YA Indian-American contemporary: A review of When Dimple met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

Author: Sandhya Menon 

Genres: YA, Fiction, Contemporary 

Publisher: Simon Pulse 

Publication Date: May 2017

Rating: 

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 part of something mych 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 figired. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

Well…

*Collecting my extremely scattered thoughts*

I like this book very much. It’s a pretty good contemporary. It’s cute and very very fluffy while also doing its best to remove stereotypes concerning the female gender.

The Plot

I love the concept of this book. Although, it’s not so unique, it still turns into a story that is as un-cliche as possible. I also like that there were only two POVs and the story was centred around a single place and time so it wasn’t confusing.

The Characters 

The main character, Dimple was an AMAZING girl. She’s the first character I’ve ever connected with truly. She had her own dreams, ambitions and she worked hard towards achieving them. She was also ready to forfeit her love in order to become more than she was and to be honest, I admired that about her.

I loved that unlike her mother and other members of her society, she didn’t see marriage as the crux of her life. The lives of a lot of female MCs usually revolve around a boy but Dimple was different. She wasn’t different in the annoying way some authors have of pushing it into the reader’s face. She was different and at the same time, herself.

In many of the reviews on Goodreads, a lot of the reviewers really hate Dimple. Some of them said they had expected something like a Bollywood movie. With all due respect to any one’s opinion, I interpret this to mean that a lot of people expected a demure girl who would revolve her life around the boy in her life and were very disappointed when they encountered a strong feminist, ambitious woman.

Rishi was not very memorable but to be honest, I really didn’t care. I did like that he wasn’t the usual gorgeous type that is common in most YA novels. Also, he wasn’t a “bad boy”. He was truly caring, he wasn’t abusive. He was a good guy all-round.

My only problem with this book was that although Dimple was very interested in the coding camp, the author wrote the book in a way that the romance took centre stage. I would have loved a scene showing the actual competition where each group presented their ideas. It would have made the coding camp so much more real.

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Have you read When Dimple met Rishi? What did you think about it? Share your thoughts!!

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Btw, I created a Valentine Book Tag based on gifts and giving. So, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, do check it out!

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