Dimple is excited about going to college, if she can just get through one last summer without her parents changing their mind. Her mother thinks college is a great place to find the Ideal Indian Husband but Dimple would rather concentrate on her career. Marriage and babies are just not for her.

Enter Rishi, a hopeless romantic who can’t wait to meet the future wife his parents have chosen for him. Only no one’s told Dimple and she promptly throws her iced coffee at him, thinking he’s a random weirdo.

It’s a super charming and fun contemporary romance, with characters you can’t help but like. It seems doomed from the start but somehow they manage to become friends. Rishi is so old before his time but he’s kind of adorable and so nice.

But that was Rishi… he was like a pop song you thought you couldn’t stand, but found yourself humming in the shower anyway.

There is an underlying theme of the pressure of living up to your parent’s expectations especially as someone with immigrant parents. Rishi and Dimple are American yet their parents are Indian and sometimes there is a culture clash. This isn’t just about relationships but also careers. Rishi loves comics and has real artistic talent, but he refuses to see that it could be his life instead of the career path his father has chosen for him.

I think it reflects how most modern arranged marriages are carried out (well apart from Dimple’s parents not telling her!). They are more of an introduction facilitated by parents who do want the best for their children. I liked how both sets of parents went from being perceived as controlling to being supportive of their child’s needs. When most of what we hear about arranged marriages is their forceful nature, it’s nice to see the other side. I think it’s kind of sweet and definitely beats the hell out of the online dating scene.

They are both attending the same summer programme, in which participants pair up to create an idea for an app over six weeks. The prize is to get their app shown to Dimple’s idol, a woman who started a social media company. I found this element a bit contrived, like it was an attempt to say coding was cool while being really wishy washy about any actual app development going on. They didn’t appear to do any learning in their 6 weeks at college either, it was all talent shows and cons. Are American summer programmes actually like this?

Dimple calls Rishi a Brahmin, but later it’s revealed that his father had to work his way up to where he is now. I knew roughly that Brahmin was the highest social caste in India, so this seemed odd to be so of course I looked it up. It’s now used as slang, amongst younger Indians, meaning rich person.

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Book Source: Purchased