Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Kamila Knows Best

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Kamila Knows Best by Farah Heron

7 reviews

helenareadsbooks's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

4.5

Kamila Knows Best is the first book I’ve read by Farah Heron and I loved it! It’s a delightful and funny contemporary romance but it’s also so much more. This book is a nuanced character study that explores the factors that make us who we are, with a focus on the societal and parental pressures and expectations put on South Asian daughters. It’s also about finding people who see you for who you truly are and how the expectations other people place on you can cloud your own sense of self. Kamila is such a loving character with amazing friends, and it touched my heart to read about a group of people who are so compassionate and caring with each other. Rohan, the love interest, is the best and his chemistry with Kamila kept me smiling and laughing.

This book also features queer relationships and mental health discussions, which made it even better. Pick this up for a lighthearted book with wonderful friendships, intriguing drama, a loving central romance, and of course, cute dogs.

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beccaruthe's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted relaxing tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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cayleyreads's review

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funny lighthearted medium-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

2.5

Kamila loves hosting Bollywood parties, volunteering for the local dog shelter, supporting her small business accounting clients and setting her friends up. She loves being the fabulous friend that everyone wants around, including her longtime family friend, Rohan. He's her dog's favourite person and a buttoned up executive in Toronto, but she starts to see him as more than that, and then the hijinx of Farah Heron's writing begins!

I love when dogs are part of the main focus of a book and the puppy prom and Potato were amazing storylines. I also really enjoyed reading about the side characters in this one - Kamila's dad was cute and her friends were fun. I think there could've been a little more character development, but they all helped move the story along.

The second half's character arcs made me enjoy the book and I'm definitely glad I stuck around. I'm rating this one 3 stars as the book got off to a rough start. I didn't connect with Kamila and didn't see her and Rohan, though I think that was in part because the retelling of Emma was a bit forced. I needed a bit more room to breathe for the characters. Towards the back half of the book, I ended up loving them together and their love confession was drool worthy.

Thank you Grand Central Pub for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

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nitya's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Confession: I have yet to read Austen's Emma but I really enjoyed this desi retelling!!!

If you're into any, or all of the following:

- Bollywood mentions/flailing
- (best) friends to lovers romance with mutual pining!!!!
- Brown women solidarity
- puppies and finance talk (not me but I still liked the book)
- LGBTQ+ representation
- flirty and adorable banter
- lots of delicious food descriptions
- Canada (specifically Toronto) setting

Then you should read this. GO. NOW.

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susanknights's review

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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allisonwonderlandreads's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is one of those special romances that gives you the coveted happily ever after feeling while also staying true to the challenges of life with humor and poise. It's aspirational in that it shows a relationship built on communication, maturity, and a fair bit of teasing, and also in that it shows a woman coming to terms with her career goals, rethinking her judgments of other people (good and bad), and confronting her socialization and trauma that lead her towards people-pleasing. It peels back the veneer of girl power to look at how feminine presentation is mocked and belittled in a professional setting, how skills like event planning are both treated as necessary and even assumed for women while their importance and impactfulness are simultaneously minimized.

Kamila's story is an Emma retelling, an Austen work I have yet to read, but my experience with film adaptations gives me the (limited) authority to say that Kamila's meddling and social managing ring true to the original. She loves matchmaking, planning parties, running her dog's very stylish TikTok, and volunteering with the animal shelter. She's also the first to step up to support her friends and her Dad, and she's passionate about supporting women-led small businesses as an accountant. Kamila contains multitudes, and this is an example of single POV romance done well. Being so familiar with her mind helped me have compassion when she made a bad decision and made me all the more impressed by her fits and starts of ultimately profound personal growth. I found her not only admirable but likable, and the entire cast of supporting characters gave me warm, fuzzy feelings from her family to her friends to her secret nemesis.

In terms of the romance, Rohan is a dreamy love interest because he is supportive with no strings attached, learns from his mistakes, and is neither pushy nor a pushover. He challenges Kamila but respectfully and with love. While the romance wasn't always front and center with other moving pieces of the story, it always shone through. First, "accidentally falling asleep on someone's chest" is a god tier trope for me so 10/10. Purely because of this book, I have also decided to add to the list of best tropes "two people who always dress to impress becoming comfortable being a mess in front of each other." And it's not a trope, but intense attraction to forearms is something I can get behind. It's friends-to-lovers done right with layers upon layers.

This romance has it all. It covers issues with an intersectional view, covering disparate topics from mental health to race to family expectations. It's nuanced without derailing the story with a thesis, thoughtful while retaining a signature sense of humor I found irresistible. All the relationships show progress, and the enviable strength of Kamila's bonds with others don't smack of unrealistic perfection. Honestly, I can't recommend it more. Thanks to Forever for my copy to read and review. I'll 100% be seeking out more from this author in the future.

Content Warnings

markedwithanm's review

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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