Nina, a British Indian woman, finds herself in absolute despair on her 30th birthday - she spends the night alone in jail, she's recently called off an engagement with her "perfect-on-paper" fiancé, her brother is clinically depressed, and her mother thinks Nina is on the path headed nowhere.

During her night in jail, she comes across a book that sets her off on a year-long journey to find 30 things to love about herself. It proves quite difficult for Nina as she's accused of being a racist on national TV, is on suicide watch for her brother, Kal, and is constantly never living up to her mother's expectations (including who she dates).

What I loved: Nina's self-reflection and the ability to recognize when she was wrong; the Mistry family relationship; Nina's mother, Rupa; the idea that you need to learn to love yourself before loving anyone else; tackling real-life issues such as racism, mental health, cultural appropriation.

What I didn't love as much: the plot seemed a bit farfetched and the dialogue was borderline cheesy at times.

Would you be able to list 30 things you love about yourself? Before reading this novel, I honestly couldn't (and maybe still can't) but really loved following Nina's path to self-love and discovery. Time for me to start that list!

TW: suicide, depression, mental illness

Thank you Berkley for my gifted copy in advance for an honest review.

30 Things I Love About Myself by Rahika Sanghani
When a British Indian woman's life hits rock bottom, she decides to change her stars by falling in love...with herself--a hilarious, heartfelt story from outrageously funny novelist Radhika Sanghani.

I really enjoyed 30 Things I Love About Myself. At first I wasn't sure if this was a self-help book or a work of fiction (I'm totally not into self-help books) but I guess it could totally be both. It really got me thinking of things that I love about myself. Nina's journey and mishaps really made me think of how I would handle certain situation and how I treat others as well as myself. It all felt so real and I may have shed a tear or two! I look forward to reading more by Radhika in the future.

I like discovering new authors and books that are not in the mainstream of popularity. I really enjoyed this book bout Nina Mistry, a thirty year old who finds herself celebrating her birthday in her pajamas holding a falafel after being arrested at a protest she happened into on her way to get said falafel! The book is much more than chick lit as it seriously undertakes discussions of racism, depression, suicide and more. Nina just broke up with her longtime boyfriend, has to move home where her brother is living after a serious depression results in his losing his six figure finance job, to a mother who is traditional in many ways. Nina’s mom doesn’t believe Nina can be in her own without a husband.
Nina begins her journey to self love while reading a manual on how to, with each chapter describing her journey. There is humor, sadness and a sense that you are reading about real people and real issues. I recommend this book, and thank NetGalley for the ARC.

Nina is freshly single, she just ended her engagement to her best friend. She has to move back in with her mom and brother. She is about to turn 30....in jail. While spending a night in jail she was given a book to read. Ironically it was a self help book. As Nina starts reading the book she realizes she doesn't love herself the way she should. This sets her on a journey of self love.

As a woman in her 30s who is single, and trying to love themself more, this hits home. I can somewhat relate to her journey. I know what it feels like to feel behind, but also want to be fiercely happy for those around you. I know what it is like when your inner "Susan" is telling you things to try to bring you down. I am working on telling my inner "Susan" to shut up. I can also relate to Nina's brother, Kal. I suffer from depression too. For the longest time I was embarrassed by it, but now I am open about it. I feel like it needs to be talked about more. No one should feel ashamed or feel like they have to hide it. I think the author did a great job at portraying someone with a mental illness and how the family responds. 

I felt like I was following along on Nina's journey. It was a good story and I really liked all of the characters...but I didn't get hooked. While I was wanting Nina to find herself and love herself 100% I wasn't fully invested into the story.  I wish the self help book Nina read was real. I’d like to check it out. I think my favorite part was the reminder that everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect in this world. You look at celebs on tv and think how flawless they look and how perfect their lives must be....but that isn't real. EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES. And it's okay to make those mistakes. I do wish that self help book was real, I'd like to check it out. I started writing things I love about myself, I didn't get very many. I guess this will be the year I have my journey to self love.

