Category Archives: South Asian American

May 6, 2013 · 7:33 am

On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman + Author Interview

On Sal Mal LaneAllow me to start with the simple end: Ru Freeman’s On Sal Mal Lane is stupendous. I’ll even embellish that verdict and add that it is actually fan-huththa-tastic... the tmetic meaning of which should encourage you to go get your own copy and check the “glossary” at book’s end. You’ll surely find some choice vocabulary there to aptly describe your own reading experience.

As in Freeman’s absorbing 2009 debut, A Disobedient Girl, the intricate lives of young children take center stage in On Sal Mal Lane. In 1979, the titular Sal Mal Lane is a small cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Sri Lanka’s largest city and former capital, Colombo; in spite of the diverse households, the residents live in relative peace. If they are not exactly friendly, then they certainly live as tolerant neighbors one and all. The Herath family of two parents, four young children – Suren the musician, Rashmi the singer, Nihil the cricketer, and baby Devi the favored – and their servant move into the quiet enclave, reshuffling friendships and alliances throughout the lane.

The Heraths are educated and cultured, and their four children, whose ages range from 7-and-a-half-year-old Devi to 12-year-old Suren, “were different from all the others who had come and stayed for a while on Sal Mal Lane.” In addition to each being neat and clean, well-mannered and talented, their devotion to one another – ”the way they stood together even when they were apart … every word uttered, every challenge made, every secret kept, together” – is a gift to behold.

Even as the Heraths’ lives intertwine with that of their neighbors, beyond the safety of their small street, the rest of the country is at an impasse. Ethnic, religious, and political differences among a population with a long history of divisions, colonizations, and suppressions foment through the years, leading up to a coming civil war that will break out in 1983 and last over a quarter-century. “Everyone who lived on Sal Mal Lane was implicated in what happened … the Tamil Catholics and Hindus, the Burgher Catholics, the Muslims, and the Sinhalese, both Catholic and Buddhist. Their lives were unfolding against a backdrop of conflict that would span decades … And while this story is about small people, we must consider the fact that their history is long and accord them, too, a story equal to their past.”

Freeman surely doesn’t disappoint. As she unwinds what happened – with prose both lingering and breathtaking – the children, even the lane’s bully who could have been different with just the occasional kindness, will charm you, tease you, play with you, and when they leave you, they’ll shatter your heart. “To tell a story about divergent lives, the storyteller must be everything and nothing,” Freeman’s prologue concludes. “If at times you detect some subtle preferences, an undeserved generosity toward someone, a boy child, perhaps, or an old man, forgive me. It is far easier to be everything and nothing than it is to conceal love.”

What possessed you to write this novel? How did it come about?
First, I had been a little down about a magazine piece that did not work out. [The article] had to do with the end of the war [the Sri Lankan Civil War – July 23, 1983, to May 18, 2009], and the editor wanted a very pared-down story with easily identifiable villains and saints. I wanted to write a more nuanced story. Second, I didn’t set out to write this novel, in particular. I was just dabbling with this and that, sketching out some anecdotal bits about growing up down a lane like this one. It was one of my brothers, Malinda, who nudged me down this road. He started chatting back with me – via Google Chat – reminiscing about that time and there it was – the novel I wanted to write. This story that was the one I had been trying to put into that magazine article, the one that was not easy but faceted and brittle and gentle and layered. [... click here for more]

Author interview: “Feature: An Interview with Ru Freeman,” Bookslut.com, May 2013

Readers: Adult

Published: 2013

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February 4, 2013 · 7:14 am

The City of Devi by Manil Suri + Author Interview

Let’s go back about seven years.

So a writer walks into a bar. It’s dark, but thankfully not smoky. The majority of the people there are more bookish (including Booker-ish!) than biker brutish. The writer finds a drink, and is standing slightly off the side with a couple of companions.

The trendy bar is the venue where the venerable Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Center (my former day job) and its co-sponsor, the Network of South Asian Professionals, are hosting a pre-event welcome reception in anticipation of the annual South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival that begins in just over 12 hours. The close friends and admirers of four notable writers (including Kiran Desai, fresh from her 2006 Booker win) and two filmmakers with a debut film each, have gathered to celebrate. Among the guests, although not slated for the Smithsonian stage (that year – his turn comes two years later), is Manil Suri.

