Half Girlfriend

Half Girlfriend is an Indian English coming of age, young adult romance novel by Indian author Chetan Bhagat. The novel, set in rural Bihar, New Delhi, Patna, and New York, is the story of a Bihari boy on a quest of winning over the girl he loves. This is Bhagat's sixth novel, which was released on 1 October 2014 by Rupa Publications. The novel has also been published in Hindi and Gujarati.

Dedicated to "non English-types", as Chetan Bhagat wrote, the book divulges the sentiments and linguistic struggles of a backward, rural Bhojpuri-laced Hindi-speaking boy from Bihar as he enrolls himself at the prestigious English-medium St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi, and falls in love with a "high class English-speaking rich Delhi girl" schooled at the Modern School in the same city. The girl does not openly claim the relationship but agrees to be his "half girlfriend". Chetan Bhagat commented, "'half-girlfriend', to me, is a unique Indian phenomenon where boys and girls are not clear about their relationship status with each other. A boy may think he is more than friends with the girl, but the girl is still not his girlfriend. Hence, I thought we needed a term like 'half girlfriend'. Because, in India, that is what most men get."