This was a very sweet debut. It is incredibly predictable, but still the end gave me all the feels. It contains fake dating and forced proximity tropes and a bit of grumpy sunshine, though I would say in my opinion our MMC is more misunderstood than he is truly grumpy. My book club selected Say You'll Be Mine as our February read, so I'm excited to discuss with them in greater detail.

My main frustration with this book came in part from how it was pitched by the publisher. It was described as having a When Harry Met Sally, 90's rom com vibe (never mind that WHMS is from the 80s.) Just because two characters start off not liking each other, become friends, and develop feelings, does not mean it's a similar story to WHMS. And given how much I and others love Nora Ephron's classic film, comparing a book which just ultimately isn't similar at all to it just sets everyone up for disappointment. That is not the author nor the book's fault, and again, I thought it was a very cute story.

Say You’ll Be Mine is a charming romance in which Meghna and Karthik fake an engagement for the sake of their family and friends. I really enjoyed the family dynamics, and especially the south asian culture and representation. The MCs had good chemistry and who doesn’t enjoy an “only one bed” trope?!

The multiple moments of miscommunication made me want to bang my head against the wall, but all in all, I thought this was a strong debut novel from Naina Kumar and I look forward to seeing what Kumar writes next.

Thank you to Ballantine, Dell Books and NetGalley for the gifted copy!

I enjoyed this book! I liked the characters and the story. I love a good fake dating (or in this case, engagement) story, and with the family/culture/arranged marriage, this was actually more believable than most of these trope stories! I really liked Karthik and Meghna and loved watching them fall in love (my favorite scene was him showing up to her play just needing her 🥹❤️) The reason I just couldn’t give it a 5⭐️ was because with the dual POV, it made their lack of communication/not opening up in the last like 30% almost unbearable 😩 They would have such a good moment, then one would pull away because of what they thought the other person was thinking/feeling and I was like “JUST SAY SOMETHING! You are both feeling the same way!” So that was frustrating and I feel like the story would have been better with less of that. But all in all, an enjoyable ride. 😊
Content: open door, easily skippable. Not the constant inner thoughts/innuendo which was nice. Gave the story more substance than the couple just wanting to have sex.

Meghan is a theatre teacher and aspiring playwright who has just been invited to her best friend/ex-boyfriend/crush's wedding. To add some salt to the fresh wound, he also asks her to be the best man. 

Karthik is allowing his mother to set him up with girls in an attempt to arrange a marriage even though he has absolutely no intention of marrying anyone, ever. 

When Meghan and Karthik allow their parents to introduce them, a fake engagement seems like the perfect solution. He can get his mother to stop bugging him and she will have a date for the wedding. 

I read this book in a day and loved it. There is character development and an adorable love story that will have you grinning from ear to ear. #gifted

Meghna and Karthik are from similar cultural backgrounds and have both everything and nothing in common. When the man she’s in love with asks her to be his best man when he marries someone else, and she crazily agrees she knows she has to change things up. She agrees to allow her parents to match make for her. Karthik has less than zero intentions of marrying, but to appease his mother, he goes along to get along with countless setups. When the Meghan and Karthik are matched and have some interesting conversations about what they each want they hatch a plan that will at temporarily benefit them both. Let the fake relationship begin. It’s a sweet, funny, kind, ironic, rom com that was a delight to read. Uprated to 4 from what would have been a 3.5 rating if half stars were available.

Thank you to Random House/Delacorte for the advanced copy of this! All thoughts are my own.

Say You’ll Be Mine centers around Meghna and Karthik, two South Asians who are just trying to please their parents during an arranged marriage scheme. They both realize they can mutually benefit from a fake dating/engagement scheme: Karthik gets his mother off his back about his marriage prospects and Meghna now has a date she can bring to her best friend Seth’s wedding so she can avoid addressing the fact that she has been in love with him all this time.

This has some great tropes: grumpy/sunshine, fake dating, and a lot of slow burn. I liked this enough, but I felt like I was getting lost in translation with how these two felt about each other. It felt like at times we were just repeating the same conversations over and over and that left me feeling frustrated at times.

