Unfinished: A Memoir By Priyanka Chopra Jonas - Book Review

Why do you read a book, especially a biography? I personally read it to get to know more about the person. Know about their life, their successes, their thought process, what made them what they are, their struggles and how they overcame them, their learning and knowledge and their advice etc.

I read a book to know about a world that is generally different than mine and the book gives me a peek into a new world. I believe, most people read a book for similar reasons.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s Unfinished barely gives me any of the above.

When I read Karan Johar’s An Unsuitable Boy, the book gave me a peek into his world of Bollywood. The view of a boy who is mesmerized by Bollywood and with his father already into business, this boy already had an in in the industry. The book then followed how he saw Bollywood throughout his life, he spoke about celebrity parties and personal equations, how his father struggled as a producer, how he ventured into movies and the challenges he faced, he even addresses the general criticism that comes his way. The book generally gave you the skeleton of what Karan Johar is now – basically everything that we were not privy to already.

Priyanka Chopra’s book lacks exactly this – there is barely anything that Pinkvilla and Bollywood Hungama has not already told us. Heck, maybe they have told us more about her than she has in the book.

Let me be clear, I am only asking for gossip. However, I would like to know how this girl from a small town who just happened to enter Miss India contest deal with the entire competition. How did a non actor who got into Bollywood just because of a beauty pageant learn the art of acting? How did she develop the skills that she has now.

She once mentions that when she won Miss World, she was worried about how she would finish her studies. And then in the next line she moves on to a different topic altogether, without any closure on what she did with her academics.

Almost half her book talks about her supportive family and how she was confident and believed in herself and got things done. She often mentions that the people around her has helped her grow but fails to mention how she grew.

Even when she got to her Bollywood phase, there is barely anything that talks about how a new, young, non-actor navigated through Bollywood. How she became the sensation that she is. Here’s an example of how she talks about her struggles, she was having a tough time for a dance sequence for one of her initial movies. The choreographer shouted at her during the shoot, luckily! There was a 10 days gap before the next shoot schedule. She returned to Mumbai, took up dance classes with one of the best in the industry and returned 10 days later and nailed the shoot.

Impressive? I honestly wasn’t looking for such an easy breezy version of her life.

I believe, if you have nothing to talk about, nothing to share and if you have just waltz through life securing one achievement after another, maybe hold on and write a book when you have something to write about.

Even when she is addressing some of her controversies, she addresses them with such nonchalant that it almost feels silly to even mention it.

I thought that maybe once she gets to Nick, she would talk more personally but again except for a few anecdotes, nothing much there. Half of what she mentioned was already shared on Koffee With Karan.

It honestly feels like she wrote this book to tick mark yet another media – after movies, music and television.

Pros:

• Easy to read, if you want to get into reading this book can help because it doesn’t have many fancy words and is a fast read

Cons:

• Doesn’t give much insight into anything
• Very surface level book, barely gives any insight

A quote from the book that I liked:

    We all want to take care of the people we are closest to, those sitting at our table. But is there a world     in which those who are blessed with more might build a larger table than building a higher fence?

            - Unfinished: A Memoir by Priyanka Chopra Jonas