This was a really great book and I love the fact that she is trying new things and also finding herself while finding love. I really love the twist!

Sari, Not Sari by Sonya Singh is more than just a romance novel; it is also about how one’s cultural identity or lack of can threaten our whole identity.

Manny Dogma is a self-made CEO of a highly successful company, The Breakup. Her company helps people manage their relationship breakups. While navigating through her business, she is also planning her wedding while dealing with the loss of her parents. Because of an incidence of “white washing” in a magazine cover, Manny tries to reconnect to her South Asian heritage. Enter, Sammy Patel.

Sammy Patel approaches Manny Dogma as a client to pretend to be his date to his brother’s “Indian” wedding. In exchange for being his date, Manny asks Sammy to give her a crash coarse in being more familiar of her Indian heritage.

Through a whirlwind week of wedding events and preparations, Manny falls in love with the Patel family and discovers more than what she expected.

Sari, Not Sari is a delightful read and definitely highly recommend to romantic comedy lovers, family, and culture.

DNF @ 50%

Thank you to netgalley and simon & schuster for providing me with an arc!

This book was filled with such poor South Asian, stereotypical representation that I could not, despite over a year of attempting to read it, could finish it.

This book was unfortunately a huge disappointment to me - and I had been looking forward to it prior to publication.

I really wanted to like this story especially from the point of a view of a woman disconnected from her culture and ethnicity, but it didn't draw me in that much.

I really enjoyed this story of finding what you value, discovering your identity, and realizing your self-worth paired with Bollywood dancing as well as Indian traditions and wedding customs. What a celebration of Indian culture!

I wouldn't have minded if the romance wasn't such a secondary storyline. I enjoyed watching Manny and Sammy get to know each other and realizing they had feelings for each other. Sari, Not Sari is definitely women's fiction with a romance element.

Sari, Not Sari was the perfect light, fun, quick read.

Unrealized potential is probably the best description I can give this book and I wish I had better things to say.

The rep was great but the relationship felt rushed. Had it been developed a tad earlier on it may have convinced me more but befit felt delayed I want into it by the time it happened.

A great read with fun, relatable characters! I found myself laughing throughout this one and never wanted it to end.

This was a cute read, but I didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it either! Ending felt rushed, and I didn’t connect with the characters love story.

Sari, Not Sari centers on Manny, the CEO of a company that specializes in handling breakups for other people. When her success lands her on the cover of a magazine she's shocked to see her picture whitewashed into someone she doesn't recognize. She takes it into her own hands to reconnect with her heritage by taking on a new client, Sammy Patel, in exchange for his expertise on how to be Indian. Manny soon realizes there's a lot to learn not only about her culture but also about Sammy himself.

Sari, Not Sari unfortunately did not work for me (sorry, not sorry?) Sonya Singh plays Manny as a fish-out-of-water so straight it was almost irritating reading her fumble to learn the basics here. In turn, her relationship with Sammy suffered because there was not enough room to focus on building a romantic relationship while she was busy with her How to Be Indian lessons (and this is without even getting into how flawed a concept that is). Singh's writing was very readable but I just could not connect with the characters here at all unfortunately.

This was a well written book, but the plot seemed forced and didn't flow well. The romance wasn't felt between the characters. There were a lot of weird conflicts and characters weren't fleshed out well. Many characters also felt stereotypical, which was disappointing because I wanted this to be a diverse read with fresh and realistic depictions.

While I loved the insight into Indian culture and the theme of Manny finding her true self, this book felt a bit choppy to me.

Enjoyable read. I liked the characters and the story. Definitely had some funny elements and looking forward to more from the author.

It was nice reading a romance with an Indian-American female CEO, but there were still some elements of it that made me give the book a sidelong glance. Manny grew up extremely Americanized, never attending large family events like weddings of members of her Indian-American community, and not knowing much about the customs and traditions of her parents birthplace. When she is invited to join as the fake date of a man she barely knows to his sister's wedding, she is in for the shock of her life.

Here is where I side-eyed the book - how does she not know that she can't wear shorts to the wedding? How does she not Google what to wear? There are so many times in the book that I just wish she would have used the internet. The thing that her company runs on. The book also assumes that Indian wedding customs are all the same no matter where in India your family comes from, when even I a white girl from suburbia knows that is far from the case. Granted, I might be more educated than a regular reader having read a number of books by Indian-American and Indian authors - taking place in India and the US. On one hand, I sort of understand it as opening the door for the main character Manny to delve deeper. Its sort of like she has to learn how little she knows. On the other hand, it is just ridiculous! Manny's fiancé also drove me nuts, but I won't go into why (due to spoilers). Why she put up with him for so long I just don't know! Same as why she puts up with the inappropriate comments by her supposed best friend Rob.

