness of Samar’s intense eyes? ‘The book entertains the reader every moment with Chauhan’s unlimited dose of trademark wit,’ says India Today. Straddling the worlds of light fiction and literature deftly, Anuja Chauhan’s books are trendsetters in Indian publishing, along the lines of Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling in the West. The House that BJ Built is Anuja writing at her sparkling best!
