Hello everyone!
The story follows two teenaged Indian-Americans, Dimple and Rishi. Dimple lives and breathes computer coding, it's her dream. So when her parents allow her to go to Insomnia Con, the 6-week summer program where you compete to design an app, Dimple cannot wait! Rishi is more of a hopeless romantic. He's always looked up to his own parents' fairy tale romance. When his parents suggest he attend the Con to meet Dimple and see if a marriage match is viable, Rishi agrees. Following an awkward first meeting, Dimple and Rishi are partnered up for the project and have to spend the rest of the program working together.
First of all, I loved how diverse this book was. Dimple and Rishi both talked about their Indian and Hindu home life and traditions and they helped give an insight into a life that is different from my own. I had actually taken an Intro to the Hindu Tradition course at my university last semester so I was able to get a bunch of the references to Hindu culture. I would also imagine that for Hindu readers, this book would be a lot of fun to read, especially with so many non-Christian references. For example, Rishi makes it a point to say "Oh my gods" instead of "Oh my God." He explains that he does so that people will ask him questions about his religion, to start a conversation. And I think that is exactly what this book is doing - starting a conversation and looking at some of the reasons as to why Christianity has become the default. Now obviously, this is a romantic comedy, so things don't get too serious, but it was nice to have a real world issue as the conflict, not the typical rom-com drama.
I really loved Dimple's character. She knew exactly what she wanted and she wasn't going to be persuaded otherwise. She was a bit hard headed at times, but I really appreciated that about her character. She didn't see Rishi and instantly fall in love. He had to work for her affections, she didn't hand them out freely. Dimple also talks a lot about feminism and misogyny throughout the book. It's something I think a lot of people tend to shy away from discussing, but I think it was an important part of her character and is extremely relevant today.
I didn't love Rishi as much. He was still a great guy and a well-rounded character, but I think he had some issues that just made me connect with Dimple more. It's always interesting when we get the stereotypical gender norms flipped, the guy being the hopeless romantic and the girl being harder to persuade. I definitely liked seeing it though, and I think Menon did a really good job of showing his character and all his flaws.
I think the thing I loved most about this book was the conflict. If you've read any number of romance novels, you know there is always the conflict that breaks the couple up before they live happily ever after. Anyway, I could feel it coming in this book, but I was nervous to see how Menon would handle it. I won't spoil anything, but I will say that the conflict she chose was brilliant. It struck a chord with Dimple's inner character, the person she always said she wanted or didn't want to be. I think it was perfect because Dimple was being true to herself.
Menon did a great job of writing this book, I loved how we saw the whole relationship over the course of the book. There was never any waiting around for things to happen, they happened.
Overall, I highly recommend this one!