Read for: Recent Purchase & BTAF
Synopsis: "Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways."
My Review: I have been hearing a lot of really great things about this book and the author will be at the Boston Teen Author Festival, so I decided to pick it up. Unfortunately, it fell a little short for me and really confirmed that contemporary YA really isn't for me anymore. While I enjoyed the fact that the story revolved around to Indian-American teens, I always enjoy reading about different cultures, the cultural references throughout the book weren't well explained and I had to keep stopping and looking things up which obviously pulls a reader out of the story. Also, Dimple is a young coder who is very passionate about it but we don't really get to see any part of that, she is at a competition for coders but she barely spends any on page time working on her idea. That felt very half done for me, if you are going to have a character so passionate about something, I expect to see it, I kind of felt like the author wanted this quirky side but didn't want to put in the time and effort to research it. Rishi's character also fell a little flat for me, he was passionate about his heritage which I appreciated but other than trying to make Dimple happy he really only revealed more depth to his character a few times. For me the best characters was Ashish and he played such a minor role in it all. This will be a great book for avid YA contemporary romance readers but for someone who just picks up a book here and there but is often disappointed, this definitely wasn't the book for me.
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways."
My Review: I have been hearing a lot of really great things about this book and the author will be at the Boston Teen Author Festival, so I decided to pick it up. Unfortunately, it fell a little short for me and really confirmed that contemporary YA really isn't for me anymore. While I enjoyed the fact that the story revolved around to Indian-American teens, I always enjoy reading about different cultures, the cultural references throughout the book weren't well explained and I had to keep stopping and looking things up which obviously pulls a reader out of the story. Also, Dimple is a young coder who is very passionate about it but we don't really get to see any part of that, she is at a competition for coders but she barely spends any on page time working on her idea. That felt very half done for me, if you are going to have a character so passionate about something, I expect to see it, I kind of felt like the author wanted this quirky side but didn't want to put in the time and effort to research it. Rishi's character also fell a little flat for me, he was passionate about his heritage which I appreciated but other than trying to make Dimple happy he really only revealed more depth to his character a few times. For me the best characters was Ashish and he played such a minor role in it all. This will be a great book for avid YA contemporary romance readers but for someone who just picks up a book here and there but is often disappointed, this definitely wasn't the book for me.
My Rating: This really turned out to be a disappointment for me. It is a cute cover, cute names, cute romance but it was all too cutesy for me, I wanted a little more substance and to explain the cultural aspects a little more clearly. I give it a rating of Two Paws.
I've heard good things about this one and I actually love YA contemporary but your issues with it make me not want to pick it up. It sounds a bit lazy and not deep enough.
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