A cute, light-hearted YA read set in the When Dimple met Rishi universe.
Pinky Kumar is a free spirit who follows her heart, and is not afraid to speak her mind. This causes her to have a contentious relationship with her mother. In an attempt to rehab her image, she ropes Samir into a scheme that would benefit them both.
What follows is an opposites attract storyline that is tropy, but not in a way that detracts from the story.

***Thank you to NetGalley, Simon Pulse, and Sandhya Menon. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own.***

2.5 stars

10 Things I Hate About Pinky is the third book in the Dimple and Rishi series. Unfortunately, I struggled with this book from beginning to end. I didn’t connect with Pinky or Samir. I found Pinky to be combative, short tempered and mean. And Samir was intensely rigid. Both were highly judgmental, especially with each other. To me, they didn’t have great chemistry, and their romance was super slow to come about. I hated the entire Dolly storyline. As Pinky’s cousin, I thought we’d see a lot of her but she was very minor. The plot with Cash and her made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like Pinky’s mother. I could see where that part of the storyline was leading, but the way she refused to listen to Pinky and tried to tell her what she could and couldn’t do or how to feel made me angry. I found the story to be very choppy and disjoint. I think Menon just tried to write too many issues into the plot.

I read the other books in this series and really enjoyed them, so this one was a bit of a disappointment. I missed the Indian touches that were written into the other stories in this one too.

I'm a huge fan of Sandhya Menon's contemporary YA romances. When Dimple Met Rishi and There's Something About Sweetie are both sweet, frothy, utterly feel-good romances that also tackle issues around family relationships. 10 Things I Hate About Pinky reads a bit younger than the earlier novels, but otherwise fits right into that mold.

Pinky Kumar is a proud activist who resents that her mom views her only as a trouble-maker. When her family visits their beach house for the summer, Pinky finds herself unfavourably compared to her 'perfect' cousin Dolly, and unfairly accused of mischief she didn't commit.

Enter Samir, a friend of Pinky's friend Ashish (from There's Something About Sweetie). Samir is everything Pinky's parents want her to be -- an aspiring lawyer who lives his life by the rules, plans out his daily schedule, and writes out lists for everything. When Samir's summer internship falls through, Pinky invites him over to be her fake boyfriend. In exchange, Samir gets the opportunity to impress Pinky's mom, a high-powered corporate attorney, and possibly gain himself an internship at the mom's firm for the fall. Samir and Pinky are polar opposites personality-wise, but as they get to know each other better, sparks fly, and lots and lots of tender, fluffy, adorable feelings develop.

I love how Pinky and Samir's relationship helps them both grow and confront their own personal shortcomings. For example, even though a lot of Pinky's activism is for good causes, Samir rightly points out that she tends to present them to her parents in a very combative way, and that she doesn't bother to tell them about all the thought and preparation she puts in before making a decision to take up a cause. Pinky's parents therefore see her as a troublemaker not just because of their own biases about some of her choices, but also because Pinky herself seems to like presenting that persona. On the flip side, Pinky prompts Samir to question why list-making is so important to him, and how much his mom's cancer journey has affected his approach to life.

Samir is a sweet hero, a classic Sandhya Menon cinnamon roll type who is oh-so-easy to fall in love with. He has his flaws as well, and I like how his relationship with Pinky forces him to examine why list-making is so important to him. I also love the background information about his mom, and how her cancer journey affected their relationship. I do wish Samir's relationship with his mom was explored more -- at the start of the book, Pinky called his mom overprotective, but we didn't really get to see any of that develop later on. Samir makes a big life decision at the end of the book that he talks to his mom about, but that conversation takes place off-screen, and so I wish we'd seen a bit more of that relationship on the page.

And Pinky is a wonderfully complex, complicated heroine. I love that a lot of her activism in the novel is around animal welfare (a cause I personally care about), and I especially love that her activism is less about 'doing the right thing', and more about caring for particular persons/creatures. In one of my favourite plot threads, Pinky rescues a possum on the road whom she calls Drama Queen (DQ for short). DQ has an unfortunate tendency to play dead at the slightest hint of a threat, and Pinky worries this will make her vulnerable to predators. I love that despite the impulsiveness of the initial rescue, Pinky does due diligence in researching possum care, to give DQ the best care possible. 

Later on, Pinky's big cause is the butterfly habitat in the town, which is scheduled to be demolished to make space for a condo. I love that Pinky's reason for fighting for the habitat is that she and her family have had lots of good memories there, and she wants to preserve those memories because of the contentious relationship she now has with her parents.

