Thanks to netgalley and hearourvoices tours for the e-arc of this amazing book.

Synopsis: Rani Kelkar is the American born daughter of Indian immigrants and all set to pursue her premed dream. She meets the very White American Oliver and falls for him. Everything seems perfect until their cultural , familial differences take toll on the the relationship. How is this interracial relationship gonna thrive?

Review: At the outset, this book is about the struggles of being a successful in a foreign nation and love amidst 2 cultures. . But, as the book progresses, it deals with identity crises, racism, microaggresions, racist attacks and more. Rani's journey is an eye-opener to anyone and is both heart-wrenching and Heartwarming.

The writing style is awesome and the imagery by the author feels more like viewing a piece of ART or a movie. She keeps indulging you into the world till the very end. This is too good for an adaptation. Please don't miss this amazing book!!

This ARC was provided for review, but in no way affects the following unbiased and impartial review:
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3,5*
Pros: An in-depth PoV into the life of an Indian-American teen girl. Mixes the beautiful Indian culture with the life of an immigrant trying to fit in. Loved the special emphasis on art. Shines some light into the complexities of interracial relationships, including microaggressions and red flags that are often "swallowed down" for the sake of love.
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Cons: Slow-paced and unfortunately standard/run-of-the-mill storyline and arcs. A lot of the racist remarks and red flags are not identified as such throughout the book and it may give a wrong impression to younger readers.

I absolutely loved this book! This story really resonated with me. What felt like a typical boy meets girl love story turned into so much more than I was expecting. The dynamics of the relationship between Rani and Oliver was so deep. Reading about Rani’s internal and external pressures - from her family and Oliver - was so realistic. How Oliver handled his relationship with Rani and fanaticized her culture made me so angry. How little he understood Rani and her culture and what her parents wanted for her became more and more apparent (and cringey) as the story went out. I really liked how Rani found her own voice once she went to India for the summer after the death of her grandfather. Her world just opened up and things became clearer for her. This book will ultimately leave room for lots of discussion and that is always a good thing.

This is a YA novel about an Indian American teenager who experiences her first love and loss while working through experiences of toxic fetishization, racism, duty, pursuing her passion, understanding her community, and loss.

This is going to be more of a personal review. But I've been struggling to put my feelings about this book into words. I don't know that I have every felt so starkly represented by a book, maybe ever. It also definitely hits differently as someone in their 30s. When I was in high school, I would have felt so seen. Now I feel seen, but also all the deeply distressing things that happen to Rani, just made me hurt.

This book deftly normalizes all the "weird" of my life growing up that I needed. The pujas, the clothes, the expectations from family, the deeply pushy need for parents to push their immigrant hopes and dreams onto their children, a peek into the mentality as to why, the dissonance between that feeling and the idea that in America you are an "adult" at 18 and your parents can't stop you from doing things (lies), the secrecy of dating, the lack of conversation about sex and relationships, the taboo, the willingness of the community to turn away from people who are struggling with "shameful" things like "failure" and addiction and poor mental health, family - the good and the bad, growing up and out and in. There were so so many times, where I was like, yes, this, I've have feel this discomfort.

Indian culture is very much part of Rani's life. Among other details and aspects of daily life, she and her parents uphold rituals and celebrate holidays in their home together as a family. However, Rani struggles with balancing her own appreciation and love for her culture, religion, and rituals at a core level, with her struggle and inability to explain them to others to their satisfaction.

Throughout the story, she is asked about these holidays or rituals or the decision to be vegetarian, and her answers appear superficial or not well fleshed out. And it's really because as a teenager a part of the diaspora, she is living in a broader culture that doesn't teach her the details. And learning is time away from art or school or friends. But we can feel her discomfort. Much of this is tied into the broader fetishization that Rani experiences, which heightens these feelings.

Rani and her relationships feel authentic and I look forward to this debut author's writing style developing and growing, because this book definitely had a lot of emotional heft. I think it's a must-read for anyone interested in a variety of different kinds of young adult experiences.

