Tonight, the actress and social media queen will talk about her first book, “Too Good To Be True.” Dubai: Prajakta Koli says, “I hope this book sets the romantic bar in your life so high that everyone you meet brings a ladder to the first date,” in the foreword of her first book, Too Good To Be True. This line perfectly sums up Koli’s personality: humorous, self-aware, and blatantly romantic in a society that has lost how to commit to anything, not even a burger.
With a tale that honors vulnerability, emotional honesty, and the guts to still believe in love, Koli has caught the bull by the horns in the era of “ghosting” and “benching,” when contemporary dating apps have transformed connection into a combat sport. Koli, who is well-known to millions of people on YouTube as MostlySane and whose humorous skits have made her one of India’s most beloved digital creators, is now an author with a heartfelt and humorous debut. Fundamentally, the book is about two characters: Aman, a dreamy tycoon who looks too good to be true, and Avani, a bookshop employee navigating loss and healing. Koli’s own perspective on contemporary love is reflected in their romance, which is both flawed and inspiring.
“I didn’t think it would be a book.” In an interview before to her SIBF performance tonight, Koli jokes, “I didn’t expect it to be a book, actually.” “I thought it would be a show. I began writing it as a six-part series, but in the process of creating character and idea extracts, it somehow turned into chapters, and I kind of just went from there. It wasn’t a particularly deliberate choice.
Too Good To Be True feels purposeful in its emotional candor despite its unintentional beginning. It doesn’t sugarcoat healing or love. “I believe that the characters are more responsible for the balance than the romance,” she says. “Aman is quite cheerful. He looks like he belongs in a romantic novel. Furthermore, Avani is flawed and genuinely very real. She is attractive because of this. She is vulnerable because of this. And I believe that’s where I truly experienced the magic. “Unless you know how you want to be loved, you cannot expect someone to love you.”
Can you love someone else when you haven’t healed yourself? is a profoundly human topic that the book raises. In fact, Koli says, “I have a two-part answer for this.” The first is that it kind of blossomed on its own while I was writing this. The entire aspect of self-love developed on its own. Second, especially in the last four or five years, this is one of the most exquisite lessons I have personally learnt. This year, I turned 32, and as I get older, I become more aware of who I am. I came to see that you have to know how you want to be loved before you can expect someone to love you.
That insight influenced Koli’s conception of emotional freedom as well as the narrative. “Avani’s life is fictional, but I am the source of her humanity and vulnerability,” she claims. I believe that I am mostly to blame for the shortcomings. They are surrounded by a lot of floof, yet I am the one who is most vulnerable. “I have a deep love for romance.” She maintains that romance is a calling for her, not just a genre. Right now, the only genre I want to create, watch, or read is romance. That’s all I want to do. “I genuinely adore it,” she declares. “
I consider myself to be 20% practical and 80% romantic. She smiles, “I used to be a total romantic, but that just got me into a lot of trouble and stupid situations.” However, Koli’s plot doesn’t try to avoid being predictable, in contrast to most love novels. She declares, “I don’t want to avoid anything.” If you’ve read enough romance novels, you’ll be able to foresee this quite conventional plot. There had to be a happy ending, I always knew. It doesn’t really feel like, “Oh my God, what happens next?” I wanted readers to appreciate the current state of affairs. “It’s my only voice.” Her writing style is conversational, genuine, and lighthearted, much like her YouTube character.
“To be honest, they have the same voice,” Koli remarks. “It’s my only voice.” My YouTube voice and my author voice are identical. When it comes to telling stories, I’m quite one-dimensional. I have a single perspective on things and a single style of expressing them. Her writing feels personal, like a late-night conversation with a friend, because of its unvarnished tone. “Readers frequently respond to me by saying, ‘This is the fastest we’ve ever finished a book.'” They didn’t detest the build-up despite the fact that it was expected. Hearing that has been a lot of joy. “It was unbearably painful.” However, the immediate response of social media was very different from writing a novel.
“It was incredibly painful,” she recalls. I was becoming impatient. My own words were starting to irritate me. With my book, I was quite conflicted; at moments, I would think, “What is this piece of trash?” and at other times, “Oh my God, love what I’ve done here.” It was erratic and weird. She acknowledges that her editor helped to keep her grounded during the process. “My publisher was a huge blessing for me. My editor at HarperCollins, Palmee, was really kind and patient. She gave the narrative a lot of centering. She did a fantastic job organizing my disorganized initial draft into a much nicer read.
“Today’s audience has changed.” Koli thinks that romance in Indian literature, movies, and over-the-top content is evolving into something more profound. She says, “I believe that this is where the audience is going, and that will anchor where the stories lead.” “Today’s audiences are so sophisticated and conscious of their desires.” Anything that isn’t motivated by vulnerability and sincere aim won’t succeed. She draws inspiration from a wide range of writers, including Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Radhika Aggarwal, Ruskin Bond, Emily Henry, Liz Tomforde, and Marathi playwright Shirish Latkar, whose one-act play Paus Pakshi was her first taste of romance. She laughs, “I reached my romance book puberty quite late in life.”
When I picked up my first romance book, I believe I was around 27. “How have I lived my entire life without this?” I thought. “You don’t stand on the shore; you surf the wave.” Koli is open when questioned about the expanding use of AI and technology in narrative. As of right now, she says, “I don’t think technology could replicate the honesty of writing the book.” But in three years, who knows? Ten? Who knows? The one thing I’ve learned from spending nearly half of my life online is that you can’t just stand on the shore and wave; you have to swim. I’m not going to do that.
“I’m just really appreciative.” Koli is taking it all in as she gets ready to perform at the Sharjah International Book Fair. She explains, “I’m just really appreciative of my audience.” “I would never have had the courage to create 300 pages, publish them, and charge for them without them. Without my internet community, no one could have persuaded me to take this action. Her ambition is equal to her gratitude. She continues, “It’s a lovely time to be in the creative space.” “I consider myself incredibly blessed and privileged to have this life and these chances. It’s enormous that someone like Sharjah Book Fair is aware of my existence.
What would happen if Too Good To Be True were made into a movie? “Me,” she chuckles. “Because it was meant to be that way. It’s me. I’ll always be Avani. No one else is permitted. Koli’s shift toward introspection seems normal and unsurprising for someone who made a living by making people laugh. In a time where everything is instantaneous, her novel explores how we define love, worth, and healing in addition to telling a love story. She has discovered her voice in a new medium at the age of 32. Love may not always be expected, but occasionally the ordinary can seem too good to be true, as Avani and Aman remind us.
