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Arya’s older sister, Alina, has been away for a few years due to a disagreement with their mom, and Arya is mostly happy she’s back for a while, even if it’s temporary. Alina is engaged and the family is getting ready for her marriage. Since the Khannas are Indian American, that means a big series of events to plan. Things are busy, so Arya is trying to put aside her simmering anger at Alina for how Alina’s fights with their mom affect her own life.
Arya is also navigating senior year of high school. But it’s not going quite as she expected. For one, her best-friend group of three is disintegrating because the other two decided to date and now have just broken up. For another, she’s vice president of student council, second in command to the popular and good-looking Dean Merriweather. They’ve been rivals throughout high school and her loss to him at the end of last school year is still rankling her. She feels he’s just a jock who doesn’t take the job seriously.
As she works at her part-time job at a bookstore, applies to colleges, and helps her sister choose outfits and food for the wedding, Arya learns a few lessons. And as she gets to know Dean (and realizes he may not be the person she thought he was) and has some fun, she can see herself a bit as part of a Bollywood movie. There’s romance, dancing, music, beautiful clothes and plenty of delicious food.
I always enjoy getting a good window into other cultures. I didn’t know a lot about Indian wedding traditions, so I learned a bit here. I admit that I have watched very few Bollywood films, so I couldn’t appreciate that this book is meant to be structured like one. It was clear there are mentions of different parts of those films throughout, including an intermission, but I didn’t fully get the big picture. So I’m sure readers who love Bollywood will appreciate that more than I.
Aside from that, the story fell a bit flat for me. It’s not a spoiler to say that Arya falls for the cute guy, given the whole setup, but it just didn’t feel swoony to me. I also kinda didn’t like Arya sometimes, so that made it a bit hard to root for her. All that said, I think other readers will like the book a bit more than I did, and it’s still a fairly solid debut.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 3 uses of strong language, around 10 instances of moderate profanity, a few uses of mild language, and about 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain. There is kissing and a few crude references to sex and body parts.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