Yesterday, I finished AMERICAN BETIYA by Anuradha D. Rajurkar and wow was this such a thoughtful, complex story. Thank you to @netgalley, @anuradhadrajurkar, @aaknopf, and @booksforwardpr for the e-ARC to review!

This YA novel follows Rani, an Indian-American teen, as she secretly starts dating her first boyfriend, Oliver, while lying to her parents. While the beginning of their relationship is seemingly sweet, issues of tokenism, fetishizing, c, and gaslighting quickly have Rani doubting herself, her identity, her family, and, eventually, her relationship.

I feel like a broken record, but again, I love YA for being able to take incredibly complex issues and place them accessible, and beautiful, stories. You may have thought you were getting a cute YA romance, but instead, we got a realistic expectation about how microaggressions and tokenism are damaging and dangerous - but also got storylines about family and community expectations, family relationship, culture and belonging, and female friendship.

I’ve seen quite a few reviews (especially from South Asian voices), so I’m going to share those in my stories as well! And, I’m going to be honest, I’m going to need y’all to ignore the reviews on Goodreads; I need my fellow white women to do better and stop rating fantastic books about different experiences lower because they “couldn’t relate.”

This is such a fully beautiful #ownvoices book, I can't recommend it enough! Great, great friendships.

Thank you Netgalley & Knopf for a free earc of American Betiya! This book explores the intense complexity of being young, and in an interracial relationship. Rani must hide her relationship with "bad boy" Oliver from her parents, and as a result, this divides them. I adore the true inside look we Rani's head - being pulled in two different directions between her first love, and her Indian heritage. Facing microagressions by the person she loves most, and the internal battle of knowing when to speak up. As specific as this story is to Indian culture, I also love this book because of the way it so accurately explores toxicity in high school relationships - an experience, that is sadly universal.

it’s a perceptive story of a girl, who struck in a relationship that involves two different cultures. The author skillfully explains what happens when two discrete culture collides with each others. It also explains the importance of good parenting and family structure, which gives children a sense of security from the beginning. It elucidate the rani's struggles to balance both of her most valued relationships.
It is an interesting one to read. thoroughly the book throughly. Recommend it

"This could be a mistake. Then again, it could be the best mistake I ever make."

This YA novel focuses on Rani, a first-generation Indian-American senior in high school, who falls for her "bad boy" artist classmate, Oliver, but has to keep their relationship secret from her parents who have forbidden her to date (and would REALLY forbid her to date Oliver). I love the book's premise and that it tackles some tough subjects but wanted more from the story overall.

What I liked:
- The cover! I mean, we all know the old saying but this one totally made me want to read the book.
- The author does a great job of identifying microaggressions and how they may seem harmless but can cause as much pain as outright prejudice.
- How sex positive the story is and that physical intimacy is considered and explored in a thoughtful way.
- The supporting characters. Rani's best friend Kate is a fiery feminist who's not afraid to tell people how it is and Rani's grandmother, aunts, cousins and parents are multidimensional and full of personality.
- The modeling of healthy vs. unhealthy romantic relationships.
- The ending.

What I struggled with:
- I blinked and Rani and Oliver were in love. I know feelings in high school can be accelerated but in this case it didn't feel earned and I was less invested in the couple than I should have been.
- The progression of Oliver's character. I wish there had been more explanation of why he acted the way he did.
- The dialogue. It didn't sound true to teenagers, especially how Oliver spoke.

I enjoyed this book (and especially seeing a Desi teen so well represented) but I think my expectations were super high and it didn't quite live up to them.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Young Children's/Knopf Books for Young Readers for a copy to review.

I’m glad that YA books are read by people way past their teenage years because there’s so much in American Betiya that informs and enlightens people like me (who have such a different life experience) about what it’s like to be a young woman of colour straddling different cultures. Anuradha Rajurkar has written a thoughtful, complex book that gives valuable insights into the struggles many people feel as they forge an identity in a world that keeps foisting stereotypes and expectations onto them.

Rajurkar’s heroine, Rani, is at once an American girl in her last year of high school and the daughter of parents from India whose ambitions for her include respecting (and largely adhering to) the culture from which they originate. They see America as a great land of opportunity and have worked incredibly hard to forge a life for themselves there, and they expect certain things from their daughter.

