Book Review - Unfinished: A Memoir by Priyanka Chopra Jonas

My Rating - 2 out of 5 stars

Publisher - Penguin Viking
Genre - Non-Fiction/Autobiography
Publishing year - 2021
Language - English
ISBN - 978-0-670-09497-4
Pages - 244

My Review - 

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is a global personality who doesn't need an introduction. In one interview, a reporter asked if she ever pens a book what will be the title, and she spontaneously told Unfinished. I'm one of those who was very much excited and thrilled when she announced her memoir being ready; I knew that I'd read it asap. 

Born in a small-town but raised in India's different significant cities because of her father's transfer, she became a vagabond. She also spent some of her teenage years in the USA. Her parents come from an army background that instills discipline in her from a young age. She shares some funny incidents about her childhood days, the bond she shared with her father, the family values, and her constant need for complete attention that made a reader feel aww. 

In her teenage days in the USA, Priyanka got bullied in school; I still didn't forget George Floyd's death; the way Americans treat people from other ethnicities is brutal, which happened in 2020, so we can't even say that things are changing. Coming to this book, being a teenager, Priyanka Chopra tried to deal with the situation but, at last, moved back to India. 

After winning Miss India and Miss World at 18, her entry to Bollywood begins. She starred in more than fifty movies, debuting as the second female character in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy opposite Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta. Her Hollywood journey starts with music videos, but she got international recognition from an ABC network tv series Quantico. Her fame is growing day by day, and she shared about it in the book, including her marriage to Nick Jonas and her new house and the work she's doing with UNICEF. 

Now, let's talk about the problems I have with this book - Shall we?

The novel didn't touch my heart because it felt like Priyanka Chopra Jonas just saw it as a project, something she wanted to finish, and then hop onto the next project or chapter of her life. This is her personality trait which I understood by reading the book. 

She left to mention so many topics; being a reader, I felt that I deserved to know more than what she expressed. Thanks to her interviews, most of the things she shared are already available on the Internet. So, there is nothing new to learn about her life. 

Her career is ongoing, so she didn't name actors she dated or producers/directors who misbehaved. Now, what's the point of a memoir if she is unwilling to come forward. It seems that jeopardizing her chances in Bollywood is still haunting her even after proving she proves her worth by impeccable acting. 

Her career has many controversies; some she acknowledges, and some felt incomplete in the narrative; she was not persuasive. Like when a surgeon did something wrong, you sue them big time, but there was not a single mention of it when her nose disfigured, which people lead to assume that it was a lie, and she really arranged plastic surgery, which is completely fine but hiding it doesn't seem right to me. 

Another misfortunate event happened during her father's surgery. A junior doctor damaged Priyanka's father's intestine, leading to his other illness. Moving him to a new doctor and country was the right decision, but why didn't they press charges on a hospital is a mystery. 

Probably now you think that I don't like her, but the thing is, I do. She is someone I admire and draw inspiration from. Being a voracious reader and reviewer, I can't ignore these facts, but believe me, I left many of them. No doubt, Priyanka Chopra Jonas is a commendable actor and doing some great work with UNICEF, but writing a book requires much more than she had right now. 

One needs to delve deep, which she didn't. I like the chapter Grief because she digs deeper and talks about depression, how she and her family handle the loss of death, her coping mechanism; I wish she had written the whole memoir that way.

If you have been following her for a long-time, watch most of her interviews, then you're not going to find something life-changing here. But if someone just starts reading non-fiction and looking for some easy recommendations, this one is for you. Pick this book wisely; otherwise, you'll get disappointed. I hope that if Priyanka Chopra Jonas wrote a second memoir after some decades, she would not hide her authentic self. 

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