The side plot with Seth being the villain that he is was hard to watch as you can just see how he’s been using Meghna for most of their friendship but she’s just so blind to it because of her feelings. I appreciated how Karthik really stood up for her on all accounts and it was great to see that character development for Meghna.

I did love this viewpoint of South Asian culture as I don’t often find myself reading a lot of those and it was great to see that represented in romance! There were bits and pieces that I had to look up because I’m just not familiar with the cuisines and languages, so it was really fun to be able to broaden my viewpoint a little bit more.

This was a really great debut for Naina Kumar and she definitely laid down the groundwork for a second book with some of the side characters that I will plan on checking out if it’s announced.

Meghna Raman is crushed when she learns her longtime writing partner and former boyfriend is engaged, so she tells her parents to go ahead and set her up. Enter Karthik Murthy, a handsome engineer whose mother really wants him to get married. Karthik has no desire to follow through on any of his mother’s matches, and Meghna needs a date to her friend’s wedding, so obviously it’s time for a fake relationship! You know where this is going, but Meghna and Kathik’s individual character arcs are so satisfying. I was rooting for them from chapter one.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really fun book. I enjoyed it a lot!

Thank you NetGalley, Penguin Random House and the author for the digital ARC of this book. Meghna and Karthik are set up by their Indian parents who are hoping their match making results in an arranged marriage. Trying to appease both sets of parents, they agree to meet but a love match is not in the stars. However, Meghna needs a date to accompany her to the wedding of Seth, her long time secret college crush, and Karthik wants to stop the endless set-ups his mother has arranged. What could be better than a fake engagement with a set end time? As time passes, Meghna and Karthik grow closer and, unknown to the other, soon fall in love. The characters, both main and minor, are very well developed and multidimensional. They grow and evolve throughout the book. Definitely an interesting look at the Indian culture and the way family influences decision making, both large and small. I can definitely see this as a series as well as a movie or small screen mini series. The cover is absolutely beautiful, the graphics and colors are eye catching. A delightful debut!

Karthik Murthy has no plans to ever get married, especially after seeing how his parents' marriage turned out. His mom, however, is adamant about finding him the perfect girl, unable to refuse her, Karthik agrees to meet these potential matches for a year, he has no plans of actually saying yes to any of them.
Meghna, has gone against her mother's dream of an engineering career and is currently an elementary teacher, she dreams of one day becoming a playwright. When her best friend, and secret crush, Seth, announces his upcoming wedding, Meghna is devastated.
When Karthik suggests a fake engagement to get his mom off his back, Meghna sees it as the perfect opportunity to make Seth jealous.
This was an obviously predictable but cute and sweet story. Both main characters were likeable and I also enjoyed the additional characters as well. I did wish we got to know more about Samir and Ankita as well as Karthik's parents. I can see those things possibly being in a second book, perhaps? I thought this was a great debut novel and look forward to more from this author!
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I really enjoyed this one! I could see how it was influenced by When Harry Met Sally but I loved that it had its own twist on things. All of the characters were so well written that I found myself really sucked into the world and routing for everyone. The banter was so! good! I was obsessed with Meghna and Karthik. I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of the fake engagement but this was all done so well. I’m really hoping this becomes a series since i’m interested in seeing more from some of the characters!

When Meghna, a teacher with a playwright's ambitions, encounters Karthik, a serious engineer without any notions of marriage, they decide to enter a fake engagement with the intention of avoiding further parental scrutiny. They travel to see each other to play the part of doting fiancee and their fake arrangement doesn’t seem that far out of the realm of possibility. After a few interactions and several conversations, their burgeoning friendship allows for a peek into what could be if both Meghna and Karthik can get out of their own ways. The author crafts witty, sexy banter and establishes a slow burn that has the potential to combust with any number of outcomes. The book is culturally rich and delightfully fun— it’s relatable to anyone who tries to meet other people’s expectations at the expense of their own peace. I cannot wait to see what this author does with her next book! Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an e-ARC of this book!