But America means something different to Rani’s parents than it does to her. It’s almost as though America is her parent’s home away from home. But for Rani, America is her country. She’s an American girl…or maybe an American betiya is a better description: the beloved daughter of her country of origin, but with an Indian side, too.

India is a huge part of Rani, but it’s a part, not all, and she’s learning how to manage the balance of both identities when the sudden appearance of Oliver throws everything into confusion. Oliver is a white boy from a complicated American family with troubles of its own — and loving him as she does puts Rani under new pressure.

Rani describes the passion she feels for Oliver as a “frisson”, a secret and exciting ingredient to a highly charged sexual relationship. Artistic, expressive and very different from Rani’s family, it’s easy to see why she finds him difficult to resist. But from the start, there’s something quite wrong about their relationship and much of the book is about identifying the strange mixture of admiration, obsession and resentment that Oliver has for Rani’s family’s culture. He both loves it and hates it, but the most obvious thing is that he’s disrespectful of its true meaning to her and hasn’t made enough effort to understand it.

Rani knows this and, yet, her attraction for Oliver and her desire to overlook what (in retrospect) clearly not going to work between them, weakens her resolve. She even finds herself participating in Oliver’s bizarre fetishism of her culture, which is uncomfortable to read but wonderfully portrayed in the book. Oliver’s microaggressions start off as annoying and then grow, and the unfolding of their relationship provides a valuable look into a subjectivity I was grateful to experience.

The portrait of Rani’s loving, if sometimes overbearing, family is nuanced and affectionate. Oliver is a less attractive prospect to this middle-aged reader than he will likely be to the teenagers for whom the novel is intended (I wanted to sit that young man down!). Anuradha Rajurkar’s writing is full of authority and she handles complex subjects with grace.

Rani has a secret, and it's everything her parents fear. She's dating a boy, one with tattoos, who wants to be an artist, who everybody likes. Just the sort of worldly boy her parents think is oh so wrong for her. She decides to date Oliver without telling them, and as with so many relationships, it isn't long before Oliver brings his troubles to Rani's doorstep. He wants her to do things she's uncomfortable with. She must give more than she bargained for. He needs her now more than ever. For Rani, it's the kind of consuming relationship she wanted, only she doesn't know that it's consuming her. Fate transports her from her home in Illinois to India over the summer, and that's when all the trouble brewing beneath the surface of her relationship with Oliver spills over. It's not easy living between two worlds.

From the title alone, it's clear that this story is at least partially about the interactions between cultures. Rani's family is Indian, and they hope that their daughter will date people who are part of their culture. Oliver is certainly not Indian, which is part of why he keeps calling Rani his "Indian princess." Rani isn't sure how to handle his little nicknames and comments about her appearance, questions about her culture, and the expectations he has which fall outside of her own. Because of problems in his own life, he tries to inject himself into Rani's family, in his own way, but that also comes at a price for Rani. Rani's story is as much about falling in love as it is about relationships that bridge cultures, and about the misunderstandings and hurtful comments that can arise because of those differences. It's also about Rani's identity, as she pulls away from her parents' own expectations, and seeks to define what she expects of herself, and from others.

The writing from debut author Anuradha D. Rajurkar is vivid, lush, and transportive, whether at a high school in Illinois or on the streets of Pune, India. Every character is well-realized, whether their role is major or minor, and I found myself loving the relationship between Rani and her best friend, Kate. What defines the journey most of all, and how it all ends, is Rani's relationship with herself, and that is absolutely everything. American Betiya is a powerful, evocative look at the intoxicating nature of young love, the meaning of identity and culture, and what it means for a young girl to explore and define herself while being pulled between family, friends, love, and her own wants and needs. Highly recommended to high school youth and adults.

American Betiya by Anuradha D. Rajurkar follows Rani Kelkar as she begins dating Oliver in secret so that her strict and religious parents don't find out. However, when Oliver's troubled home life unravels, he starts to ask more of Rani than she knows how to give, desperately trying to fit into her world, no matter how high the cost. When a twist of fate leads Rani from Evanston, Illinois to Pune, India for a summer, she has a reckoning with herself--and what's really brewing beneath the surface of her first love.