I also like that Pinky joins the protest already being organized by the town residents, rather than starting her own. Because her family visits the area only in the summer, I couldn't help feeling that the town residents have more at stake than she does with the butterfly habitat issue. I've read YA books where teens from wealthy families save  a town while the year-round residents are mostly passive, so I love that Menon centres a town resident (a Black lesbian) as the leader of the protest, with Pinky supporting her efforts.

Mostly, I love that Pinky, thanks in part to her brainstorming with Samir, comes up with a reasonable alternative to destroying the butterfly habitat. Instead of just saying the condo developers must leave completely, she proposes a compromise that'll protect the butterfly habitant while also keeping the jobs and the homes that the condo development would create. Her proposed solution is simple, elegant, and quite frankly, much more mature than I may have come up with as an adult, never mind at her age. 

I really love the subplot about Pinky and her mom, in particular how they learn to understand each other better over the course of the novel. I wish the story of the mom had been developed a bit more gradually and deeply, as I found her a really interesting character and I thought the resolution of their conflict felt abrupt.

Overall, 10 Things I Hate About Pinky is a fun, feel-good teen read, and Pinky and Samir are sweet characters who are adorable together.

+

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After meeting Pinky and Samir in There's Something About Sweetie, I was so ready to get my hands on their story. It features fake dating (one of my favourite rom-com tropes) and teens who seem like complete opposites but actually compliment each other so well! 10 Things I Hate About You is my all-time favourite rom-com, and the "Heath Ledger rom-com" reference made my cheesy romantic heart so happy.

It took a few chapters for this story to really pick up and get going, but then I was totally into it. I wanted maximum Pinky + Samir, so waiting those 4 chapters felt a little tortuous. But the plot had to be set up in the right way to make their summer together make sense, so I was okay with waiting. The resulting story in every chapter after that was so fun and lovely and delightful.

Pinky is such a fun character. She is rebellious in the best of ways (except when it comes to boys...), is super loyal, and always sticks to her guns. I related pretty much 0% to her for most of the book, but I still really appreciated her as a character and what she was trying to accomplish - both with the butterfly habitat and with helping Samir with his goals.

Then we have Samir. He is the list-making, sheltered, buttoned-up future lawyer that Pinky can't seem to find anything in common with other than sharing a close friend. Oh how quickly things change... Samir was the character I could relate to the most, especially with his lists and the careful planning that shapes so much of his life. He and Pinky learned so much about themselves through their views of each other - often after some fiery arguments.

There were a lot of great aspects of contemporary YA that added up to a great book: personal dilemmas, family drama, community struggles, uncertainty about the future, and the kind of love that creeps up on you slowly. One thing that really didn't fit (and took up a lot of space) was the opossum that Pinky "rescued." There wasn't anything wrong with Drama Queen (as Pinky names her), yet she took her and kept her for the whole summer before giving her to an animal rescue group. I thought the butterfly habitat took up a large enough part of the story and we didn't need another layer on top of that to show what Pinky is passionate about. And I really hope that this doesn't encourage teens to "rescue" animals in the same way... But I digress. I just really think there could've been more Pinky + Samir if the opossum wasn't in their story. I wanted even more adorable moments than what we got! Still worth the read though, and this book will totally make your heart happy.

I'm so excited to be back in this book universe!!! We met Pinky and Samir as friends of Ashish in <i>There's Something about Sweetie</i> and this is their story.

Pinky is spending the summer at her parents’ lake house in Cape Cod. Samir was supposed to have an internship at a law firm in Washington DC but it gets canceled at the last minute. Pinky invited Samir to come to the lake house and be her fake boyfriend to impress her parents and prove that she can get a boyfriend that her mother will approve. In return, she’ll get him an internship with her mother who is a prestigious lawyer known as “the shark” in the courtroom. He agrees and the story takes off from there.

Pinky and Samir are two characters that are relatable to a lot of people. Pinky is free-spirited, stubborn but passionate and is determined to change the world in her way. She knows what’s important and fights for it. She wants to provide a voice for those who can’t speak for themselves. Her parents might not approve of her approach to life. Samir is very organized, a planner, a gentleman, likes to have everything in control. He’s had to take care of his mother from a young age. He’s always followed the rules and decided he was going to strive for Harvard and to become a corporate lawyer since he was young. Pinky and Samir are complete opposites but they understand each other better than anyone else. They have such great chemistry and bring out the best in each other.

This book has every trope that I love: enemies to lovers, fake dating, cohabitation, and a little bit of mutual pining.

This is exactly the type of light, fluffy romance book that I needed right now. I loved being back in this world. I loved Pinky and Samir and I am so glad this book exists. My only complaint is that the ending felt rushed and I would have liked to see Pinky and Samir when summer is over. I would love to read more about Dolly in the future.