At first sight, he’s exactly as I expected the author of an exquisite, nuanced literary novel – The Death of Vishnu, his 2001 award-winning debut about the memorable inhabitants of a Bombay apartment building – who also happens to be a university mathematics professor, might look like. He’s elegant, genteel, and soft-spoken; he has an ever-so-slight hint of nervous energy about him, but that could be because his mind is moving so quickly that the rest of his body needs to contain his excess brain cells somehow.

So much for first impressions.

By the time he takes the Smithsonian stage in 2008, he’s published the second installment of his planned trilogy, The Age of Shiva, which features a headstrong young woman who becomes an overly protective mother to her less than appreciative only son. Suri’s literary star has been highly polished over the years since his debut, as have his creative impulses. What’s making the Internet rounds just in time for his Smithsonian appearance is a most revealing – campy, shocking, delightfully entertaining – video of Suri at the Brooklyn Book Festival, garbed in elaborately embroidered red drag, channeling his inner Bollywood diva. He certainly proved he can do more than just write bestsellers and teach a mean linear algebra class.

This month, Suri completes his promised trilogy with The City of Devi. Kiran Desai provides the most prominent blurb: “The City of Devi combines, in a magician’s feat, the thrill of Bollywood with the pull of a thriller… Manil Suri’s bravest and most passionate book.” If Vishnu was subtle and controlled, and Shiva impetuous and emotional, then Devi proves to be a psychedelic, surreal overthrow of expectations and conventions.

The end of the world – at least in one part of India – is nigh. The apocalypse is coming in four days, delivered via nuclear bomb directly to the city of Bombay. For the first time in centuries, the teeming city is virtually empty as its citizens flee in hopes of finding shelter somewhere, somehow. Sarita is one of the few left behind, frantically searching for her missing husband Karun who walked out of their apartment – into global chaos – claiming he was attending a conference.

Meanwhile, a mysterious young man seems to be following her: Jaz trails Sarita, his hopes also focused on Karun… and what will happen if they actually find him? In a lawless new world in which a single religious label is enough to excuse murder, cause war, and threaten complete annihilation, Sarita and Jaz are running toward true love. Just who belongs to whom will be a wee small detail they’ll have to work out, after they survive gangs, kidnappings, glowing goddess servants, elephants, a levitating multi-armed goddess-in-training with quite the nasty temper, and an evil thug with a bit of a God-complex. Oh, and did I mention the steamy sex scenes? Somebody (or rather, some bodies) must practice how to repopulate the world after annihilation, even if reproduction isn’t the actual goal. Practice makes perfect, right?

Did you plan Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi as a trilogy from the beginning?
The plan for a trilogy happened after I wrote the first book, The Death of Vishnu. I realized there were three deities in the Hindu trinity, Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, so why not a book for each? By the time I tried to back out of this rash announcement, my publisher was already excited about the idea, so my agent told me I was writing a trilogy whether I liked it or not. After the second book, it became clear that what I had was a triptych, rather than a trilogy (since the characters and plots were unconnected), and by the time I started writing the third, poor Brahma (who’s supposed to create the universe in a single breath) had been shunted aside by the mother goddess Devi. Devi does make more sense than Brahma, because she has a lot more worshippers than he does. Besides, in the words of Karun’s father from the book, “Creation comes from the womb, not the breath.” And, of course, there’s Mumbai, which is a common thread in all three books. The patron goddess of the city is Mumbadevi. [... click here for more]

Author interview: Feature: “An Interview with Manil Suri,” Bookslut.com, February 2013

Readers: Adult

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August 22, 2012 · 10:16 am

The No-Dogs-Allowed Rule by Kashmira Sheth, illustrated by Carl Pearce

Ishan Mehra has CDS … that is, Canine Deficiency Syndrome. More than anything in the world, he wants a dog. But getting his mother – indisputably already the family’s “alpha dog” – to agree is proving to be quite the challenge.

He tries to elicit the help of the rest of his family pack, namely his older brother Sunil and their father, but Mom firmly retains veto power. Besides, she doesn’t even like their neighbor’s lovable dog, Oggie, who turns out to be Ishan’s only opportunity for much longed-for canine companionship.

Ishan is one imaginative, active kid. He sets off the smoke detector making his own original version of his mother’s favorite parathas, thinks she’ll appreciate the ants as much as she loves the flowers on which they’re crawling, hides every possible pair of his father’s glasses when he’s trying to work, makes elaborate train scenes using the desserts intended to feed anniversary party guests, and indelibly decorates the newly painted family wall with cut-out pictures of dogs. He certainly gets his mother’s attention … but not necessarily her cooperation. How will he ever get his furry best friend?