Unfortunately I have gotten extremely picky when it comes to YA contemporaries. This book discusses fetishizing of Indian woman which was interesting to read about in a YA novel. However, Oliver made me so uncomfortable (which I know was the point) and there were so many characters that it made it hard for me to keep track of the story. I also had a hard time relating to the main character, Rani, which may come from me outgrowing the YA genre.

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

This was a dramatic and angst filled romance that only a great YA novel can do right. The conversations that were brought up during this read were really captivating—themes of female ownership, sexuality, cultural appropriation, artistic expression, and gaslighting create this soul crushing debut centered around a young woman discovering herself in a relationship, in her religion, and from within.

Rani and Oliver fell hard and fast. I don't think I've ever read an interracial relationship done so raw in YA before. their chemistry was palpable on the page, setting up a passionate and thrilling relationship journey. I loved learning about the different Hindu traditions and customs. Rani's closeness with her community was actually really positive, despite her not being able to divulge into such a huge part of her life—her relationship with Oliver.

Rani made it plenty clear from the beginning that her parent's could never know and there had to be clear ground rules. Oliver was so charming and understanding—the perfect feminist dreamboat who absolutely adored Rani as much as she would let him. They connected on a deeper level, finally someone she could confide in when it came to her art. Once she couldn't give him what he needed in terms of more access to her life and family, he retaliated with manipulation. She loved Oliver so much, even though the things he said sometimes felt tone-deaf in regards to her culture, total microagressions. Not until she was in too far did she realize that his comments and remarks were him objectifying her culture, fetishizing her for his artistic gain.

I still can't believe this was a debut novel. The writing was so sophisticated, you would think this came from a seasoned author.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

AMERICAN BETIYA is a breathtaking contemporary read about identity, family, and racism. Rani is an Indian American with dreams of becoming a pediatrician, much to her parents' delight. She also loves photography, something her grandfather has nurtured in her, and the book begins with her art in a show. At the same show, her parents make sure she knows that their no dating policy continues- despite the cute guy with tattoos who is giving her the look.

Rani can't help but look back and is excited when Oliver asks her to join him for lunch at school the next day. As their relationship grows, Rani must make decisions about her family, secrecy, and the parts of her heritage she wants to embrace. Importantly, these decisions are her own and full of their own complexities, as she comes to realize.

What I loved: This book really captures the experience of Indian Americans including microaggressions and the ways that they may react to them as well as outright racism. The connecting with culture and defining yourself that POC immigrants and their descendants must do are also themes in this book that are captured really well in Rani's story. These were eye-opening and important to see.

The writing here is really powerful and enthralling. As Rani embarks on a relationship with Oliver, each step of the way, the reader feels the butterflies and the fear, both sides of the coin that eventually add up to a situation that is abusive and equally hard to separate. Rani feels these things, even when she cannot define them. She is an incredibly compelling character, and the writing wraps up the reader in her emotions and insights expertly.

Other themes including family, guilt, and friendship are all really thought-provoking. Rani is balancing her family and their expectations with her other desires, and I love the way that the family roles are ultimately settled. Rani also has a lot of guilt, not only from the current secrets, but also from what she feels that she failed to do for a friend in the past, with some important messages there. Additionally, Rani has a powerful friendship that shines through the story, and I loved the inclusion of such a friend. There are so many fantastic characters in the book throughout.

Final verdict: With important themes and powerful writing, AMERICAN BETIYA is a heartfelt, raw, and genuine YA contemporary that is certainly worth the read. Highly recommend for fans of MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE, THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT SWEETIE, and HOW IT ALL BLEW UP.

Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

This book drew me in from the first scene. The essence of the story was all there from the start: Rani's rich Indian culture, her passion for photography, and her budding romance with Olivier.

Anuradha D. Rajurkar's writing is gorgeous and evocative, and the story flows seamlessly. There was much to love about this novel, but what struck me was that the romance was unlike any other YA I've read recently. Without giving too much away, I was particularly fascinated by the exploration of Rani and Olivier's attraction,to each other, and what it means against the backdrop of Rani's culture.