An #ownvoices women's fiction novel that is heavy on mental health and self-love. I really enjoyed going on Nina's journey of self-love. When she spends her 30th birthday overnight in a jail cell, she's given a book about self-love and decides she is going to try to find 30 things she loves about herself. The journey is not an easy one as she has to move back in with her mother and depressed older brother. She also ends up losing her free-lance writing job and makes a serious mistake on social media. For me, the best part was the sibling relationship between Nina and her brother as he struggles with suicidal ideation. Great on audio too. Highly recommended for fans of Must love books. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advance review copy and Libro.fm for my ALC.

I don't think any of us knew what the hell we were doing with our lives by 30, but Nina was a hot mess of a 30 year old. Books still work even when you're dealing with unlikable characters, but only if you're meant to not like her. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to find Nina a total riot with her constant mistakes and selfish decisions. I 100% love the self-love message and believe this should be more of a thing in books, but I need to like the characters enough for me to care about them loving themselves.

I was so excited to read this - the premise sounded amazing, and definitely timely for me! Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to its potential for me.

After celebrating her 30th birthday in a jail cell, Nina decides it’s time to re-evaluate her life. Guided by a self-help book, Nina embarks on a year-long self-love journey of finding 30 things she loves about herself.

I liked a lot of things about this book. It was well-written. I really enjoyed the role of spirituality in the plot - yoga, meditation, and astrology were central to Nina’s journey. Nina is a funny and relatable main character. The book tackles serious issues like racism, mental health, and cultural and family expectations. I always enjoy family expectation as part of a story, though I admit that Nina’s mother’s comments struck me as a bit extreme.

My main issue is that it all felt superficial, with Nina’s revelations being very quick and glossed over. Nina would feel lonely, then have somehow mastered her loneliness by the next page. Nina would say something discriminatory, then after only a few lines of being called out for it, change her tune and praise herself for her ability to learn. There was little depth to any of it, with the result that Nina seemed like the kind of person who was committed to self-love just so she could post about it on social media (this was exacerbated by Nina’s frequent references to her social media platform). I think part of the problem was needing to fit in 30 items for Nina’s list, but the unfortunate result was a lot of surface-level events.

I also wish Nina had considered or gone to therapy as part of her journey. Mental health / therapy are definitely discussed in the book, but not in respect of Nina herself - which was odd to me, considering that at times Nina would respond to negative events by drowning her sorrows or stealing medication. Maybe I’m particularly sensitive to this, having just started seeing a therapist myself, but it struck me as a missed opportunity.

Thank you to Berkley for the opportunity to read an e-copy of this!

This book was both laugh out loud funny and thought provoking. I’m not much of a self help book reader, but I get the appeal. I love that the author managed to make this book not only a great coming of age novel about a 30 year old young woman, but also snuck in some inspirational and motivational content! This was a very dawn to earth book that deals with so many real life issues such as depression, racism, cancel culture, self discovery, and self confidence. Growing up Black in America, I totally felt Nina’s pain when it came to her relationship with her community and expectations. The struggles I have with the duality of being Black and American I assume are similar to those of being Indian and British or whatever other country outside your ancestral motherland you’re in. You don’t always want it to be about your race, or your sex, or your career, or your education, etc but at the end of the day it is, Then there are the generational differences with how we deal with things like romantic relationships, mental illness, and lifestyle choices.
This book really was an enjoyable read, I could totally see this being a lifetime rom com!

My Highly Caffeinated Thought: A smart, fun, witty, and self-positive book taking the reader through the ups and downs of life.

When I first sat down to listen to 30 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MYSELF, I was hoping for a humorous tale about a woman discovering herself, and for the most part, this is what I got. However, the message within these pages is far more impactful and extremely timely. 

What was so great about this story is the honesty and candor within the pages. Sanghani doesn’t shy away from any of the topics or feelings which women deal with throughout their life. The author also deals with clinical depression, suicide, cancel culture, and social media bullying. All of these topics add weight to the novel and another layer of reality in our world. Luckily for those looking for something lighter, we do get many moments of laughter and heart too. 

It was refreshing to have a character in the lead that wasn’t the typical single white female. By infusing the narrative with an Indian background and a very traditionally Indian mother, the reader gets to experience something fresh while still being able to identify with Nina. This character is fabulously imperfect. I walked away from this novel looking at myself a little differently, and for that, I feel others should read it too. 