I have always found the idea of matchmaking so interesting! This was a cute and funny story. As a teacher, and wife to a theater teacher I loved this representation from Meghna. And I loved the grumpy-sunshine duo of her and Karthik. I really enjoy rom coms that go below the surface and also deal with familial issues as well. This is a great read for Valentine's Day! Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Say You’ll Be Mine
Stars: 4 x 5
Author: Naina Kumar @nkumarwrites
Publisher: @randomhouse /Ballentine/Dell
Thank you @netgalley for this ARC

Meghana is being pressured by her parent to get married. She is an English/Theater teacher and he mother does not like her choice of profession. She feels that is more to life. Karthik is a grump of a man who is content in his life but his parents want him to get married. He does not want to get married. He just wants his parents to stop
pressuring him about it. Karthik gives into his mom and tells her that she can set him up with some women. This is how Karthik and Meghan meet. After meeting up and talking a while they determine that neither of them wants to get married. They come up with an idea to have a fake engagement. This will agreement will hopefully stop their parents from pressuring them so much. Meghana also wants to make her ex jealous and when she is invited to his wedding she takes Karthik. At the wedding she introduces Karthic as her fiance and this has no effect on her ex. She is devastated. As time goes by Karthic and Meghana have to spend time and slowly they get to know each other. As time goes by they become close and slowly they realize they are in love and perfect for each other.. I learned so much about the Indian culture in this book too.

This was an adorable, charming and unique book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also happens to be my book club’s BOTM for February.

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A great read. Meghna and Kathik meet as part of arranged marriage meet ups. Will it lead to more.for them? I liked how it was told from both points of view.

Thank you to Random House Ballentine and Netgalley for this advanced copy!

I really loved this book! Karthik and Meghna are so cute and wonderful. I loved Karthik's personal growth, especially how it didn't really rely on Meghna doing a ton of labor. Fake engagement troupes can seem so odd, but I appreciated how Kumar grounded it in the Indian culture and allowed these two to be themselves as they figured out that they were total dummies for each other. The subplot with the former boyfriend was a little frustrating at times, but I loved how Karthik spoke up when he saw Meghna being treated poorly, even when he didn't know the whole story.

Overall, I had a hard time putting this one down, it was such a great comfort read. I can't wait to read Kumar's next book!

Read this book if you like:

*m i s c o m m u n i c a t i o n
*fake engagements
*handsome engineers
*when he falls first
*characters not communicating
*dual POV
*one bed
*idiots in love
*some more miscommunication

Do not read this book if:

*you do not like the musical "My Fair Lady"
*you're a grumpy person who hates love

⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌶️🌶️

A nice book with good characters you can root for. I don't think this is reinventing the wheel for the genre, but it was nonetheless fun to read along with Meghna and Karthik, refreshing when Meghna stands up for her talents and beliefs, and satisfying to see the different ways the main characters are fulfilled in love, career, and family. I also enjoyed the roles and arcs for the parents!

Meghna and Karthik decide to join forces to survive an ex's wedding and to escape matchmaking pressure from their Indian families. What is their plan? A fake engagement!! However, the more time they spend together they grow protective of one another's hearts and an undeniable chemistry takes shape. Will they let their insecurities and expectations ruin something that has become a lot more real than they hoped?
I just wanted to lock them in a closet together so they could make out the entire book. It was super slow burn, but the fake dating kept dangling that romance carrot to keep me engaged. They went through a lot and there was a lot of misunderstanding around the third act breakup that was a bit much, but overall I was rooting for them to finally be ready for each other.

This was such a sweet and heartwarming romance. It was definitely perfect for a Valentine's read! Meghna and Karthik were great together, and you could really feel their love building. I love a fake engagement trope, and this book features one along with an only one bed trope, and that's a favorite, too!

I did think that some of the conflicts were glossed over. However, that can be fine sometimes. When you just need a book that makes you happy, and that's exactly what Say You'll Be Mine does.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.