Also, this book made me hungry! The depiction of all the Indian food was a delicious bonus.

*this review is to be published on my blog, Goodreads, Instagram and The Storygraph on March 9th, 2021. Links to be added. I decided not to review it on Amazon since it's not a positive review.

I’m not gonna lie: this book let me down. I definitely had high expectations and thought it would have such a big impact on me, but unfortunately it didn’t. The premise of this book sounds amazing and it’s for fans of Jandy Nelson, who writes emotional stories, so I was hoping this would leave me crying, too. Sadly, my cheeks aren’t accompanied by tears today.

The thing is, though, this book has such a strong and important message. It’s one I believe we should see more often in books because, let’s be honest, the bookcommunity has a way of shipping characters who are toxic together. This is perhaps the thing I appreciated the most about this book, and I must say the ending did a pretty good job at teaching us how important it is, but I can’t just ignore the things I didn’t like about this book.

The pacing of this book is all over the place. It went too fast and too slow altogether (although the fast outweighs the slow). There is no time whatsoever to really connect with the characters and learn to care from them, something that’s really important to me while reading a book. Especially when I’m hoping for an emotional story.

The way things moved too fast is also one of the reasons I thought this book lacked depth. There were certain sentences where I felt for the characters for a split second, but that always faded away really quickly. I really needed to feel more, and I think that’s this book biggest “problem”.

This book is also centered around around a romantic relationship, but it’s not a romance story at all. It’s a story of finding yourself and your dignity, of letting go and understanding what love is. I love that, of course, but the thing is that for me, it began to become too concentrated on Rani and Oliver falling in love, while, to be honest, I just wanted to see Rani grow.

As for the toxic relationship, most of the moments I really thought: yes, this captured it really well! So that representation is definitely good in my opinion, but (yes, here I go again) I really missed depth here again. I didn’t feel connected to Rani at all because she wasn’t developed well enough. Of course I felt bad for what happened to her, but it wasn’t the all-consuming emotion I wanted to feel.

Oliver’s character was pretty good in some ways. He had a certain charisma hanging around him which made Rani falling for him a bit more realistic (still way too fast, but okay). The way the author sprinkled in the red flags was also really well done. I despised him but he still had a certain vibe, if you know what I mean.

As you noticed I haven’t said anything about the Indian representation. All I can say is that I thought it was interesting to read about, but if you’re looking for own-voice reviews, here are a few: check out Kajree’s review, Gargee’s review and Shivani’s review!

Overall I think this had a lot more potential. The message was good, but there needed to be more about it. If it wasn’t for the pacing and the lack of emotions I felt, I think this would’ve been more than great. But sadly that wasn’t the case for me, so I will have to settle on giving this book a 2.5/5 stars.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review! This did not affect my opinions in any way.

I don't know what I was expecting when I read this novel, but whatever my expectations this exceeded all of them. This debut was such a beautiful story, not only the story of the perils of a first relationship and first love, but also what happens when you are in a cross cultural relationship. In this novel, our narrator is Rani Kelkar, a young woman of Indian descent, opening the story at a showcase of her photography. Rani meets Oliver, a young man who is basically everything her parents fear about her dating, but her feelings are strong enough that she decides to risk a relationship. Rani is young, and she is trying to balance to demands of her family, as well as her own ideas of love and relationships, with her growing feelings and desires. Rani and Oliver face the challenges of a normal relationship, compounded by culture clash and Oliver's unwillingness to hear what Rani is saying. Over the course of the novel, we follow Rani's journey as she begins to understand what really matters to her, and what she deserves from a romantic partner.

I loved this story, because it felt very real to the human experience, and especially to the experience of anyone who might be othered. While I am not Indian, being Jewish comes with it's own set of "weird" rules to an American audience, especially when it comes to cultural identity. The conversations about food were so similar to what I experienced (stop asking me why I don't eat things - I just don't), I felt for Rani. Whether the racism is overt or microagressions, it hurts, and throughout the novel it very much felt like a realistic balance of what a young person would experience in the day to day, and how it can hurt more coming from the people that we care about. I loved the way that Rajurkar wrote about the experience of identity, and also how our identities can shift depending on where we are and who we're with. We want to be around individuals who allow us to fully be ourselves and the only way we can know what that means is through experience. Rani's journey through the novel is one of identity that I honestly think that many can relate to.

