Thank you to Netgalley, Inkyard Press, and Ms. Devarajan for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.

Frankly I think this book suffered for having been read immediately after Love, Theoretically. That being said, there were some positives: the cultural detail and representation were really well done. I particularly enjoyed the astrology parts as I know next to nothing about star charts etc. I can only assume that the family dynamics were authentic as those are foreign to me also. I really wanted to like this story for its rich cultural content but....

Madhuri and Arjun had about as much chemistry as two saltines adjacent to each other in the shrink-wrap package. They are *18*. Why is there so much emphasis on loving each other and being together forever? I got a STRONG familial vibe from them at the beginning, and I just had trouble buying into romance. Their dialogue (and in fact, the writing style in general) really felt like it lent itself more to an adult romance novel rather than a YA, except that their chaotic emotions and whiplash mood changes felt very teenage. Madhuri specifically was kind of unlikeable and I had difficulty relating to her; I felt sorry for Arjun. IDK. I just don't think this was the book for me, but YMMV. (Personally I thought Raina would be a better MC.)

3.5 Stars (rounded up)
One Liner: A decent debut; got its flaws but nails the rep.

Madhuri Iyer’s senior year is full of struggles, according to her mother. Her horoscope says it, after all. But Madhuri is determined to prove things wrong. She doesn’t believe in stars and birth charts, and there’s no way she would have her happy-ever-after with her first boyfriend.
Arjun Mehta is Madhuri’s best friend and neighbor. He believes in stars, love, and destiny and is pretty much the opposite of Madhuri. When she asks him to be her experimental boyfriend, Arjun knows he can’t say no, even if it hurts him.
However, as Madhuri realizes her feelings for Arjun, she has to decide if she’ll admit that horoscope predictions are true or ignore everything to stick to her opinions.
The story comes in the third person POV of Arjun and Madhuri in alternating chapters.

My Thoughts:
This review will have a different structure, as I have too much to say. Let’s get started with what I like.

• Racial Bullying and Culture
I love this book for one of the major themes it deals with- micro aggression and everyday racial bullying Indians (Hindus) face online and offline as immigrants. Things are hard for first and second-gen immigrants as they need to balance their culture and the society they live in.
Will you be proud of your culture, or hate it for being bullied? It’s time we stopped considering our culture as the reason for bullying and lay the blame on the right place, the bully with a superiority (& inferiority) complex.
While the book does good justice to the Indian-Hindu rep and racial bullying, it doesn’t explore the concepts in depth. Yeah, this book is for YA readers, but they are the ones who need to know how to assert themselves and stop being defensive every single time. Still, it establishes the trauma of being bullied for belonging to a different culture.
I love the bits about Bharatanatyam and Arangetram and how the traditional dance eventually helps the MC get back to her culture. A 14-year-old I know is giving her Arangetram this month in California, so I can only hope she continues to assert her cultural identity no matter what bullies say.

• Hindu Rep (I refuse to call it South Asian)
I’m always wary of books by NRI authors as they tend to fall into two categories- keyboard activism or OTT stereotyping. Both rely on establishing harmful tropes about the culture, religion, and people that feed bullies. Fortunately, this book belongs to the third category that presents a more balanced view.
Madhuri and Arjun show two ways of handling their identity in a foreign land. While Arjun decides not to care about others and be comfortable following his culture, Madhuri hates everything Indian/ Hindu because of the bullying.
Raina is at the next level, of course. She is super comfortable in her skin and flaunts her identity with pride. Iyer parents are typical first-gen immigrants but align more with their culture (though they want the American dream for their daughters).
The rep is easily the best part of the book. I hope the author continues to explore the impact of society and how kids learn to hate themselves and their identities because they would rather blend in with the rest.

