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latinavirgoreads's review against another edition
4.0
One of my favorite parts about reading romance (specifically poc romance books) is getting to experience new cultures through the book. I adored this book and it’s characters. As a woman from an immigrant household I found myself related a lot to Kareenas familial issues. I also really enjoyed the smut and Taylor Swift references. Nisha Sharma’s writing is so refreshing and lovely.
readingelli's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
brisingr's review against another edition
4.0
Did I just read this in a frenzy in 4 hours after work, next morning be damned? Yes, because NOTHING stands between me and my obsession and adoration for 1) The Taming of the Shrew, my favourite Shakespeare play and 2) retellings.
This had everything I could have possibly wanted from such a premise: meddling, annoying family; a vulnerable female character filled with love to feel and offer, a cocky protagonist with dick jokes and the tension between them. The added comments on female/male ageism and expectations, and the South Asian representation and details were just the cherry on the top of an extremely fun book!
This had everything I could have possibly wanted from such a premise: meddling, annoying family; a vulnerable female character filled with love to feel and offer, a cocky protagonist with dick jokes and the tension between them. The added comments on female/male ageism and expectations, and the South Asian representation and details were just the cherry on the top of an extremely fun book!
unboundmelissa's review against another edition
4.0
I really really really liked this book. There were so many great things about this that I don't even know how/where to begin. I'm marking it here only for spoilers, though TBH I'm not sure that I'm really spoiling anything, but to be safe tread lightly if you don't want them.
First, you get this wonderful submersion in Indian (South Asian)-American culture and family life. As someone who knows/knew next to nothing about it, it was beyond interesting to dive into a world that was so richly detailed: the clothes, the food, the unique words/jargon, and, more central to the main story, the cultural stereotypes and expectations, the inherent old school, patriarchal, slightly misogynistic beliefs that are still ever present in the modern community of characters that fill this book.
The FMC, Kareena, is the oldest daughter of a first-generation immigrant family, who had a love-marriage vs an arranged marriage, which is more culturally typical. She wants to marry for love, like her parents did, and she believes that true-love and her soul-mate are out there waiting to be found. I love this, because it's also my view on love. The topic is central to the story and it comes up several times about how she loves reading romances, and how her own expectations of what that looks like, how it's experienced, and the reality of how it's lived are maybe flawed/unrealistic. But, I think that's what is so brilliant about the author, Nisha Sharma's, writing, because the great thing about romance books, or books with a love story, isn't that they're fictional, or that it's a dream, it's the belief that love like that really exists. It's out there in the world, and it exists, can and should exist for everyone. It's not just a dream or fairy-tale, and it's a discourse I could get lost in for hours, and maybe it's my nerdy side, but I feel like Sharma was able to capture that sentiment so well.
On the flip side is, of course, our MMC, Prem aka Dr Dil, who believes that love is an illusion that does not sustain relationships, but that compatibility and partnership do, and what people really want when they say they want love, is connection. I found his take so interesting, because his thoughts come from a deeply ingrained belief that saying "I love you" means very little. Given how common it is, I think, especially in modern dating, to say those words when one doesn't necessarily mean them, and I mean really truly mean them, was just so poignant. I think the "L" word is sometimes thrown around too casually or easily, and people forget how hard it is, and how much work being in love really can be. It's the hard days, the sickness, the poor days, the struggles that show how much you love someone, and short of waxing poetic on this, which I think I could, for hours, Prem's character and this book captures that so well. The way he was raised, and the way love was expressed in his home and throughout his life so affected his understanding of love, it's meaning, and puts a sort of worth on the word that even in his ultra educated mind (he's a cardiologist), he doesn't really fully understand or equate to the actual emotion behind it. I am going on way too much on this, especially for a simple review, but I liked this part of it so much and (spoiler..?) especially since it is so clear that he loved his former fiancee, and that he's fallen head over heals for Kareena (at first sight, TBH), he just did not have the words to express the emotions that he was feeling. And yeah, there's some real douche parts to him, he's a young, hot, doctor, who also has a hit talk show on tv, of course he's a douche; cultures aside, any young hot guy in that same position would also be kind of a douche. But his actual character comes through in the way he is with his friends, and in the way he listens to everything Kareena tells him, and he REMEMBERS it all, and the way he's so eager not to lose her. He's a good guy, even though he's kind of in a perfect position to not be a good guy (see again: hot, young, doctor). The only thing that kept/is keeping me from giving this five stars is that I wanted a longer conversation/"come to Jesus" moment when he realizes he's been a douche. I liked it, it was good, but I wanted more. I wanted his mother smacking him upside his head just a little bit longer and harder . I wanted a longer, more drawn out conversation with Kareena once they make up and officially get together. But maybe that's also part of the brilliance of Sharma's writing, because you see it in as much as what isn't said, as what is.