AUDIOBOOK NOTE: I love this trend of having the authors narrate their books. Radhika Sanghani did a superb job of bringing the story to life and giving Nina her voice.

A delightful read that brings humor and culture to the process of learning to love yourself. The premise is familiar, have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. The author introduces us to the particular intricacies of self love for a British Indian woman, with laughter and tears, friends and family. A lighthearted and entertaining book.

** I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Thank you @prhaudio for my audio copy and @berkleypub for my digital copy. This one initially wasn’t on my radar, but I’m really glad I got to give it a listen.

In the audio version the author is our narrator. I was a little weary when I saw this, sometimes it’s great and sometimes it really crashes and burns. But the author has a gorgeous voice! I could have listened to her narrate for days! I think she did an amazing job!

As for the story it was a great mix of light hearted moments with some serious discussions as well. I appreciated the mental health aspects as well as the characters journey to love herself.

Overall a great read! This one is available now!

I loved this book. It was funny, and heartbreaking, hopeful, and real. The main character, Nina, is a British Indian woman who is basically a hot mess. She finds herself spending the night in jail on her 30th birthday and after begging for something to read is given the perfect book at the perfect time to start changing her outlook. When struggling to come up with five things she likes about herself, let alone a whole list, she decides it’s time to start falling in love with herself. The story is about self-discovery, but it’s also about family, relationships, mental health, friendship, racism and so much more.

The author has a really dry sense of humor that I absolutely loved, and I laughed and cried my way through this book in equal measure. It was just the book I needed in January to help get the year off to a good start.

Now tell me, could you list 30 things you love about yourself, off the top of your head?

It's a new year, and as everyone is settling into their resolutions (or giving up on them), it's a great time to begin to learn to love yourself. I loved starting the year off reading a cute story about how I can love myself more!

Right off the bat, the book starts with the story of Nina being hauled off to jail, and it had me chuckling all the way through. While there, she is given a book that teaches her how to begin to love herself, which she steals! I was hooked from then on.

This is a fast read that packs a lot of feels in there. As Nina begins to write her list of things she loves about herself, a lot of things begin to change around her. Her career begins to take on a new direction she never planned. Her friendships, as they always do around your 30's, begin to change. And since she is now single, she moves back home to live with her mom and brother, where she has to confront her view of her family and their reality.

CW/TW: depression and suicide are discussed. This was a heart pounding moment reading these parts, and I found myself needing to know what happened next.

All in all, this was a great way to begin to look at my own life to see where I could use a little more love.

In 30 Things I Love About Myself, main character Nina gets some guidance on how to learn to love herself from a self-help book. It sounds like a simple premise, but the book is just the catalyst to the journey of self-discovery that Nina embarks on.

And this novel is a self-help book in its own way as well. It's full of wisdom and solid advice, with takeaways on forgiveness, criticism, loneliness, community, and more. This all led me down my own path of questioning how I could see and think about myself in a more positive light.

This novel has a little bit of romance and there's also family drama (some of it is quite sad - TW for suicide attempt and depression). But the main story is Nina's journey. Her friends, jobs, and family all come in and out of her life, but it's the work she does on herself that is at the center of the book.

In her Author's Note, Radhika Sanghani talks about her own journey to self-love. The book brims with what she's learned and her desire to help others feel the same way.

I will recommend this book to any friend that could use an inspiring, hopeful read.

This book was an enjoyable read for me. It starts with Nina spending her birthday in jail and one of the guards at the police station throws her a book to read to help her pass the time. This book is about how to fix your crappy life by learning to love yourself and this book became what set Nina on a path to fix her life and learn to love herself.
This story follows Nina as she sets out on a journey to learn to love everything about herself and it follows along with her and how she navigates her relationship with her mother and her brother, who has depression, and her friends. She learns how to list at least 30 things that she loves about herself and discovers yoga and meditation to help her where she meets another kindred soul.
I love this self-love book and reading this led me to be more interested in yoga and meditation as well. This is a great book for reflecting on yourself and your own life to see how you're doing with loving yourself.
There were a couple of things that I didn't like as much where there were a few steamy romance moments. Also, the content/trigger warnings I would put are depression, attempted suicide, grief, death of a parent, bullying/cyber-bullying, and racism.