• Subplots and Family Dynamics
This gives mixed results as there are elements worthy of discussion but not all of them are handled well. Arjun’s relationship with Iyer Aunty and her role as his substitute mother is wonderful. Their scenes together are easily the best in the book.
But Arjun’s relationship with his mother or the absence of his father (divorce) pales as we get only the surface-level treatment. Though we can see Arjun’s pain of not getting his mother’s love, we don’t really know what his mother thinks. She ends up more as a plot device than a parent (which kind of suits her role).
In quite a few places, the writing relies on an assumption that readers already know these issues so they’ll understand. While readers indeed understand the topics, they cannot form an emotional connection with the characters unless the situation is re-established in the right context. Arjun and his mother’s backstory needed more details to create an impact.

• Characterization
This is the weakest part of the book. The main characters are teens, and they do act like one. That’s expected. However, the reader needs to root for them. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to like Madhuri. Arjun is a sweetheart, probably a little too good, but at least it makes sense with his abandonment issues. He would rather settle for scraps of affection from Madhuri than demand everything, as he isn’t sure he is worthy of being loved.
TBH, I tried very hard to give Madhuri a benefit of doubt. But that girl is so mercurial (and not to mention self-centered) that I wanted to knock sense into her head multiple times. It gets difficult to support someone you don’t even like!
I feel the issue is with execution. The idea of Madhuri and what she turned out to be in the book don’t align. She is supposed to be a coconut (borrowed from a friend) with a hard exterior and a vulnerable heart. However, most of the time, she comes across as selfish and entitled. Things get worse in Arjun’s POV as some of his mentions of Madhuri’s behavior are outright toxic. Too many red flags here (wonder how the editor missed this something this vital), and I can’t wish for them to be together. While Madhuri redeems herself in the end, the damage is done.
However, Josie, Madhuri’s friend, is very well-etched. She’s the kind of friend one would want to have, especially when living in another country. Liam, Arjun’s friend, is good too, but there isn’t enough of him. Josie steals the show many times. This further affects Madhuri’s character arc and makes readers feel she doesn’t deserve Josie or Arjun.

• Romance and Tropes
The fake-dating trope is rather fun to read (when done well). Here, the foundation for the trope itself isn’t that great. Still, I wanted the romance to be more organic. It doesn’t matter if Arjun is already in love with Madhuri. The relationship can still process naturally. The whole ‘chemistry’ thingy doesn’t hit as it should. Awkward is fine as it suits the age group, but here it is wobbly and messy.
As someone who knows how hard it is to allow characters to romance each other on paper (and not try to control them), I can empathize with the author. That’s the reason I don’t write this genre.
Furthermore, the writing tends to be clunky, and the time jumps are hard to follow. Mine is an ARC, so I hope some of these issues will be corrected in the final copy. The STEM FMC rep is cool, though it could have been better.

To summarize, Kismat Connection is a decent debut that handles some themes well but doesn’t deliver its best. It should work better for the target age group (hopefully).
The author is young and has enough time to learn and strengthen her writing. I hope she works on it. Her plot is endearing and cute. The execution needs a lot more effort. (Am I being liberal with my ratings? Absolutely. It’s not often that the Indian rep in a book makes me happy.)

Thank you, NetGalley and Inkyard Press, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

i love madhuri and arjun so so much, this book made my desi heart so happy!!! i love ananya devarajans writing and i cannot wait to see what she comes up with next :)

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Kismat Connection is a sweet debut romance, and I love how it explores interesting cultural themes, with a dominant one being faith/mysticism vs practicality/science. I love how it leads into this interesting twist on “fake dating,” with Madhuri determined to break tradition and run an experiment to prove everyone wrong. Madhuri feels so realistic in her struggle to navigate her place within her family and culture, when she doesn’t necessarily buy into a lot of their beliefs, and I loved her journey to figuring out when it was worth it to rebel, and when to let fate take the wheel.
I loved her connection with Arjun, because they have known each other for years as friends. And it was so sweet that he was already in love with her, and she was the one who took time to really see how he felt, and realized she reciprocated (and maybe the prophecy wasn’t as ridiculous as she thought).
While the romance is the central arc of the book, I liked how the family dynamics shined through. Arjun is very much an honorary member of the Iyer family, and while Madhuri has her differences with the rest of her family, there’s generally positive vibes of love and acceptance between them.
I enjoyed this book, and look forward to what Ananya Devarajan writes next! If you’re looking for a sweet YA multicultural romance, I recommend checking this one out!

A huge thank you to #NetGalley and Inkyard Press for allowing me to read a digital ARC of Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan which will be published June 13, 2023. All opinions are my own.

Madhuri is determined to prove that her star chart is wrong and that fate doesn’t control her life. To do this, she decides to enter into an experimental relationship with the Arjun, her longtime best friend whose been in love with her since childhood. She chooses Arjun because she’s sure he’s the one person she could never fall for. She posits her hypothesis and lays out the parameters of the experiment, but there’s one variable she can’t account for, Arjun’s feelings.

This was a super cute and fun young adult contemporary romance. Fake dating is one of my favorite tropes. I’m not sure if it fully worked here as their fake relationship became a real relationship after one date…it just had an expiration date. I enjoyed the cultural aspects of the book and that there were multiple minor conflicts that spoke to themes related to being true to yourself and found families. The book is told from alternating perspectives (those of Madhuri and Arjun) which allows the reader more of a 360 degree perspective of the relationship and scenes. I would have enjoyed a little more character development though, especially for Arjun. He’s a great guy and I would have liked more of him and his backstory. Overall, it’s a fun story and, in my opinion, would be an okay YA book to include in a middle school library. There is some underage drinking, but it’s otherwise pretty clean.

#2023Reads #2023ReadingGoal #KismatConnection #AnanyaDevarajan #YA #YoungAdult #HighSchoolRead #YALit

I was really looking forward to this romance. Indian culture has always awed and fascinated me. I have read a number of them, and Kismat Connection was an interesting premise. Madhuri, a Type-A, brilliant high-school senior destined for Stanford, and Arjun, a jock and her best friend of 11 years, make a pact to challenge fate. She wants to prove that fate doesn't control her life, so she enters into an agreement with Arjun to "date" for the entirety of senior year. She wants to prove that her family's "curse"--that all the women on her mother's side end up spending forever with their first boyfriends--isn't real. She does this, of course, by roping in Arjun to be her "first boyfriend" so she can prove her family wrong. Unbeknownst to her, Arjun has been in love with her since they were kids.

I was prepared to love this book. Indian culture? Yes, please. Astrology and fated love? Sign me up. Family antics and drama? That's my jam. However, this book missed the mark. Let me say up front: the author is an incredible writer. Her prose is beautiful and realistic. That wasn't my issue with it, and I was impressed that Devarajan didn't fall into the mistake I see a lot of YA writers make--the wording is cliched and immature. That isn't the problem here. The author's tone is serious and smart. Here are the few things that made this YA romance hard for me to like, however:

1. The plot is sooo promising (see my comments above), but the execution isn't there. To me, there was so much material to work with, but the author never really fleshed anything out.

2. The tone was too serious. I understand that YA novels can be serious and not just rom-commie, but this plot didn't seem tailored for a YA book. In fact, I thought a number of times while reading this that I wish the author had used this plot to write a beautiful adult romance. Using older characters and love scenes in a friends-to-lovers romance with this serious plot would've made an excellent book.

3. The MCs, to me, seemed up and down. I suppose in a story about teenagers, that's to be expected, but there were so many mental conversations with themselves going in so many different direction that it got annoying at parts.

4. The absence and return of the MMC's mother was just dropped into the story. We aren't really given any background info about this, so hearing Arjun's thoughts about his mother and his feelings felt like they came out of nowhere.

One of my favorite things about Indian romances are the family dynamics, and I have to say, the author does a great job with what I assume (since I'm not Indian) is a very realistic portrait of modern Indian families and their problems. I did like the way the author integrated the whitewashing of Indian culture in America, with the desire and conflict to remain true to their cultural roots. Both MCs struggle with what it means to be an Indian teenager in American society.

Overall, this book had a great premise and character setup, but ultimately, I think that the author could have done way more with the plot and characters,, and in my opinion, it would've made a better adult romance.

**A big thank-you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for a copy of this book to read and review for an honest opinion**

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC of Kismat Connection.

What initially drew me in was the stunning cover. I love the way they're looking at each other, the color scheme, the framing - everything is beautiful. It's why I initially requested the book, followed closely by the actual premise.

Best friends to lovers? Check. Fake dating? Check. Learning more about Desi/Indian culture? Check and check.

Unfortunately, I ended up DNFing this book at 45%, which means I rated it as 1 star. For such an amazing concept, the execution was lackluster.

What I disliked: The pacing of this book was choppy, the exposition was inconsistent, and the narrative voice was weak. Sadly, Madhuri was not a likeable protagonist, and if that had been done intentionally, it would've been one thing. But we're meant to root for her in this story, and unfortunately, I didn't. She is repeatedly unkind to someone who is supposed to be her best friend, and fake boyfriend, and it's waved off as insignificant with a casual "she throws tantrums." Arjun is a cinnamon roll, but with very little character growth. Truthfully, there was no real character growth for either of our protagonists which made them feel two dimensional.

The relationship between Arjun and his mother is supposed to be a foil to Arjun’s relationship with Madhuri’s family, but it falls flat. His mother suddenly deciding she wants to be a part of his life after leaving him to fend for himself post divorce from his father lacked believability. What was the motivation for the change? It feels like it was plopped into the book with no thought.

What I liked: I loved the dynamic between Madhuri and her culture. She struggles with insecurities around being Desi, as some things that are currently trendy are the same ones she was bullied for when she was younger. The struggle to be an American teenager with Desi roots and a Desi teenage living in America was really interesting and I wanted more of that. I wanted to learn more about her culture through her eyes within the context of the story.

Overall this book just wasn't for me. I hated DNFing it, but ultimately it just needed a few more rounds of editing. I will definitely keep my eye out for this author's future work because I would love to give her another change. Thank you again to NetGalley for the eARC of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for the e-ARC to read and review. I think this is a 2.5 star for me. I had pretty high expectations for this story, because the description is really right up my alley. But unfortunately I just wasn't drawn into the story, the romance, or the characters' growth. I struggled, even early on, to really believe the depths of Arjun and Madhuri's friendship -- I just didn't feel the lifetime of connection between them, Arjun felt like more of a guy next door that Madhuri barely tolerated and was kind of mean to over the years. Their fake dating idea lasted mere moments, and any romance between them felt tedious to me, especially because they hadn't been established as either soul mate-level besties from the get-go, and sparks didn't fly in their fake dating either. I did really like Arjun's character, even the tough scenes with parental abandonment and hiding his accomplishments to make Madhuri feel better (which I actually was so mad about for him on his behalf, but could really relate to in the story.) I realize Ananya Devarajan is a young new author, and I am looking forward to seeing her future works. She has a lot to say and an engaging storytelling style, these characters just didn't particularly do it for me.

I'll be real, I don't think this book was right for me. I think other people might really enjoy this, but for some reason the characters, plot, writing style... pretty much all of it was rubbing me the wrong way.

I especially disliked Madhuri as a main character. As a proud south Indian, I really disliked her character arc. I am so tired of the conflict for characters of color being "I'm embarrassed about my culture." I was so excited to read this book because of the specifically south Indian rep, so when the south Indian character despises her culture it felt like a slap in the face. there are so many moments where Madhuri puts down her sister and mother for liking south Indian food, dance, beliefs, etc, that it felt really insulting as someone who also loves those things. that's a pet peeve of mine, so maybe other readers won't find it annoying, but I did.

