I’m impressed with the caliber of talent in my recent debut author reads! I couldn’t put this book down!

In Mansi Shah’s deeply moving immigrant story, the protagonist, Preeti Desai, is torn between two beautifully flawed cultures and needs to confront her family’s past to find out where she truly belongs.

Since immigrating when she was seven years old, a sense of identity and belonging has always been missing from Preetie’s life. Like all immigrants, the Desais were looking for a better life. However, Preeti is now surrounded by a society and a culture that doesn’t reflect the original Indian values she grew up with and so she struggles to balance the two while she attempts assimilation. She wonders if she can be both Indian and American, or if she has to choose one and readers see the angst and double life she creates by trying to straddle both worlds. Can she date a white carnivore and still be accepted by her family? Can she pursue a law career when that’s not traditionally in the cards for good Indian girls?

With the racial reckoning in the world today, this book is being released into the world at a perfect time. Shaw stresses that it’s important that people feel seen, that they have the time and space to learn who they are and accept it, and that they take what they learn about themselves and become grounded in gratitude.

I believe we need to read more books like this – books where authors share their experience so that we can become more aware, thereby lessening the frequency of suffering.

You must put this south Asian fiction author’s own voice novel on your tbr list and discover what home means to you and how you would forge a path toward discovering your identity despite challenges in your path.

I was gifted this book by Mansi Shah, Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

"I felt like through the lens, I was able to see India anew. Distill the truth from my childhood memories. I was able to notice more of the progress that my parents had spoken about over the years, because that progress was in the people and the way they behaved, rather than the storefronts and physical objects"

Oh boy am I on the fence on this one. The Taste of Ginger started out really strong, but fizzled a little as I went in further. It is the story of Preeti, a 30-year old Indian-American who has become slightly estranged from her parents, going back to India and staying much longer than expected due to a tragic event in her brother's life. The book touched on important questions of immigration and integration, the migrant experience if you will, and the ever present need to fit in and belong. It also touched on classism, difficult familial relationships and the question of tradition versus progression. These were also the parts of the book I enjoyed most. From Preeti learning more about her mother's life to seeing that her brother, and particularly sister-in-law, are not as traditional as she has always thought.

Yet somehow, none of it truly worked for me in this one. I felt like the experience and growth Preeti is going through does not quite fit with her age and life experience, and would perhaps be better suited to a character in the YA age range or even a YA novel. While the story started out as an interesting novel, with colorful descriptions of aunties, traditions, food and surroundings, it soon became the (repetitive) musings of someone who is in all honesty, a bit childish and naïve.

Ultimately, to me this book was an okay read, but it could have been so much more, as the snippets of beautiful story were definitely there.

Applause to Mansu Shah for her wonder debut novel "The Taste of Ginger"!

Peetri Desai came with her parents to the United States from India at age 7. She is now in her 30's and has recently broken up with her boyfriend Alex. She is a lawyer and works for a prestigious law firm in Los Angeles, but does not feel appreciated for her effort. Peetri receives a call that one of her close relatives is in critical condition from a terrible accident. To her very unappreciative upper management's displeasure, Peetri risks her job and goes to India to be with her family during this intense time. While there, she is able to revisit her family culture and explore her true self. What does Peetri really want to do with her life?


What a beautiful story! This book is eye-opening and touching. Life is a series of curve balls on the journey to finding happiness. This novel is awesome!


Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for letting me review this fantastic 5 star e-book!

I absolutely loved this book. I did not see the ending coming. The language and the description made it seem like I was In India. It seems like the author had been writing for years. I going to say something I rarely say about a book…I need a part two because I want to know what happened to Preeti, Neel, and Dipti.

Blatant Racism Deeply Mars Otherwise Universal Story. This is, without a shred of a doubt, the most racist book I've seen published this Millenium, at minimum - and to think that the normally *very* solid Lake Union Publishing allowed it under their banner is very discouraging, indeed. While I would never say a book should not be published at all, this is one that no major company - particularly one so large as Amazon - that claims to stand for diversity, inclusion, and equity should ever stand behind. White / America is EVIL according to Shah, and everything wrong in Preeti's life is because she had to try to fit in with "White America". Bullcrap. You take the commentary about everything White and/ or American being so evil out of this tale and look at just the remaining elements of struggling to fit in, to find oneself despite parental desires, to have your parents accept you as an adult... and you've got a universal tale that applies no matter the race. *Everyone* goes through these struggles, even in cultures where it appears different. But no, Shah here had to go the racist route and destroy what would have otherwise been a solid, maybe even transcendental, work. While some might think I'm being a bit generous here with 3* based on this write-up, the univeral elements here were done quite well while examining their particulars within Indian culture, particularly looking at both the Indian Diaspora and Indians who never leave the subcontinent - nor want to. And that is where I am confident in still allowing it the three, despite such blatant and rampant racism. Recommended, begrudgingly.

Preeti goes to India after her brother and sister in law are in an accident. She’s lived in America for many years so she’ll have to adjust to life in India again. I thought the book was really good. I can’t say I knew much about Indian culture or their practices. It was interesting to get a glimpse into their beliefs.
Thanks to the author and Netgalley for the early copy

Lushly written and fully immersive, Mansi Shah’s stunning debut is captivating and packed with emotional moments as her main character, Preeti, returns to India, the country of her birth, when a family tragedy forces her to face her estranged parents and the complicated past they left behind when they immigrated to America.

This novel had me turning pages as Preeti rediscovers her cultural heritage and reckons with the complex nature of what “home” truly means. She’s a delightful heroine, and I enjoyed seeing India through her eyes and how she compared and contrasted the cultural differences as an American NRI. This is a wonderful novel that doesn’t shy away from revealing the full scope of the immigrant experience, and I feel Shah’s insight and empathy is something that our world needs more of, to help increase awareness of the complexities of immigration and assimilation. Preeti’s search for identity is beautiful, honest, and heartfelt.

I found myself in tears several times throughout, especially at the end. Shah’s writing is effortlessly engaging and flows beautifully. I cannot wait to see what this brilliant author writes next!

Thanks to the author, Lake Union, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read early and review.

A very well written debut for Mansi Shah. I was initially overwhelmed by the names of her family, which were women and which were men, and the uncle, auntie or mama following the name.
I have worked with many Indian doctors in healthcare, but they have all been pretty Americanized, and it made me wonder if, they too had experienced these problems with assimilation into American culture. At the hospital, they wore professional garb and even at social events, I can’t remember anyone wearing their traditional dress, although photos of Indian gatherings, were with their brightly colored sari’s.
So, this story had me reflecting on their journeys, because none of those that I had met, had been here for years. I worked with one clerk who did tell me about her arranged marriage, and it was obviously a very happy one.
It taught me something about a very different culture, the relationships between family members, the challenges to meet cultural expectations and the difficulties balancing both worlds. I can understand the confusion and questions of where Preeti fit in, and how she had to work harder than most.
My thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for this well written, interesting story. All opinions are my own, and I would certainly recommend it.

“That love is all there is is all we know of love.” Not just romantic love, but love in all its forms. The love between a parent and their child, the love between all the members of an interconnected family, the love between friends, and the hope of love that might grow in spite of all the forces arrayed against.

Especially when one of those loves – or all of them – confuse the pluperfect crap out of us.

Not that Preeti Desai doesn’t begin this story in a state of confusion – or that her entire history isn’t fraught with it. Preeti is caught between two worlds, two perspectives, and multiple variations of all of those different versions of love.

Her parents immigrated from India to the United States when Preeti was still in elementary school. Or when she was of an age to be in elementary school in the U.S. A child who could, and did, do her very best to assimilate and adapt to the world in which she was now immersed. No matter how cruel children could be to anyone who was different, and how much of herself and the traditions she was born into she had to drop along her way.

Preeti’s parents wanted both her and her older brother Neel to be successful according to American culture, while still retaining all the traditional beliefs they had been raised with. That meant good grades, good schools, and careers in worthy professions. Her parents scrimped and saved in order for Neel to become a doctor and Preeti a lawyer.

As much of a shock as it was for her parents, who had been upper-middle class professionals in India, to discover that their qualifications did not immigrate with them and both their status and the family finances took a huge hit, they were able to maintain their immersion in the culture they had physically left behind by not leaving it behind. Chicago is filled with many nearly self-contained neighborhoods, and “Little India” on Devon Avenue is one of those neighborhoods.

For Neel and Preeti, but especially for Preeti, straddling those two worlds was somewhere between difficult and impossible. The tradition her parents expected her to adhere to, where women were expected to maintain the home and fade into the background there – no matter what their professional accomplishments – was the exact opposite of the expectations of the American workplace – especially for an attorney climbing the ladder towards partnership in a high-powered firm.

By the time this story opens, Preeti’s family, particularly in the relationship between her mother and herself – a relationship that is so often fraught between mothers and their grown daughters – had fractured into stilted conversations and cold silences – a frozen bridge that neither could cross.

Until tragedy struck. And Preeti felt compelled to set all of that history aside to take the next plane back to the place of her birth, to do whatever she could to help her brother and his wife through the death of their child.

Preeti comes for Neel. But that puts her on the horns of ALL the dilemmas. She and her mother need to be on the same side – a place they haven’t been since her parents moved to the U.S. Preeti is stuck living with all the expectations of gender, clan and caste in a place that she barely remembers, under restrictions that she often doesn’t see until she’s blown past them.

The longer she’s in Ahmedabad, the more she sees the beauty of not just the place, but of reclaiming the part of herself that she left behind. And the more she and her mother are finally able to see themselves as women who may not always meet each other’s expectations, but who love each other all the same and can finally accept each other as they are and not who they expect the other to be.

Escape Rating A+: This is an absolutely lovely, heartwarming and occasionally heartbreaking story. I was so absorbed in it that I didn’t even notice the cats using me as a trampoline. I was just completely gone. It is incredible that this is the author’s first published novel, because it is just so very, very good.

It’s also explicitly not a romance. Not that Preeti doesn’t have romantic problems, because she does. She’s 30 and unmarried in a culture that thinks she’s a spinster because she isn’t married while proclaiming her as “unclean” because she’s been out on dates. But Preeti’s romantic tribulations are symbols and symptoms of all the other issues in her life and not the meat of the story.

The story reads like it’s about two things. On the surface – and pretty deeply underneath that surface – it’s about the interconnected relationships in her extended family. One of the explicit messages is that there is no right or wrong here, everyone only wants what’s best for everyone else. The issue is in defining that best for someone who lives at the crossroads between the collectivist culture of her birthplace and the individualist expectations of her adopted home.

Preeti has to find her own way to a comfortable seat at that crossroad. She and her mother have to find a path through the minefield of their relationship, and accept each other as who they are – a difficult minefield for any mother and daughter to navigate.

The story is also about the price that America demands from those who immigrate to this country. The melting pot melts the newcomer’s resistance to American culture and values. If the newcomer is visibly different from the American “norm’ – meaning especially not white – they are expected to give up the culture they left behind even though, as Preeti finally admits to herself, knowing that they will never be fully accepted because no matter how hard they try, they can never completely blend in.

This is a story that has a lot to say about relationships of all kinds. Preeti’s family issues are the heart of the story, along with Preeti’s own journey of self-discovery. The Taste of Ginger is just a beautiful and thought provoking story and I loved every minute of reading it.

I hope you will, too.

Mansi Shah’s impressive debut novel, which releases on January 1, immerses us in the culture of India. For those who’ve never visited, we’re treated to a vivid view through Preeti, who returns after many years to deal with a family tragedy. She was only 7 when her parents relocated to America and has spent the intervening time over-achieving to tackle the challenges of assimilating. When she’s reluctantly drawn back to her native country, she’s dismayed to face similar issues as a nonconformist NRI (Non Resident Indian). Preeti chafes under the strict Caste system, wherein the clothes she wears, who she spends time with, and how she interacts with her elders are under close scrutiny. As she struggles to reconcile the demands of the two cultures, she realizes to truly find her place and move forward she must forge a new relationship with her estranged, traditional mother and learn her long-ago secrets.

In reading The Taste of Ginger, I was fascinated by the revelations into Indian culture. Following Preeti’s journey is like being there yourself, with casual introductions to the food, style of dress, interplay of relationships, and the daily routines and living conditions for the different caste levels. For those of us used to casual, independent lifestyles, we can definitely empathize with her difficulty in reining back to try to fit in and not shame her family.

The novel also provides an eye-opening depiction of the difficulties immigrants can face fitting into American culture. For Preeti’s family, her parents leave good jobs and a higher-caste existence in India and her dad ends up in a menial occupation. Thus, much of their life is driven by the pursuit of monetary stability, and they also see that as an ultimate goal for their children. Along with them marrying appropriate Indian matches - without factoring “Western love” into the equation.

Applause to Mansi Shah for providing a heart-felt exploration of the bonds of family and culture, enriching the reader for the experience. I learned so much in reading this well-written novel, which embraces believable characters and colorful descriptions. Thanks to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for providing the ARC of this novel.

What an immersive book! I have never been so drawn into the Indian culture, tradition, and food like I did with The Taste of Ginger. I not only learned so much, I got such a great glimpse into Preeti's world that it was as if I was experiencing everything she was as she travelled back to Ahmedabad to be there for her family during a time of crisis. At once bittersweet and heartwarming, this was a wonderful book.

“Love stories come in many forms but it’s rare to find one that’s such a beautiful tribute to the importance of tradition, culture, and extended family. Mansi Shah’s intimate exploration of the immigrant experience mirrored against the complex relationship between mothers and daughters touched my heart. Fans of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri or The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan will adore The Taste of Ginger.” —Jennifer Bardsley, Author of Sweet Bliss