Kashmira Sheth‘s first novel for younger readers is filled with mischievous, delightful fun (although as a mother, I’m also thinking thank goodness my children’s antics were never quite as creative as young Ishan’s!). The often goofy, light-hearted No-Dogs marks quite a departure from Sheth’s previous titles which have dealt with difficult issues, from tortuous child labor (Boys without Names), to childhood marriage and widowhood (Keeping Corner), to arranged marriage and debilitating cultural expectations (Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet), to jarring immigration (Blue Jasmine which won Sheth the Paul Zindel First Novel Award).

Until now, Sheth has also set her novels, fully or in part, in her native India; No-Dogs is her first based wholly Stateside, with Oshkosh, Wisconsin-born-and-raised Ishan whose “parents came from India a long time ago.” Sheth gently, expertly weaves in the occasional moment or two touching on cultural differences – names, language, food – but her tone remains cheerful and humorous throughout. Be warned: children with CDS will surely giggle and laugh through No-Dogs, all the while learning new tricks to convince obstinate parents the incomparable value of a furry, four-legged family addition.

Readers: Children, Middle Grade

Published: 2012

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June 25, 2012 · 12:33 pm

Aerogrammes and Other Stories by Tania James

Thankfully, ‘sophomore slump’ is not part of Tania James‘ vocabulary. In fact, her second book is even better than her 2009 debut novel Atlas of Unknowns. And as rare as consistency can be in collections, James manages to sustain an unwavering level of resonating quality throughout each of the nine stories in Aerogrammes: each story is a world unto itself, standing fully formed with little lacking.

“What to Do with Henry,” the collection’s second story, stands out as a personal favorite; it was such a surprise of lingering poignancy that I’m actually loathe to tell you much about it – readers deserve to discover it without any intervention. Suffice it to say, “Henry” is a strikingly haunting tale of an unconventional family’s disconnect in the midst of our overconnected, global world.

Indeed, that sense of disconnect emanates from all nine stories, as characters criss-cross the globe from England to India to Sierra Leone to cities across the U.S.: a pair of Indian wrestler brothers seeks glory in London in “Lion and Panther in London,” a young girl tries to understand her estranged father who has returned to the family from Dubai in “The Gulf,” two elderly residents with vastly different backgrounds try to ease the isolation of their lives with each other in the titular “Aerogrammes,” a single, middle-aged dance teacher makes a desperate hypocrite of herself in “Light and Luminous,” and a struggling young writer tries to come to terms with his older brother’s devastating new paralysis.

I admit that Aerogrammes took a couple of months to read … albeit with good reason. With less than 200 pages, the slim volume moves far too quickly, which means a patient, well-paced savoring of story by story might be the best mode for lasting appreciation.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012

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May 21, 2012 · 12:21 pm

Gods without Men by Hari Kunzru

Most of the time, I love stories that require fitting together seemingly disjointed pieces; my brain feels delightfully tickled with the challenge. And, of Hari Kunzru‘s novels – Gods being his fourth and latest – I much appreciated both The Impressionist and Transmission [no, I've not yet read My Revolutions but expect to eventually].

Oh, but that ‘but’ … Perhaps the aging cerebrum is getting tired, perhaps I should have read the page with my own eyeballs instead of having the sprawling, multi-centuried novel read to me by a phalanx of seasoned narrators (I admit I so enjoyed hearing Rupert Degas‘ voice again, I immediately downloaded a Haruki Murakami title, only to find Degas isn’t its reader, alas). And yet as much as I appreciated the high puzzling-factor of Gods, the final reaction is a sighing disappointment.

Central to the many narrative strands is a family and a location: the Matharu family includes a Sikh American mathematically-inclined Wall Street-er, his culturally Jewish Caucasian American wife, and their autistic young son who goes missing near the recurring location, called the Pinnacles somewhere in the Mojave Desert (not to be confused with Pinnacles National Monument further north near Salinas, California). [I don't mean to digress (too far), but did anyone else think it rather unfathomable that caring parents would leave their young sleeping child strapped in his stroller totally alone in a national park while they wander off to explore?]