On the other hand, I enjoyed Arjun as a character. I saw a lot of myself in him, and I kind of wish he was the sole POV for this book. I found his relationship with his mother very compelling, but since he shares half the book with Madhuri, the moments he had with his mother felt very rushed. i also just really hated how Madhuri treated him. She basically walks all over him for the majority of the book, and at the end, I was hoping they would break up for real and Arjun would realize he deserves someone better.

all in all, not a bad book, just one that I dislike. if you like unrequited love, dual POV, and characters struggling with their cultural identity, this might be the book for you.

Thank you to Inkyard Press and Netgalley for an eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

This should have been a pretty straightforward plot: two childhood friends, with families so close one takes care of the other's kid. Arjun has been in love with Madhuri forever, but Madhuri has lived through so much trauma thanks to their family origins, she's run from her culture and couldn't stand the idea of becoming the cliché who gets together with the only other brown kid from school. Until her horoscope predicts failure for her life. She allies with Arjun to prove her horoscope wrong and guarantee the future she's always given her everything for.

2+

We have an ownvoice story, with lots of elements of the Indian culture. I was in love with it all in the beginning, but I confess it lost me very quickly. Still, it's a very good discussion of the prejudice both Madhuri and Arjun need to face, even though each does it their own way. Madhuri's trauma about her dance, the coconut oil's smell, it was even painful to read. I may hope it didn't come from the author's own experience, but I'm sure even if she didn't go through it personally, thousands of kids do.

And we have a trope we all love—fake relationship. Though their agreement isn't that their relationship will be fake, it comes with the same excitement of sudden intimacy. Only... it wasn't exciting.

The problem with this book is that the style of writing is a mess. The English level, the grammar, it's all excellent, and yet, it's badly written like a beginner wrote it and then someone who is a good writer just went through it again and made the text more mature, leaving the development, the reaction of the characters, the scene progression at the level of a beginner's. Whenever I started to get into the story, something weird would happen. Some change of heart out of nowhere, some sudden fight, someone getting angry, or sad, or desperate from 0 to 100 in a second. Then, as we get closer to the end, a random dramatic event comes almost out of nowhere, and I still haven't figured out its function to the story. It's inconsistent and hard to get into thanks to that.

And it is a pity, because as I said, the author writes well, she has chosen interesting themes, but the execution was way lacking, unfortunately.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Madhuri Iyer's aunt reads the stars and has predicted how her life will be in her senior year of high school. However Madhuri strongly believes in free will and sets out to prove her aunt wrong. Her aunt has predictied a boyfriend so Maddy asks her best friend Arjun to act as a boyfriend so that she won't have to deal with the love problem and can focus on proving wrong all of the other predictions. What she doesn't know is that Arjun has been in love with her for a long time and to her despair, all the bad things her aunt predicted begin to happen. A sweet love story highly recommend for YAs. I was given an arc from Netgalley and was not pressured for a review.

Kismat Connection is a YA contemporary story devoted to exploring fate and influence. For Madhuri and Arjun they have fates in the works. Prophecies about their lives. Both of them see their fates differently, Arjun using it to guide him and reading into this future and who it might be. But for Madhuri, she's convinced to not let it have power over her leading her to this fake dating situation to defy her fate. But throughout this 'experiment' will Madhuri and Arjun learn more about fate than they thought?

Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan, 304 pages. Inkyard Press, 2023. $19. Centering me
Language: R (29 swears, 6 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: G
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
The stars hold our destinies—a fact that Arjun (17yo) finds comforting and Madhuri (17yo) finds confining. In order to prove that the stars are wrong and that Madhuri can, in fact, control her life, she asks Arjun to help her with The Kismat Experiment: they will agree to a beginning and ending date for a romantic relationship together. When their relationship ends, Madhuri will have broken the stars’ prediction—but if their relationship doesn’t end as planned, then Arjun will prove the stars right.
Devarajan showcases the beauty of Indian culture in the midst of the confusion and willful misunderstandings of being a young Indian-American. Our circumstances and the ways that others treat us are as malleable to us as are the stars, and, as with the predictions of the stars, we can shape our lives by deciding how we react. As Devarajan’s characters illustrate, it’s not always easy, but knowing that we have the power in our lives will make all the difference.
Arjun, Madhuri, and their families are Indian/Indian-American. The mature content rating is for underage drinking.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

This cover alone deserves four stars.