<i>Disclaimer: I received an ARC from Simon & Schuster Canada via NetGalley</i>

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

10 Things I Hate About Pinky is the third book in Menon's Dimple & Rishi universe. This time, it's all about Pinky and Samir. Pinky self-identifies as a social justice warrior and 'hellion' whose multi-coloured hair and piercings turn heads at her family's Country Club. Samir is Pinky's complete opposite - he plans his day down to the most minute details and starches his clothes every night... and every morning. He has a big internship lined up for the summer and wants to study Law at Harvard. He's the type of guy Pinky's parents would love her to date.

In my eyes, Sandhya Menon can do almost no wrong. I love her contemporary YA romances for their diverse characters and love stories that inspire all the best warm, fuzzy feelings. 10 Things I Hate About Pinky feels like the quintessential teen book - it all takes place over one summer in Ellingsworth (imagine a place like Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard) and it's got some tried and true tropes like enemies-to-lovers and, my personal fave, fake dating.

Menon's books stand out because her characters deal with real problems and have fully formed relationships with their friends and parents, so it's not just about whether or not they have a boyfriend. (I hope Dolly gets her own book!) I've known real people like Pinky and Samir, so it's easy to imagine them and fun to see them learn about themselves and grow over the course of the story.

You'll enjoy this too if you've read and loved Menon's other books or like authors like Becky Albertalli, Adam Silvera or Nina Moreno.

<i> Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for providing me with an eARC of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. </i>

2.5 stars

<u>10 Things I Hate About Pinky</u> is the third book in Menon's Dimple and Rishi series, but you do not need to read the others to appreciate this novel. I have a biased fondness for Menon's works as she writes from the perspective of teenagers who are the children of first generation Indian immigrants to America. I wholeheartedly empathize with how these characters are navigating the traditional world of their immigrant parents/grandparents and the American culture that they grow up in, but unfortunately I found that I liked Menon's other novels better,

The premise of the novel is that Pinky and Samir, two teenagers who met in a previous novel and absolutely loathed each other, pretend to be boyfriend/girlfriend at Pinky's parents' summerhouse in order for her to prove that she can have stable taste in boring, mom-approved men after she is falsely accused of arson. (A prestigious internship at the powerful corporate law firm where Pinky's mother works is the trade off, in case you were curious).

This book deals with parental-teen relationships, teenage romantic relationships, and also environmental empowerment causes and being true to yourself. These are all great themes, but it was...a lot when reading. I think Menon tried to deal with too many conflicts at once. The transitions were often sudden and choppy, and I'm not convinced I liked the progression of Pinky and Samir's relationship, even though there were some cute parts with it. Plus, any part with Cash and Dolly made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Their interactions felt inauthentic, and I do not think that Menon needed to delve the extent that she did into Cash's character. I did love how smart, passionate, and strong the Pinky was - Menon writes a fantastically empowering female protagonist - but I preferred the stories of her other books.

An ARC of this novel was sent to me by NetGalley for reviewing purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I have never read anything from the author before. I didn't like this book because of how it is paced, and that the characters were hard to relate to.

3.5/5
A really cute story! Probably didn’t make my favorite Sandhya Menon books list, but it was still very nicely written with an adorable storyline.
I felt that the relationship between Pinky and Samir seemed somewhat forced. I wasn’t 100% convinced by the end of the book, even though there were some swoony scenes. It’s just really hard to believe an almost 180 degree change if they regarded each other the way they did originally. Perhaps they needed a few more scenes that helped transition and grow their relationship a bit more.

Overall, I love the family relationship and friendship themes in this book and how the teens faced very realistic decisions. It added to an authentic, genuine portrayal of teenage life, perfect for a YA novel.

I'm a huge fan of Sandhya Menon and this series. I love her cinnamon roll boys, and Samir is no exception - he's very sweet and he's good at guiding Pinky to a deeper awareness of herself and at being self-reflective of his own flaws. Pinky is a tougher sell -- Menon does show how deeply Pinky feels and how complex her feelings are, but I found her frustrating, especially in her antagonizing of her mother (who does not do herself any favours either). The causes Pinky take up seem so frivolous and a waste of her time and energy, and we don't really see why she latches on these things until the butterfly sanctuary. But Pinky is sharp and funny and warm, and she and Samir ping off each other well; their chemistry is great.

The relationship with Pinky and her mother is fascinating, and I wish there was more time spent on it at the end. I would also love to see how Pinky and Samir do once they're back home and out of their summer bubble -- maybe in another book in the series?

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC.