Sometimes retellings are great and sometimes they just feel really forced, like this one. Kamila's story feels hemmed in by Emma and in a way that didn't work for me. I look forward to the next title from Farah Heron though!

Kamila loves all things Bollywood, setting up her friends, advocating for her favorite causes, and her job as a CPA in her family's firm. She lives at home with her dad and helps him with his increasing health challenges. His old partner's son (Rohan) comes by for Kamila's Bollywood parties on Friday nights and stays over and fills him in on his investment with their bigger firm on Saturday mornings. In a time of transition, they leave Kamila out of some very important conversations just as she is trying to hard to show she can manage the family firm on her own. The attraction between Kamila and Rohan may not be enough to overcome the business decisions that get made along the way.

This was the April pick for our Rom Com book club. The spice factor was low, but Kamila was a great character (even if I would never have her energy in a million years).

I went into this with an open mind. Don’t throw tomatoes at me, but Emma is not my favorite from Jane Austen. I think it may be because she was always so blatantly wrong, but Idk lol But this retelling was pretty spot on and since I’m not a HUGE fan, I think this is why this one bothered me. But if you’re a huge Emma fan, you will love this one.

The best thing about this book was hands down Kamila. Her vibrant clothes and her go get it attitude was something I admired. This is the type of thing I can only hope to do, but can never quite pull off. I also loved that she was SO. SMART. And she continued to be her own person. Even when people doubted her, she kept showing them all the things she could do and do well at that. This made me especially happy because it showed that she had so many different ways about her. I loved seeing her step into all those roles. And let’s be honest, the way she loves her dad?! So, so sweet! Kamila was just all around a great person.

And I loved that this was a diverse romance. The main character is from India and is also Muslim. This is reflected in many ways, (the Bollywood movies, the saris,etc.) but as a foodie, the food in this mostly caught my eyes. I wanted to try literally everything at her movie parties. I won’t speak on the representation as I’m not a part of either community, but I did feel like it was done in a tasteful way.

I also really liked the love interest. But, this is where the retelling got on my nerves. How she missed something so obvious, I don’t know. I knew from the very first time that person was introduced. And I guess that was to make the plot move along, but it was crazy lol It made me roll my eyes. But I definitely rolled my eyes more in the actual story lol But besides that lol I thought the love interest was really sweet. They are a cinnamon roll with a love of romance movies and my heart melted at that. And the ending what they do in hopes that she came along with it?! SA-WOON! I think that was my favorite part of the whole book.

And of course, I loved the puppies. Like, if there’s ever a book with puppies, I’m going to read it. And I’m glad I found and read this one. I wanted so bad to hold Potato myself, but I had to settle for what he looked like in my imagination. And all the dog clothes and things OMG I wanted that backpack for my chihuahua lol Don’t judge. I just think they’re a fun element to add to the story. Because dogs are the best. (Yes I know that this really had nothing to do with the actual goings on in the story, but it made the experience better for me since I’m a dog lover lol)

Since I listened to this on audio, I wanted to mention the narrator. She did a phenomenal job. She was able to keep the voices different enough for us to know who was who, even while changing genders. What I didn’t care for was the added sound effects for the text tone lol I kept thinking something was going wrong with my phone (That’s where I listened to the majority of this.) I was trying many times to read hands free and every time it went off I picked it up thinking it was a real notification.

Emma isn’t my favorite, but I still really enjoyed this. I love Heron’s writing and I hope to see more retellings from her in the future! Hopefully there’s a P+P one floating around in her head somewhere.

I’ve enjoyed reading Farrah Heron’s novels, and was so excited to read KAMILA KNOWS BEST!

Not only was it an adorable story, with a friends to lovers trope, but also a retelling of the Classic book, Emma.

Kamila and Rohan were both loveable characters that had me both laughing and swooning for them. Kamila is our spicy heroine who throws fun Bollywood themed parties and has an adorable pup who happens to be fa out on TikTok.

I loved the story, the food descriptions, the themes of family and friendship, and all the playful banter in between.

*many thanks to Forever/Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

This was a fun, easy rom-com that I loved! I enjoyed Kamila and Rohan's characters. I loved Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron as well. Thanks NetGalley and Forever for allowing me to read this gem early!

This is a wonderful book based on Jane Austen's Emma. It has just enough things to match the original, but has Bollywood components. I have not read many books that have Bollywood in them, so I enjoyed that. I recommend this to readers looking for a funny romance.

I loved the best friends to lovers energy this book had. The story and characterization are perfect and I loved the book to death, so here's some of my thoughts.
Kamila is too nice to her dad even when he completely blindsided her about the company rebranding and merging when she's spent way too much energy working for her. Maybe I’m just pettier but that would be grounds for threatening to cut contact for me. Yeah he was the nice parent and protected Kamila from her mom but it clearly wasn’t enough , I don’t support bare minimum parenting and I genuinely don't think he was a good father.

Im not a fan of Emma but this was a funny, and enjoyable story. Friends to lovers is a classic and one I always hope to enjoy. It was a quick fun read. and I look forward to more Farah Heron.

Kamila Knows Best is a great romcom with a friends to lovers trope. Kamila is a fun and entertaining character with an amazing and eclectic group of friends. Rohan is such a dependable and warm character and the two of them together are great. I loved the fun banter and the build up to Kamila realizing her feelings for Rohan. I also really enjoyed Kamila’s Bollywood parties. The story is set in Toronto and it was refreshing to read a book set in Canada. If you love romcoms make sure to check this one out.

This is a really cute story! Kamila Knows Best by Farah Heron is a modern-day retelling of Austen’s classic Emma. Kamila lives and works with her aging father. As his primary caretaker, his health is her number one concern, everything else comes second. As a result, Kamila spends most of her free time matchmaking her friends and living a life everyone expects her to live. But when her nemesis returns to town and with the potential of her best friend finding a love of his own, Kamila begins to examine what she really wants and needs.

I love Kam! She is such a fun character. She is loyal to a fault, a little flighty with above average smarts. I love how empathetic she is to everyone she meets. However her downfall comes in that she tries to fit everyone into a neat box within her own life. It doesn’t sit well with her family or friends, and eventually catches up to her.

Rohan is amazing. It’s easy to see from the reader perspective where his interests lie. I love his relationship with Kam. They compliment each other really well. But like her, he has a downside. I needed more of him 😉

This is a very slow burn type romance. So slow that I nearly gave up. Instead though I switched to audio (honestly I think this had more to do with my inability to focus than the book itself). I highly recommend the narrator. She is fantastic, kept my attention throughout, and I never had a problem figuring out which character was speaking.

Overall, I enjoyed Kamila Knows Best. The author stays true to the original themes in Emma giving it a modern flare and incorporating cultural differences, which I loved reading and looking up to learn for myself. If you are a fan of romance, I highly recommend this one.

I will never forget having to read Emma for my AP English class my senior year of high school. I despised Emma on every level. I despised it even more than Heart of Darkness.

Thankfully, I didn’t feel the same for this retelling of Emma. This was fun and entertaining and a refreshing friends to lovers trope.

Kamila Knows Best is a modern day retelling of Emma with a South Indian twist set in Toronto. It had me googling biryani recipes and wishing I had an invite to Kamila’s Bollywood nights. I’m convinced this author sets out to make us hungry with each of her books thanks to the descriptions of all the food. I loved the diverse supporting cast of friends that made appearances on Bollywood nights ( think dinner party with biryani and a Bollywood movie with friends).

If you are looking for a fun romance with the 3 F’s (family, friends, and food), then give this one a try.

It's... another Austen adaptation! I know, there are a lot of those out there these days. Overall, though, I really enjoyed what Kamila Knows Best did with the source material, including making itself different enough that you didn't feel like you were reading in the shadow of something else. The plot was slow going for me at times, but overall the romance was swoony and the pace picked right up in the second half without getting too melodramatic. Kamila's character also gave me a LOT to think about in terms of modern takes on Emma. 

Hands down the most successful part of this book for me was the romance between Kamila and Rohan. Literal lifelong friends-to-lovers is not easy to pull off, because the reader has to believe that these two people have been Just Good Friends for all of their lives, but that somehow - coincidentally right around the time you opened the book - that starts to change. I think Heron pulls this off to *perfection.* From the first scene with Rohan and Kamila on-page together, there's an absurd amount of energy between them - an energy that is constantly dancing back and forth between platonic teasing and flirtation. It helps that Kamila has such a fizzy, flirty personality, so it's pretty easy to buy that both she and Rohan would write off their chemistry as nothing more than a side effect of that part of her personality. But as a reader, you can just feel the difference when she's with Rohan. 

Also, my word Rohan is a swoony romance hero. Buttoned up and greying at the temples and so serious about the people he loves, but not afraid to slap on a polka-dot apron and help you prepare food for your Bollywood movie night. I enjoyed him immensely. 

In terms of being an Emma adaptation (and I'm going to get mildly spoilery throughout here), the biggest change this book makes is dialling back the non-consensual matchmaking quite a bit. Kamila does still love to set her friends up romantically, to mixed success. But while she can be a bit oblivious when her desired match isn't working out, she doesn't fly in the face of other people's personal autonomy in order to enforce her own agenda.

Instead, the book takes a really clever twist on the Emma vibe by interweaving Kamila's mild medding/interfering with a whole lot of people-pleasing. She hosts lavish Bollywood movie nights at her house that are all about catering to her guests. She's super social-media conscious, to the point that putting together posts for online approval often takes over her schedule. She says yes to EVERYTHING at work. She dresses in a very put-together, colorful, super-feminine aesthetic that seems calculated to please, but also immediately switches up her look when she thinks that "seriousness" is what's needed to impress a potential client. And the book is very invested (as Emma is) in recognizing these feminine-coded behaviors as skills, but also acknowledging that society doesn't always react to them as such. Kamila struggles a lot with not being taken seriously at work because of her "frivolous" feminine aesthetic - and throughout the novel we get to see how that aesthetic is both a burden and an integral part of who Kamila is.

The book also considers how the people-pleasing that underpins Kamila's aesthetic is ... both an act of love, and a sometimes-hurtful form of interference and estrangement from her true self. It's really, really complex and well-done. The low moment emerges organically from Rohan's inability to distinguish what Kamila really wants from what she's just doing to please others and ... it turns out that's actually quite fair, because Kamila also needs to learn to distinguish those things for herself, as well. Which is a journey I found super compelling.

I do think it's worth mentioning that lot of Kamila's people-pleasing tendencies come out of a pretty traumatic backstory with her mother: I felt that was given slightly short shrift by the plot. For something so integral to who she is, it's not given a lot of page time, and as a result the mother also kind of collapse into a one-dimensional female villain. At the same time, I can see how dwelling on parental emotional abuse would work against the otherwise upbeat vibe of the book. Plus, in terms of understanding how women can kind of... misunderstand and react poorly to each other in a patriarchal world, Kamila's relationship with her rival Jana is doing much more interesting work.

At its heart this is a book about desire, which means that Kamila's journey to owning who she wants to be and what she wants to do with her life - and that she wants Rohan romantically - all fit together in a satisfying whole. There's a lot of fascinating meditation here on gender socialization and the drive to be an aesthetically pleasurable, welcoming, entertaining people-pleaser. And how that can obscure -from both yourself and from others - what you really want. Overall, I enjoyed this a whole lot.

This one is a DNF for me. I couldn’t connect with the storyline and I really didn’t care about what was happening in the book.

I had a hard time connecting with these characters. I’m sure fans of Emma will love this retelling but it fell short for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the Arc!

I really enjoyed Farah Heron’s Accidentally Engaged & knew this would be just as good.

Does Kamila really know best? She leads a charmed life and is the source of wisdom for most of her friends. But she seems to ignore her own love life. Until she starts noticing Rohan in a different way. They’re both accountants who have been longtime family friends. It was so charming to watch their story unravel. This book wasn’t just a romance, it held depth. Kamila’s journey was bright and enjoyable.

An adorable rom-com anyone would enjoy! I had no idea it was based on Jane Austens Emma (although I haven’t read that yet). Love to see Heron continue to succeed!

I’ve been grouchy about the resurgence of Austen contemporary retellings (what is the point if you only have name similarities and allusions?!?), but I was impressed by KAMILA KNOWS BEST’s homage — and divergence — to the source material. The most important part of Emma (my favorite Austen) is that the titular character walks a thin line between self-absorbed and well-meaning, ultimately landing on the latter side. My main issue with Emma retellings is that the character lands on the wrong side, but Kamila balances that tightrope perfectly.

Thank you to NetGalley and ReadForeverPub for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I just love Farah Heron's writing! Her characters are so likable and this book is the perfect example - Kamila is a completely rootable heroine and Rohan is a swoon-worthy love interest. With great representation, Bollywood mentions and food talk that will have your stomach rumbling, this one is not to be missed.

I enjoyed the way the book kept the most familiar beats of Emma and the main character's personality, but changed it to keep it fresh and updated. I'm always happy when I have a Farah Heron book in my hands.

This was an adorable book. I was interested in it, at first, just because I have read the authors previous book (Accidentally Engaged) and loved it. After reading the synopsis, I REALLY wanted to read it.

This follows the story of Kamila - an independent and hard working woman who loves to throw Bollywood parties (with lots of Biryani), loves her dog (and volunteering for dog events), has a loving father (who struggles with mental health issues- love the rep!) and has an amazing circle of friends, including a man named Rohan who happens to be a long time friend of her family.

If you're a fan of slow burn and friends to lovers, this is definitely a book for you. Oh, and if you enjoy FOOD! I loved the food talk in this book. I LOVED the characters, including the side ones. But, I especially loved Kamila and Rohan. I immediately cared for both of them and loved the journey they went on - both separately and together.

Definitely recommend!
Thanks to Netgally and publisher for the chance to read and give my opinion!