The romance also happens very quickly, though that's more common with the fake dating trope. I really enjoyed the breakup emails scattered throughout the book, they were pretty fun. I liked the idea of a company you can hire to write the break up email for you is pretty funny, especially when its such a successful company. The book was funny and enjoyable enough, but I didn't love it. It was just okay which is why I'm giving it three stars. I will still look forward to reading something else from the author, and giving her a chance. Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced reading copy!

Love this - cute and laugh-out-loud funny for the whole book. The type of fun and light read you want to bring with you on vacation and then never put down.

very cute with amazing south asian rep - and im saying that as a brown woman myself! the romance just felt a little rushed at times, but I only read rom coms once in a while, and this delivered on the HEA, fun cuteness that I needed!

I thought it was a very unique story, Unfortunately, I didn't find much chemistry between the characters. It was fun but predictable after about halfway through. Not only that, but I thought that the story very poorly portrayed the community which is very unfair to the audiences who were looking forward to relating to this book.

This book had a cute concept and I enjoyed the girl power concept (and Breakup, the company Manny owns is fascinating in theory) but a few things about the storyline were difficult to believe & the grand reveal at the end fell a bit flat for me. The writing felt a bit juvenile at times but the story did move quickly and some of the characters were really fun. Overall, I'm not disappointed I read it, but it wouldn't be the first I'd recommend in this genre.

There were a few parts of this that I really enjoyed but unfortunately the negatives outweighed my positive thoughts here.

The ending was way too rushed and the relationship just didn't make sense to me.

This is a love story about falling in love with your culture, showing how traditions are both a blessing and a curse and loving yourself as you love someone else.

I love romances that are complete romances and others like this, which have so many levels and are just so human. I also loved that she never back downed from her Ex when he revealed how much of a snake he is.

Sari, Not Sari by Sonya Singh

Sari, Not Sari by Sonya Singh was just what I needed: a fun, funny and fabulous kissing book. In this meet-cute, Manni doesn’t know much about her Indian roots. In fact, her parents had her focus mainly on achieving all the success she deserves as an American. They had seemed to leave all of India in the past and so had she. But then her business Break Up (a business that helps couples break up and move on) starts soaring. Manni gets a tremendous opportunity for a front cover in a famous magazine.

While Manni should be over the moon, her cover page was white washed! Her Fiance,who seems to never be around, doesn’t seem the problem with it. Suddenly, Manni longs to feel connected with being Indian. And the perfect opportunity rolls in with Sammi. Sammi wants a temporary break-up with his white girlfriend because he can’t bring her to his brother’s wedding. Manni and Sammi strike a deal. He teaches her how to be Indian and she gets him his break.

To be clear, I don’t believe in self-made rich CEOs or bosses that everyone loves. And I definitely do not believe in the American Dream. But for this book, I let go of my bitterness, and enjoyed Manni’s character arch. BreakUp is this fast-growing multimillion company. Manni is a great boss whose team loves her. The author crushes the self-made myth with a cast of best friends/co-workers such as Rob (CFO) and Anaji (badass in everything). And there is good diversity in the book with queer characters.

Besides, my dislike of “Rich people” I loved the creativity of the plot. A breakup business is a fascinating idea to use for a fake-dating trope. I also loved that there was a little of hate to love. The perfect combination of snark without being too cruel and, therefore, an unbelievable love story.

The novel has a taste of bollywood/Indian soap opera, which is awesome because I was turning the page late a night because of the drama. Yet, there was never too much drama or nothing unforgiveable. Singh does enough conflict to keep the story interesting, but the connection between Manni and Sammi is the real treat. Sammi’s family is quite entertaining. If you ever wanted to be a part of a weird bid family. You are going to enjoy this story.

One downside was the reader got to see very little of the brother’s wedding. I wanted a more bollywood wedding. But we get some showmanship at the end.
Also, while most rom-coms have parts that are cheesy, I did eye roll a few times at the cheese levels.. Mainly; the romance seemed too quick. But whatever, not the greatest sin in romance.

I love the friend characters and I am hoping this will be a series. I am giving it a 4.5 out of 5 stars for being a fun romance with a message about diversity. There were a few issues with the romance feeling rushed, but that is not uncommon for this genre.
I recommended this for people interested in an adult, clean (no sex scenes, sorry), fabulous Indian (can’t be someone who doesn’t see color) romance comedy.