I loved the elements of destiny and Indian culture that were woven throughout this plot, which set the stage for a beautiful relationship to blossom. Unfortunately, the characters themselves held me back from loving this one fully. Arjun is a total sweetheart & deserves to be protected at all costs — but his character development felt a little static. I wanted more of him, not just as a person who would do anything for his best friend.

And Madhuri, phew — she had me pulling my hair out. She was kind of all over the place — strong-willed and independent and loves her family but also cowering and changing essential pieces of herself just because of a few mean girls at school. I could not figure her out — could also be because this was a YA book and she was a typical teenager filled with contradictions.

Madhuri’s sister and best friend were amazing supporting characters and sometimes stole the show, to be honest.

Overall, a sweet YA romance filled with yearning, tradition, and all kinds of love. It was cute and with a little more fine tuning of the main characters it would have been perfect.

This was a really interesting book full of cultural pieces that I haven’t seen much of in this genre. I have to say while fake dating is one of my favorite tropes I didn’t think it totally worked here. This book had two best friends, one with unrequited feelings and the other determined she could never have feelings for her best friend. Their fake relationship didn’t even last through their first date. Arjun was a good character and I felt for him, but I still wished he got a bit more development. I liked what we did get of his backstory. Madhuri was a bit more complicated of a character for me. She seemed a bit all over the place and not as well developed as she could be. Overall I thought the story was cute and I loved the part about the astrological mappings of destiny. It was something I didn’t know anything about and was so interesting to me. Overall I gave this one 3.5 stars rounded up for the fun experience of getting a glimpse of Indian culture.

dnf @ 14%

I didn't like the writing very much...I know I didn't read that much of this book but I can tell it's going to be a barely enjoyable read for me. I'm also not a fan of dual POV books, so I wish that had been made more clear in the summary.

This book opened up really well!

Immediately upon opening the book, we meet Arjun, our male main character, as he gets his astrological chart read. As he hears he’ll do good academically and gain the love of someone important to him, his mind immediately thinks of his childhood friend and crush, Madhuri.

And then we meet Madhuri, who gets her astrological chart read and learns she… isn’t going to have a good year. Academically, romantically, or otherwise, her dreams will constantly been squashed and she’ll struggle in the coming months.

Yikes.

As any normal teenage girl does, Madhuri decides the best thing to do is to create an experiment of sorts. You see, her family is “cursed” to always fall in love with the first person they date, and Madhuri thinks she can circumvent this curse by fake-dating her childhood best friend, Arjun.

Y’all already know where this is going.

Interestingly, this is where the description of the book ends, but I don’t think that’s what this book is really about. Because soon after we set up this fake-dating relationship, we start focusing on other problems.

Throughout a lot of this book, Arjun has to deal with his feelings on his mother, who isn’t in his life and leaves him home alone most of the time, instead traveling out-of-state for work. He struggles a lot with being desperate for love no matter how it comes to him and figuring out the sorts of relationships that deserve to stay in his life versus those he should cut loose.

Madhuri, on the other hand, struggles a lot in this book with the perceptions of her peers. She is constantly shamed for her culture and has gone as far as dropping hobbies she used to love because of the bullying. She must figure out throughout this book how to enjoy the life she loves without caring for people’s opinions.

Romance-wise, the book could have used a little more development. I think its very important for readers to fall in love with the characters as much as the characters fall in love with each other, and while I definitely cared for Arjun and his struggles, I didn’t care for Madhuri as much. While Arjun was very sweet and dedicated to Madhuri, she was often self-centered. I couldn’t see why Arjun had a crush on her, though I did eventually come to really enjoy her character development throughout this book and cheer her on closer to the end.