I highly, highly recommend this novel for absolutely everyone. TW: suicide, drugs/addiction, racism.

4.5. TW: grief, death of a family member, racism, microaggressions, suicide, drug use.

This is a heartbreaking book that fully explores what it's like to be a South Asian teen (Rani) in a white-majority Chicago suburb (Evanston--as a side note, it brought me so much joy to read about places that are intimately familiar to me both in that area and in the city). I've read books before in which the love interest (in this case, Oliver) is too perfect and is the ideal partner, so I'm glad Rajurkar delved into some of the more subtle racist jabs white folks do to people of color. (Disclaimer: I am not a person of color and cannot, and will not, claim that I understand what it's like to be a person of color.) I also loved Rani's (imperfect) bond with her family and friends (especially her best friend Kate) and the way she learns to cherish and celebrate aspects of her own culture. I would have loved to know more about Rani's relationship with her grandpa, but I'm sure that could encompass a whole other book.

This was absolutely stunning!! The initial thing that drew me to this was the absolutely STUNNING cover, and I’m so glad the inside was just as lovely. This is a beautiful own voices novel centered around cultural identity, self discovery, friendships, love, and identity. This does handle some challenging concepts (trigger warnings for addiction, suicide, grief, and gaslighting) so just be conscious of that.

American Betiya centers Rani Kelkar, a high school senior with a talent for art, though her parents and her want her to go into the medical field (more on that later). When she enters an art show and wins, her entire family is there with her to celebrate at the showing. While that’s happening, she notices a cute guy lingering, and he asks her on a date. Oliver and Rani soon start dating and it’s almost perfect, from the way she’s treated, to the attention, and affection.

Almost. Rani can’t tell her parents she’s dating Oliver and he starts to grow more and more impatient, all while Oliver continues to invalidate her and her culture.

Rani finds herself drawn to Oliver, the ~mysterious~ boy with dark hair, tattoos, and a love of art. Oliver loves Rani, her culture, her art, and her (or so it seems). Oliver doesn’t understand many things. Rani’s parents, her culture, her future, and her. She faces tons of microaggressions from Oliver, which she brushes off at first. He repeatedly calls her Princess Jasmine, doesn’t stand up for her when she refuses to eat beef, and doesn’t understand why culture plays a role in why Rani can’t tell her parents about him.

Spoiler below that’s kind of triggering. Content warning for sex, blood and fetishization.
At one point, Oliver buys Rani a vintage sari that he finds at a thrift store and some matching jewelry. It’s all cute and innocent until he say wants to have sex with her in it to fulfill some weird Indian princess fantasy of his. Rani’s also wearing bangles in this scene and when one of them breaks on her wrist, she starts bleeding, which turns him on even more, while she’s really uncomfortable.

If that fetishization wasn’t bad enough, we see how bad Oliver is in a later scene.

Trigger warning for nudity, white men being gross, and non-consensual nude art.
Rani is okay with Oliver taking pictures of her when they’re having sex but it goes downhill really fast after a bad argument with him. Right after, a giant mural of her, NAKED, is displayed on the highway, along with a bunch of words that Rani tells Oliver in confidence. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t like it and it just reeks of gross white males.

Towards the end, Oliver says this one line that I think really sums up the grossness of even the most liberal of white men in the art field.

“I want to feel empowered by love, not trapped by it,” I say finally.
“That’s what I want, too.”
“But I don’t think I can have that with you.”
“Rani. Listen. Artists consult me all the time on issues of racial and feminist messaging in art. . . . I’m viewed as a progressive, and you know that. We can make this work.”

This book perfectly encapsulated high school better than most YA novels I’ve ever read, honestly from this one moment alone. We all know those white people who try to be allies and claim to be doing a great job, but then turn around and attack BIPOC with tons of microaggressions (and sometimes fetishization, sometimes both!!!).

Overall, fantastic read. 5/5.