In between explicating Jaz Matharu’s development – the expectations placed on him as the eldest son of a devout immigrant Punjabi family, his MIT career, the “‘cultural differences’” of his out-marriage, his challenging only child, his moral misgivings at work, the nightmare of his missing son – Kunzru dovetails numerous story fragments across time, continents, and cultures. Interrupting (sometimes enhancing) the family drama are 18th-century Padres on mysterious missions to a new world desert, a deranged late 19th-century silver miner about to implode, a decorated World War I veteran with a hideously burnt face desperately trying to preserve a Native language in 1920 who will (not) resurface in 1942, a young engineer who builds a bunker to welcome UFOs in 1947 who possibly reappears as the Guide during a 1958 supernatural convention when another child disappears, other-world cult followers who scatter by 1971, a young (Goth!) Iraqi immigrant teenager hired to participate in simulated scenarios of soldiers invading Iraqi homes on a 2008 desert military base, and still more …!

Not that a neat, easy ending should be expected out of this whirling maelstrom, but after almost 400 pages (or 14.5 audible hours), too many questions feel unanswered and narrative possibilities scattered. To quote Kunzru’s final sentence, “Here ends the redacted passage,” felt all too accurate – that indeed, things vital and necessary had somehow been censored, obscured, removed, and ultimately lost.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012

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May 14, 2012 · 2:07 pm

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar

In a sentence, American Dervish is about a young boy’s indoctrination into Islam – the religion he was born into, but from the practice of which his parents have lapsed (by choice) – and his eventual withdrawal from his fervent childhood devotion. By extension, the novel also exposes the oftentimes extreme divide between fundamentalist religion – its mindless rules and regulations – and true spirituality.

Dervish begins essentially backwards with protagonist Hayat Shah already a college student – feeling “at once brave and ridiculous” eating bratwurst, choosing not to leave a class from which the rest of his fellow Muslim students have fled in anger (and fear) from that day’s “‘in-cen-diary!” discussion, glibly announcing that he’s a Mutazalite (“[a] school of Muslims that don’t believe in the Quran as the eternal word of God … [who] died off a thousand years ago”), and initiating a relationship with a young Jewish woman. By the end of this prologue, Mina – Hayat’s mother’s closest friend from childhood who became his religious enabler – has died … and Hayat’s new love interest gently reaches out and says, “‘Tell me.’”

Mina “had, perhaps, the greatest influence on my life,” Hayat acknowledges. Escaping a stifling, disastrous marriage in her native Pakistan, the independent, lively, gorgeous Mina arrives with her toddler son in the American Midwest and moves into the Shah family home. Hayat is enthralled, and his less-than-happily-married parents newly joyous. Mina warmly, lovingly begins Hayat’s spiritual education which, in his sexually-maturing adolescent mind, eventually morphs into an obsessive attachment to Mina. When Mina becomes romantically involved with Hayat’s father’s medical partner and best friend, Hayat’s single act of youthful jealousy sets in motion an overwhelming tragedy with lifelong consequences …

Dervish will surely persuade you that Ayad Akhtar is one of those very rare writers whose debut titles hit shelves fully formed. Perhaps his earlier dramatic experiences (Brown diploma in theater, serious actor training as both student and teacher, several stage productions) and filmic accomplishments (Columbia grad degree, more screenplays, numerous award nominations) gave him the foundation to do what he does so undeniably well on the page. Clear your calendar for an uninterrupted few hours: Akhtar absolutely knows how to tell this story – achingly, convincingly, memorably.

Tidbit: With such a practiced background, no surprise that Akhtar is also a most excellent narrator: he’s his own reader in the audible version. That Akhtar thanks Firdous Bamji (whose voice alone will make me stick a book in my ears) in his acknowledgments adds another layer of well-deserved approval. Akhtar made my last 50K race pass quickly … too bad he doesn’t have another title to join me for a 50-miler in two weeks!

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012

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April 13, 2012 · 9:11 am

The Artist of Disappearance by Anita Desai

How silly of me for waiting so long to read this, the venerable Anita Desai’s latest, when I’ve had the galley for almost a year (it pubbed last December). Instead, I’ve slogged through too many disappointing, tedious, nightmare-inducing titles when I could have been celebrating just how affecting great storytelling can be … my one regret is that the slim collection contains only three novellas, although that, too, is a much-needed reminder of quality over quantity.