Caught my attention in the end but along the way it lost me. It felt repetitive and the message of the book was brought up too many times that it felt forced. Just wasn't for me.

30 Things I Love About Myself is a true journey of self love. When Nina hits rock bottom after spending the night in jail, she moves home to figure out her next move. Her mom is on her case to be successful so that she has someone to brag about to her friends. Nina’s older brother Cal is suffering major depression and needs to be cared for constantly.

Nina is given a book that is about loving yourself and how to fix your life. She decides to spend the next year learning what she loves about herself. She can only name 6 things when she starts, but as she works on herself, she finds more. I like some of this, but a lot was very hokey. At one point, she’s going to marry herself on television?

While the self love is the main focus, the book tackles more serious issues such as racism, depression, and suicide. This was definitely interesting to hear discussed especially from a family still reeling from grief at the loss of Nina’s father.

I didn’t always love Nina herself. She makes so many bad and not well thought out decisions. She’s also self centered and doesn’t care too much about others. She seemed to make the same mistakes and never learned from them.

Thank you to @berkleypub for my gifted copy of the book. The message of the book is good, but I just didn’t love the whole execution.

I am not really sure how I feel about this book. I felt that the protagonist’s character was a bit immature for my taste. While I appreciated the self love journey and some of the issues (like racism, depression, suicide) the book tries to tackle with dark humor, I almost felt like some of the conversations around these topic were very flippant. There were some parts that were funny and you felt yourself feeling for Nina and some of the pain she’s experienced but overall this wasn’t the right book for me.

One Sentence Summary: After spending her 30th birthday in jail, Nina decides to embark on a journey to fall in love with herself, much to her traditional Indian mother’s consternation.

Overall
30 Things I Love About Myself is a fun story of one woman learning to love herself. In true women’s fiction fashion, it’s focused on Nina, her non-romantic relationships, and her growth. This is her journey, complete with ups and downs, steps forward and steps backward. I loved the huge incorporation of her Indian culture and of mental health and the depth it lent to both her and her story. I wish she had been a little less self-absorbed and maybe thought a little more before jumping, but Nina is so unapologetically herself that I also couldn’t help but admire her courage and conviction in herself. Overall, her’s was a fun journey to read about, and a delightful one to enjoy at the beginning of a new year.

Extended Thoughts
Right before she turns 30, Nina breaks up with her fiance and ends up in jail when she spontaneously decides to join a protest and ends up being the only one arrested. But, while waiting to be released, she learns her best friend is now engaged, and one of the guards hands her a self-love book that she then takes with her and begins her journey to loving herself.

Over the course of a year, Nina has her ups and downs as her traditional Indian mother mostly only sees shame in her daughter being outspoken and unapologetically finding ways of loving 30 things about herself and her older brother is dealing with depression and her ex-fiance is trying to get over her, just as she’s trying to move past him.

30 Things I Love About Myself is a fun and realistic, albeit a bit long, take on a person learning to love things about themselves. I loved that Nina experienced highs and lows, infamy and fame. It was wonderful to watch her grow and take those steps back, but she was so determined and I loved how committed she was. This was a fun women’s fiction read where romance was mostly out of the question. I really liked how Nina’s whole goal was to love herself instead of falling into the arms of a lover. The end was on the cheesy side, but it also fit well with Nina’s characterization.

This is, undeniably, Nina’s story. It’s her journey, and everyone else is just along for the ride. There are a number of wonderful characters, some more open and loving than others, and some more judgmental and self-absorbed. I liked that her family played a huge role, but her story was never really derailed in favor of the things going on with her mother and brother. I liked that, instead, it worked well with Nina’s journey and also provided color to her life and the story.

There were times when Nina annoyed me, when I wished she did a little more and thought a little harder about what she was doing and saying. For much of the book she was quite self-absorbed, but I suppose that’s because she was learning to love herself. But she kept wanting input from those around her, which kind of annoyed me because clearly the people around her had their own lives to live and problems to deal with. As the story wore on, though, it was easy to see the growth Nina was undergoing. She had some wake up calls that were really nice and I really liked how she just seized whatever opportunities came her way. She wasn’t one to shy away from things, but probably could have benefited from thinking it through a little more. It was nice to see that, as she learned to love herself, she also learned to be there for others and offer more of herself to them.