I also found it difficult throughout to tell how much time had passed between scenes. There were multiple parts of the book where I thought weeks had passed, only to find it had been only a couple of hours. Other times, a few days had passed while I thought we were still in the same day.

I really enjoyed the idea of this story and seeing these characters’ develop throughout, but I think it markets itself more as a romance than it really is, and that disconnect had me struggling for a while.

Kismat Connection follows Madhuri and Arjun, lifelong friends who enter into an experiment to prove that Madhuri can outwit fate. Family legend decrees that the first person Madhuri dates will be her lifelong partner. Madhuri is determined to use the scientific method to prove fate wrong. Enter Arjun, who has kept his feelings about Madhuri secret. After all, Madhuri’s family has given him a second home which he's afraid to lose. As their relationship progresses, Madhuri and Arjun grow closer than ever before. What happens when the experiment is over?

Kismat Connection is full of classic fake dating tropes which readers will love. I love how Madhuri and Arjun both had such a deep connection to their culture, especially Arjun. I enjoyed that while it takes Madhuri some time to regain her connection to her culture after a severe bullying incident, Arjun and her friends help her regain her confidence. Kismat Connection is a warm, sweet romance with intricate characters. Fans of the tv show Never Have I Ever will love this book!! Readers who enjoy The Love Match (Priyanka Taslim), To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (Jenny Han), and Boys I Know (Anna Garcia) definitely need to check this book out.

Thank you to Ananya Devarajan, Inkyard Press, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc

Kismat Connection is such a sweet, confidently-told, well-paced book, and you could be forgiven for not realising it is Anaya Devarajan’s début novel. It’s a fun fake-dating romance in which two teenagers try to escape the karma that threatens to haunt their futures for all eternity.

Madhuri Iyer is doubly-doomed. Her mother informs her that she’s astrologically done for, and her senior year will be a disaster. She’s also living under the burden of a family ‘curse’ which dooms her to fall into true love with her first boyfriend. Madhuri thinks this is ridiculous, and she’s determined to have a good time during her last year of high school. To escape the family’s curse, she decides to date someone she has no actual romantic interest in, so she can head to college a free person in control of her own destiny.

She enlists Arjun Mehta, her childhood best friend who she would never (not ever!) have feelings for, to pretend to be her boyfriend. The goal is to get that ‘first boyfriend’ label out of the way and break up at the end of senior year, leaving her free to determine her adult dating destiny. Arjun agrees (mostly because he’s had a huge crush on Madhuri for years), and the twosome proceed to enter their senior year together, swearing they’re dating and all the while insisting romance will never happen. Unfortunately, fake relationships beget real feelings, but can Madhuri overcome her stubbornness and admit she really has found true love?

Kismat Connection is very tropey and very cute. Arjun is a kind prince charming, smart and kind, and Madhuri is self-possessed and driven. That means she’s hard-headed when it comes to the arrival of true love, but her behavior is understandable. Madhuri’s attempt to figure herself out as a young Indian-American woman is touching and sweet. Madhuri’s mom is astrology-mad, which results in Madhuri feeling like every inch of her life has been destined by the stars and there’s no room for her to make choices of her own. Who wouldn’t rebel against such circumstances? But her family are also wonderful, quirky people whose adventures are fun as heck to track. I loved Raina, Madhuri’s sister, in particular.

The book is a sweet, simple story about first love that definitely leaves the reader happy and yearning for more. Devarajan’s prose is supple and easy to sink into. Kismat Connection will make any teen happy, and it will please adult readers as well.

I DNF’d this book around 25%. I enjoyed the writing style a lot and it was very easy to read, but there were SO MANY plot holes and confusing points. I honestly don’t know how this isn’t a much earlier draft.