Member Review
Review by
Adriana G, Reviewer
Simran Gopal left her aunt's house as soon as she could to escape what she sees as smothering adherence to outdated thinking. She cut off contact almost completely and let too much time pass to fix things easily. Now, she's been invited to her cousin's wedding and forced to go home if she hopes to have any relationship with the cousin who once felt like a sister. What she wasn't counting on was her new boyfriend, so-white golden retriever Leo Bridgers, to crash the wedding and set off a rom-com plot straight out of her favorite Bollywood movie.
I loved every single character and how individual Lakshmi mades the feel. You get a sense of each of them as real people with their own personality quirks and emotions. It makes it easy to fall in love right along with Leo and Simran, as well as laugh and rejoice with Simran's cousins as they get their own happy endings. It also makes the harder emotional moments hit just right. You get the full spectrum of emotion from a story that's straight out of a rom-com.
It's so well-written, and it made me like the characters so much that I managed to ignore that it's one of those stories where all the problems are due to people not communicating, which I usually hate. No one says what they feel or think at any moment, except for Leo, who's honestly too perfect. A couple of heartfelt conversations would have avoided everything. I do kind of get the feeling that a part of it is the culture because everyone except Leo keeps seeing everything as perfectly normal, so I'm also giving it the benefit of the doubt there, as I'm also an outsider.
The culture shock and jokes are also something that I greatly enjoyed. It pushes at the stereotypes and jokes about things, but you can tell that it's coming from a place of love and knowledge. It never feels mean-spirited. It's more like you'd joke about things in your culture that you're aware sound/look insane to outsiders but make perfect sense to you.
All that said, it's a sweet, heartfelt, and entertaining read that hooked me and got me to care for the characters and their stories from the get-go.
Delighted thanks to NetGalley and Pamela Dorman Books for the lovely read!
I loved every single character and how individual Lakshmi mades the feel. You get a sense of each of them as real people with their own personality quirks and emotions. It makes it easy to fall in love right along with Leo and Simran, as well as laugh and rejoice with Simran's cousins as they get their own happy endings. It also makes the harder emotional moments hit just right. You get the full spectrum of emotion from a story that's straight out of a rom-com.
It's so well-written, and it made me like the characters so much that I managed to ignore that it's one of those stories where all the problems are due to people not communicating, which I usually hate. No one says what they feel or think at any moment, except for Leo, who's honestly too perfect. A couple of heartfelt conversations would have avoided everything. I do kind of get the feeling that a part of it is the culture because everyone except Leo keeps seeing everything as perfectly normal, so I'm also giving it the benefit of the doubt there, as I'm also an outsider.
The culture shock and jokes are also something that I greatly enjoyed. It pushes at the stereotypes and jokes about things, but you can tell that it's coming from a place of love and knowledge. It never feels mean-spirited. It's more like you'd joke about things in your culture that you're aware sound/look insane to outsiders but make perfect sense to you.
All that said, it's a sweet, heartfelt, and entertaining read that hooked me and got me to care for the characters and their stories from the get-go.
Delighted thanks to NetGalley and Pamela Dorman Books for the lovely read!
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