I also want to share how much I loved that he stands up for his woman to her family! WOO HOO!!!! So many romances that I've read have the family being kind of jerks/overly harsh/mean/pushy with life expectations on the MC and their never held accountable, (I'm looking at you the Love Con), and while yes, family relationships can be extremely toxic, most often they're not to the degree depicted in romance books (which isn't the realistic toxic, but an overly exaggerated toxic to showcase drama; at least in romances I've read; I know they exist, it's just not what I'm reading. I don't want real life drama that's going to make me cry.), but this family dynamic felt so real. Their break-up moment is followed with Prem telling off her family for all the ways they do Kareena wrong, and it felt so relieving, justified, absolutely excellent to have that happen. And even through all the ways that her family was awful to her, (her sister is a spoiled brat who takes advantage, her father & grandmother hold Kareena to higher/unrealistic expectations, and she's generally walked on & her opinion is disregarded), it's still clear that they love her, and for the most part are coming from a place of love, wanting to protect her, and wanting the best for her (even though some of what they want/expect from her is that old world, patriarchal expectation of what a young woman should do & want for her life vs just being happy for her that she's doing what she wants for her own life).
I think this is the longest review I've ever written, LOl, but all this is to say I highly recommend this book. I can't wait to read the next story in the series, and I'm really hoping it opens with or at least has Kareena & Prem's wedding with the next MC's in attendance.
And to the author, Nisha, not that you'll ever likely read this because you probably don't & shouldn't read the stupid stuff people put out there on the inter-webs, but I would absolutely read/buy any essay's/non-fictional writing you put out there on the cultural stereotypes of love, and what it all means. I think your story touched on it so well and it was such a really lovely read.
First, you get this wonderful submersion in Indian (South Asian)-American culture and family life. As someone who knows/knew next to nothing about it, it was beyond interesting to dive into a world that was so richly detailed: the clothes, the food, the unique words/jargon, and, more central to the main story, the cultural stereotypes and expectations, the inherent old school, patriarchal, slightly misogynistic beliefs that are still ever present in the modern community of characters that fill this book.
The FMC, Kareena, is the oldest daughter of a first-generation immigrant family, who had a love-marriage vs an arranged marriage, which is more culturally typical. She wants to marry for love, like her parents did, and she believes that true-love and her soul-mate are out there waiting to be found. I love this, because it's also my view on love. The topic is central to the story and it comes up several times about how she loves reading romances, and how her own expectations of what that looks like, how it's experienced, and the reality of how it's lived are maybe flawed/unrealistic. But, I think that's what is so brilliant about the author, Nisha Sharma's, writing, because the great thing about romance books, or books with a love story, isn't that they're fictional, or that it's a dream, it's the belief that love like that really exists. It's out there in the world, and it exists, can and should exist for everyone. It's not just a dream or fairy-tale, and it's a discourse I could get lost in for hours, and maybe it's my nerdy side, but I feel like Sharma was able to capture that sentiment so well.