Neither the book’s back-cover blurb nor the accompanying press release offers much information about the collection’s contents, except to reveal that the three stories are set in India “in the not-too-distant past,” followed by many (well-deserved) superlatives about Desai’s writing. To approach the stories knowing virtually nothing is truly a gift (so no spoilers here). I don’t think I’ve ever actually committed this cliché to print … but sinking into Desai’s quiet stories was a cleansing breath of fresh air after too many oppressive texts in a row. Allow me to share just these few thoughts …

“The Museum of Final Journeys” will leave you startled. A young man, new to civil service, begins his career in a remote town. What he finds in a once-glorious compound reduced to a pleading cry for help from its caretaker, will haunt him for decades with “Could I have done more?”

In “Translator Translated” – my personal favorite – two disparate schoolmates meet decades later, their professional lives converging over an obscure book. Their exchange will surely have you rethinking authorship, accessibility, and literary legacy – not to mention the nature of human relationships. Pay close attention to the unexpected shifts in point-of-view …

The final story, the eponymous “Artist,” is a labyrinthine exploration of our bonds – the ones in name only, and the ones we actually uphold – to family, friends, and even Mother Earth.

On the book’s final page, a character shouts, “‘That is what we need for a finish!’” And on this Friday-the-13th, I appropriate his sentiment with gusto: This is what I need to finish a mighty crazy week! Feel free to join me …

Readers: Adult

Published: 2011

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April 1, 2012 · 9:44 am

Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie

I’ve been working through numerous ‘should-have-read-earlier’-titles lately, and Salman Rushdie‘s books always loom large as objects of fascination. After four attempts to read his The Enchantress of Florence (twice on the page, twice stuck in the ears narrated by Firdous Bamji whose recordings can make me choose a book more readily than the author!), I gave up and moved on (still feeling guilty) to Shalimar.

In spite of its hefty 400+ pages (or 18+ hours as lullingly read by Aasif Mandvi), Shalimar‘s story is relatively simple (spoiler alert!): boy and girl fall in love and marry, girl leaves boy for a powerful white man, girl bears lover’s daughter, boy vows he’ll kill the adulterers and any offspring, boy more or less succeeds.

Straightforward as it may seem, this is Rushdie, after all, and he needs to embellish his narratives with literary flourishes and  historical displays. The boy – known as Shalimar the Clown for his acrobatic prowess – and the girl – Boonyi Kaul – enter the world on the same day with all sorts of baggage, least of all being the children of Muslim and Hindu families, who in spite of an intimate shared history, will be victimized by massacres all too prevalent in the volatile region of Kashmir.

The American ambassador to India, Max Ophuls, for whom Boonyi freely chooses to destroy her family, turns out to be a French Jew who lost his disbelieving parents to the Holocaust, but gained an unparalleled reputation as a Resistance hero (not to mention quite the spy-bedding legend). Meanwhile, revenge-filled Shalimar outgrows Kashmir, becomes an international resistance fighter-of-sorts himself, although his dangerous exploits earn him the additional moniker of terrorist.

The abandoned hapa daughter – who detests her name “India” – pays the price for her birthmother’s betrayal. Boonyi must relinquish the infant to the beleaguered Mrs. Max, who is determined to leave the exotic country (now that her husband is being shamefully ejected) with a little brown baby in her arms. As payment for her newborn, Boonyi is returned to her village where she realizes too late, she was truly free, so unlike the gilded cage into which she willingly trapped herself. India is carelessly brought up by her father’s wife in a posh London neighborhood, not even knowing she has a father until years later. Poor little rich girl is so tediously self-absorbed, she quickly sinks into caricature.

This fall, Rushdie debuts his long-awaited memoir, Joseph Anton (an alias he used which pays homage to two of his favorite writers, Conrad and Chekhov), in which he details almost a decade of life underground following the infamous 1989 fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini. I bring this up here because I wonder if Shalimar, in part, was a ‘practice’ text for the true story Rushdie was not yet ready to write: the threatening religious conflicts, the safe house Ophuls tries to create, India’s later search for safety, all could have been taken – even indirectly – from Rushdie’s own experiences of trying to stay alive. Perhaps the surreal nature of what he endured ended up intertwined with the (too-many) unconvincing machinations in Shalimar. For now, since truth is often stranger than fiction, we’ll just have to wait and see how the real story fares …

Readers: Adult

Published: 2006

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February 27, 2012 · 9:22 am

The Whole Story of Half a Girl by Veera Hiranandani

“Life’s pretty good,” Sonia thinks to herself. Her whole class is making biryani together as part of their study of India: “Getting to know the food,” says her favorite teacher, “… is the best way to really understand a country, just like sharing a meal with someone helps you get to know them.”