I adored Nina’s family. Her mother felt so quintessentially Indian and it was so easy to picture her and her behaviors. It was a lot of fun to get some insight into their culture through her, and it added another layer for Nina to struggle through. Being East Asian myself, I certainly understand the concept of shame and how a child’s behavior reflects on the family no matter the age, so it was really nice to see it played up so much in 30 Things I Love About Myself because it also really highlighted the love between Nina, her mother, and her brother. But it was also just wonderful to feel immersed, in a way, into Indian culture and it felt like it came alive around me. Nina’s brother was, understandably, a bit more absent, but I loved the brother-sister relationship. There were so many instances of forward and backward progress, but I loved how Nina and her mother never gave up, how they always tried so hard to help him and be there for him. There’s clearly a lot of love in this family and it was really beautiful to see.

30 Things I Love About Myself is the story of a woman learning to love herself. Nina grows a lot over the course of the story. There were times when it felt a little too fast and times when it felt a little too slow. There were some bits I could have done without. But it was nice to see the challenges Nina came up against and how she overcame them. I loved that there were so many ups and downs. There were a number of steps backwards, but Nina always pushed through so there was always some forward progress as well. I wish there had been more with Nina’s friends, but I think this is really a story about Nina and Nina and her family. It felt a little long at times, but I really appreciated what the story was about and all the things Nina and her family had to face.

Overall, 30 Things I Love About Myself is a fun women’s fiction novel with minimal romance and a great deal of family and Indian culture. It felt real even if some of the events felt a bit blown up in the way fiction usual is. Still, I found it to be a really enjoyable read. I really appreciated the focus on mental health, family, and Indian culture, and that I could see how Nina’s journey could potentially touch anyone regardless of their culture. The ending did make me cringe a little, but one of my favorite things about Nina was just how unapologetically herself she was.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

You can't be sure you're reading a novel until Nina actually reads How to Love Yourself (and Fix Your Shitty Life in the Process). Really? A bit on-the-nose to reach her when she's in the clink! I mean, I'd just sit out the sentence before I'd read that. Still, Nina's pretty much looking at her (pretty comedic) arrest as an intervention from the Universe.

But, given her inability even to make a decent choice of only-phone-call recipient resulting in her return to her *truly*ghastly* mother's orbit, that could prove to be life saving. Or losing...it's a close-run thing whether she'll survive Daily Mailish history-chucking-out nightmare Mum. *I* almost didn't survive Mother Mistry. What a gorgon. In fact...just being totally transparent here!...I really didn't like wishy-washy, what's-the-female-nebbish-called Nina. I get it...a mother like that one would kick the sense and the sensibility right out of you. No one knows more or better than she does! Then there's drippy, dreary, depressed closet case Kal. Yeesh!

Why, then, am I reviewing it. Two words: Tantric. Sex.

You'll have to read the book to figure out why. But you'll have a lot of fun doing it, so I'm not wasting my tears for you. You're going to be glad you did, you nutty slacker. Glad you powered past the ex bringing his new squeeze to a party when Nina was guaranteed to be there...because dear ol' Mum dragged her. Glad you ignored the fact that a thirty-year-old online journalist needed her brother to explain doxing to her. Or when her self-immolative attempts to go up against a TV shock jock are so very, so painfully naive....

And let's be honest, folks, the sheer number of us humans who can use...really, really use...the truth behind Andrew Solomon's quoted-in-story quote, "The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality..." runs into the octuple digits. I suspect, though, that quite a lot more of y'all will follow Nina Mistry, Financial Abundance Manifester, in her (unorthodox but) proven effective plan to get the, um, kitty replenished.

What the heck is all this in aid of...well, my olds, there is absolutely no better time than the New Year to manifest self-love and self-acceptance by reading something that will make you giggle, and squirm, and blush. Cringe comedy lovers, here's you a book! Silly self-help sozzlers, here's you a book! You are in need of grins? You are in luck, here's you a book!

And you know what? Many more books need to have "Namaste, bitches," in them.