On the flip side is, of course, our MMC, Prem aka Dr Dil, who believes that love is an illusion that does not sustain relationships, but that compatibility and partnership do, and what people really want when they say they want love, is connection. I found his take so interesting, because his thoughts come from a deeply ingrained belief that saying "I love you" means very little. Given how common it is, I think, especially in modern dating, to say those words when one doesn't necessarily mean them, and I mean really truly mean them, was just so poignant. I think the "L" word is sometimes thrown around too casually or easily, and people forget how hard it is, and how much work being in love really can be. It's the hard days, the sickness, the poor days, the struggles that show how much you love someone, and short of waxing poetic on this, which I think I could, for hours, Prem's character and this book captures that so well. The way he was raised, and the way love was expressed in his home and throughout his life so affected his understanding of love, it's meaning, and puts a sort of worth on the word that even in his ultra educated mind (he's a cardiologist), he doesn't really fully understand or equate to the actual emotion behind it. I am going on way too much on this, especially for a simple review, but I liked this part of it so much and (spoiler..?) especially since it is so clear that he loved his former fiancee, and that he's fallen head over heals for Kareena (at first sight, TBH), he just did not have the words to express the emotions that he was feeling. And yeah, there's some real douche parts to him, he's a young, hot, doctor, who also has a hit talk show on tv, of course he's a douche; cultures aside, any young hot guy in that same position would also be kind of a douche. But his actual character comes through in the way he is with his friends, and in the way he listens to everything Kareena tells him, and he REMEMBERS it all, and the way he's so eager not to lose her. He's a good guy, even though he's kind of in a perfect position to not be a good guy (see again: hot, young, doctor). The only thing that kept/is keeping me from giving this five stars is that I wanted a longer conversation/"come to Jesus" moment when he realizes he's been a douche. I liked it, it was good, but I wanted more. I wanted his mother smacking him upside his head just a little bit longer and harder . I wanted a longer, more drawn out conversation with Kareena once they make up and officially get together. But maybe that's also part of the brilliance of Sharma's writing, because you see it in as much as what isn't said, as what is.
I also want to share how much I loved that he stands up for his woman to her family! WOO HOO!!!! So many romances that I've read have the family being kind of jerks/overly harsh/mean/pushy with life expectations on the MC and their never held accountable, (I'm looking at you the Love Con), and while yes, family relationships can be extremely toxic, most often they're not to the degree depicted in romance books (which isn't the realistic toxic, but an overly exaggerated toxic to showcase drama; at least in romances I've read; I know they exist, it's just not what I'm reading. I don't want real life drama that's going to make me cry.), but this family dynamic felt so real. Their break-up moment is followed with Prem telling off her family for all the ways they do Kareena wrong, and it felt so relieving, justified, absolutely excellent to have that happen. And even through all the ways that her family was awful to her, (her sister is a spoiled brat who takes advantage, her father & grandmother hold Kareena to higher/unrealistic expectations, and she's generally walked on & her opinion is disregarded), it's still clear that they love her, and for the most part are coming from a place of love, wanting to protect her, and wanting the best for her (even though some of what they want/expect from her is that old world, patriarchal expectation of what a young woman should do & want for her life vs just being happy for her that she's doing what she wants for her own life).
I think this is the longest review I've ever written, LOl, but all this is to say I highly recommend this book. I can't wait to read the next story in the series, and I'm really hoping it opens with or at least has Kareena & Prem's wedding with the next MC's in attendance.
And to the author, Nisha, not that you'll ever likely read this because you probably don't & shouldn't read the stupid stuff people put out there on the inter-webs, but I would absolutely read/buy any essay's/non-fictional writing you put out there on the cultural stereotypes of love, and what it all means. I think your story touched on it so well and it was such a really lovely read.
cacaobean's review against another edition
3.0
Every time I think of Dr. Dil I can’t help but thinking about dill pickles
emily171's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
claysjenna's review against another edition
4.0
I really loved this book.
The aunties.
The banter.
Prem.
Loved
The aunties.
The banter.
Prem.
Loved