IrisLiang 水瓶觀察日記

The reason why I wanted to read this novel was because I watched the movie, “How to Be Single”. I was so touched by it, for it kind of comforted me. We sometimes get lost in love and never realize what is wrong until we are truly broken or shattered.

At first, I expected it to be even better than the movie adaptation because this is usually how it works for the original novel and the adaptation. However, this novel is just like another Sex and the City to me. Four women are carving for love and keep meeting the “wrong guy”. I mean, if you are a woman who is in her late thirty or forties and still is single, yeah, you do have a reason to feel panicked. But really? You really are gonna mess with your life just because you could not find your own charming? There are tons of other meaningful things you can do instead of spending all your time flirting with guys and drinking beer to get over it the following days, aren’t there?

The only thing I felt connected to was the-trip-to-India part. The protagonist described how she felt seeing the street and kids in India. Coincidently, I read this part after I came back from India. Yes, we, outsiders, think that they are poor, they don’t live in a decent house, and they do not lead a “standard” lives like we do. But is that really the case? Many Indians told the protagonist that they are not sad about their lives and that they are happy to live a life like that. We may even response to this by thinking about the caste system. And there is no deny that India does have this kind of situation. What I really wanna say here is that I don’t think we can easily judge others or simply want to help others without knowing other people’s culture and value. What we consider normal may seem strange to them. We need to give them what they need, not what you can give.

Last, I strongly agree with the point that we should love ourselves first before committing yourself to somebody.