But when Sonia gets home that night, her entire life turns upside down. Her father’s been fired. Her English professor mother needs to work more than ever. And, worst of all, Sonia and her little sister Natasha won’t be going to Community, the only school they’ve ever known with its tiny classes, its emphasis on individuality, its nurturing family-like atmosphere.

Sonia’s Indian heritage from her father, her Jewish background from her mother, her international travels, her (mostly) purple clothes, her homemade lunches, all make her stand out as she starts sixth grade at Maplewood Middle School. On her first day, she’s especially struck with the students’ self-segregation: “If I tell [my parents] about the way the white kids and the black kids don’t sit together at lunch, Mom would race to call the PTA and arrange some kind of multicultural day,” she notes wryly. Sonia is one astute tween: “What’s funny is that at Maplewood, the school that people don’t need extra money to go to, everyone seems to have plenty of money. The kids show off their iPods and cell phones … I see other parents dropping off their kids in fancy cars like Mercedes and BMWs.”

At school, Sonia navigates new challenges – being separated from her best friend Sam, getting to know popular girl Kate while ignoring mean girl Jess, trying to figure out Alisha who’s bussed in from faraway Bridgeport. At home, things go from bad to worse. Sonia knows her father isn’t well – his sudden mood swings are especially troubling – but no one is prepared when he suddenly disappears. Will her splintered family ever be whole again?

Already the author of 20 picture books, Veera Hiranandani makes a resonating novel debut. Sonia is a memorable protagonist, facing difficult challenges that require her to question facets of her own identity for the first time: her multi-syllabic family name, her spiritual identification as Hindu or Jewish or both or neither, her place in the racial spectrum somewhere between black and white, and her uncertain relationship with her spiraling father. Hiranandani provides no easy answers here – although she does end with hopeful beginnings.

Tidbit: When Sonia’s father tells her about his life in India, he explains “[w]e lived through the partition.” Partition happened in 1947, so if her father remembers that, he must have been at least … say 5 or 6? Since Sonia’s talking iPods and cell phones, her story is contemporary … which would mean that Daddy is quite old – almost 70 at the very youngest, no?

Readers: Middle Grade

Published: 2012

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February 14, 2012 · 11:14 am

Lovetorn by Kavita Daswani

Ah, this day of mislaid Hallmark hearts … meet Shalini who has had much of her future decided for her – a rather pleasant, happy one at that – by age 3. She’s lived all her life in the family compound in Bangalore, home to 37 family members spread over four generations. She’s been engaged to wonderful Vikram since she was 3, and he was 6. Thirteen years later, they remain a perfect couple, best friends who are committed and adoring, both inextricably linked to each other’s lives.

Now Shalini’s father has a new job in California and the family arrives for a two-year residency in what seems to be an alien world. Shalini’s father and her younger sister Sangita adjust almost effortlessly to the more-than-usual culture shock. In contrast, Shalini’s immersion into American high school life is painful and embarrassing (the resident mean girls actually drop a box of hair remover on Shalini’s desk!), made even more so for missing Vikram so much. Shalini’s mother suffers most of all, completely unable to adjust to an isolated new life away from the bustling family compound, and literally withdraws alone to her darkened room.

With help from Renuka, a new friend who seems to easily balance both her Indian and American cultures, Shalini soon begins to find her voice (and even manages to thank the queen bees for their depilatory efforts). Gingerly stepping into her new life bit by bit, Shalini’s young heart starts to beat faster than she’s ever experienced for her classmate Toby. What’s an engaged girl to do?

Ethnic chick-lit favorite Kavita Daswani offers another easy-breezy teen read with quite an interesting cultural twist of a 21st-century arranged marriage. Daswani gives a nod to her “cousin … in Bangalore, who … confirmed to me that girls like Shalini were real.” Certainly Daswani captures Shalini’s ‘stranger-in-a-strange-land’ experiences with heartfelt authenticity. Perhaps the less convincing depictions belong to Shalini’s mother – her depressions, her treatment, her failure to mother – and ultimately seem out of place with the rest of the otherwise engaging novel.

Tidbit: The back cover copy describes Lovetorn as a “Bollywood twist on a Sarah Dessen novel” which has me a bit befuddled, probably because I admit having never read a Dessen title. Google-ing didn’t turn up much insight to the comparison (the summaries of Dessen’s books on her website maybe suggest a vague similarity with Dessen’s The Truth about Forever?), so if anyone out there is a YA expert, do enlighten me!

Readers: Young Adult

Published: 2012

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