Sari, Not Sari by Sonya Singh

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This delightful debut rom-com follows the adventures of a woman trying to connect with her South Asian roots and introduces readers to a memorable cast of characters in a veritable feast of food, family traditions, and fun.

Manny Dogra is the beautiful young CEO of Breakup, a highly successful company that helps people manage their relationship breakups. As preoccupied as she is with her business, she’s also planning her wedding to handsome architect Adam Jamieson while dealing with the loss of her beloved parents.

For reasons Manny has never understood, her mother and father, who were both born in India, always wanted her to become an “All-American” girl. So that’s what she did. She knows next to nothing about her South Asian heritage, and that’s never been a problem—until her parents are no longer around, and an image of Manny that’s been Photoshopped to make her skin look more white appears on a major magazine cover. Suddenly, the woman who built an empire encouraging people to be true to themselves is having her own identity crisis.

But when an irritating client named Sammy Patel approaches Manny with an odd breakup request, the perfect solution presents itself: If they both agree to certain terms, he’ll give her a crash course in being “Indian” at his brother’s wedding.

What follows is days of dancing and dal, masala and mehndi as Manny meets the lovable, if endlessly interfering, aunties and uncles of the Patel family, and, along the way, discovers much more than she could ever have anticipated. 

Source: NetGalley; ARC provided by publisher in exchange for a honest review

As a South Asian who grew up outside of the community and looking to learn about her own roots, Sari, Not Sari's premise spoke to me on a deeply personal level, but that's about as far as it went.

Manny is a successful CEO of Breakup, a company that she built from the ground up. Her expertise is in relationships and specifically how to help people end relationships cordially with minimal damage when those relationships come to the end of the road. It's a lucrative business and people are noticing as evidenced by articles and tv interviews. A recent write up in a high-profile magazine is supposed to catapult the company into the stratosphere, but the excitement is dimmed when Manny sees that they've photoshopped her cover to make her lighter-skinned. Being that her darker skin tone is one of the few things she feels ties her to her Indian heritage, it sends her into a frenzy, and now she wants to find out more about the culture she comes from.

You know, I get all of this because I feel it, too. It's just that I found the way Manny goes about it to be a head scratcher. She agrees to help Sammy, a client and fellow South Indian, with a temporary breakup on the condition that she accompany him to his family's wedding so she can learn all about everything Indian. I have two reactions to this. One, the idea that attending a weeklong wedding celebration is enough to learn all about a culture that's as diverse as the number of dialects within the Indian subcontinent is a faulty one. Two, one of her best friends and colleague, Anjali is Indian so it makes no sense to me that she'd never sought to connect to the culture through their longtime friendship. But going to a wedding with someone she barely knows will solve her identity crisis problem. See? Head scratcher.

Full disclosure - I started Sari, Not Sari with the sincere hope of finding something meaningful for myself through Manny's experience, but it all fell flat from the beginning. I wasn't into their romance, either. I would've liked to see Manny learn about her family's roots and culture through genuine connection outside of a wedding celebration. Instead, she only saw the showy parts, the ostentatious celebratory stuff that's all surface level and part of what she's seeking. It's a small fraction of a rich culture and that's all she takes from it to feel fully Indian. It didn't jibe with me in the least.

What I was hoping for and what I read were two completely different things. Upon reflection, I think I wanted the content of Sari, Not Sari to be more women's fiction, and in a rom-com format there's only so much deep-diving that can happen into a question as loaded as "What does being Indian mean?". I'm disappointed this didn't work out for me but I think this story works for a reader who wants to get lost in the joyful experience of an Indian wedding.

~ Bel

Well-Behaved Indian Women by Saumya Dave

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From a compelling new voice in women's fiction comes a mother-daughter story about three generations of women who struggle to define themselves as they pursue their dreams.

Simran Mehta has always felt harshly judged by her mother, Nandini, especially when it comes to her little "writing hobby." But when a charismatic and highly respected journalist careens into Simran's life, she begins to question not only her future as a psychologist, but her engagement to her high school sweetheart.

Nandini Mehta has strived to create an easy life for her children in America. From dealing with her husband's demanding family to the casual racism of her patients, everything Nandini has endured has been for her children's sake. It isn't until an old colleague makes her a life-changing offer that Nandini realizes she's spent so much time focusing on being the Perfect Indian Woman, she's let herself slip away.

Mimi Kadakia failed her daughter, Nandini, in ways she'll never be able to fix---or forget. But with her granddaughter, she has the chance to be supportive and offer help when it's needed. As life begins to pull Nandini and Simran apart, Mimi is determined to be the bridge that keeps them connected, even as she carries her own secret burden

Source: ARC provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review


This is a compelling story about three generations of women who dealt with or are currently dealing with life in different ways. Nandini as matriarch of her family, feels the responsibility and pressure of making sure her daughter, Simran has a good life ahead of her. That means making sure she's marrying the right man and following all the family and religious traditions.  Simran has been with her fiance since they were in high school and strongly feels that he's 'the one'. While they're both facing stressful careers ahead, they're also committed to making their relationship work. Then Simran meets a journalist at a book signing who not only shares her love of books and writing but encourages her to look into it as a career. Everything that Simran has built her life around so far all of a sudden feels off to her. She begins questioning what she really wants and what's expected. This draws her into direct conflict with her mother who demands excellence and commitment. Nandini has always subscribed to putting family ahead of her own dreams so while she recognizes something of herself in Simran, she's hesitant to encourage Simran to be so reckless as she sees it.

This was hard for me at times. I couldn't help but get irritated every time outrageous expectations were placed on either Simran or Nandini. A lot of it has to do with some warped patriarchal thinking about what women can and should be allowed to do. A lot of it generational or cultural. Then there's the whole not wanting to care about what others think of them but then being painfully mindful of what the community does think about them. I am familiar with a lot of the sentiments conveyed in this novel (having lived some of it) which is why it was so hard on me. But what I do appreciate is how Simran and Nandini come in to their own and expand their perspectives. While mother and daughter might not come to a full understanding of each other, they do come to some sort of truce and it's a hard fought for one. What's important here is that these two women fight for what they believe in even if it means ruffling feathers and upsetting the status quo. They do so knowing that they can't be truly happy until they speak up and step outside the confines of their worlds.

Simran's grandmother, Mimi doesn't figure as prominently but she is a pivotal piece that helps to bridge the gap between her daughter and granddaughter. Call it a blessing of a long life but she has had the time to reflect on events to become the sensitive sounding board to Simran and Nandini, giving them the emotional support and nudge they need to come back to each other. She is easily one of the most precious women ever. 

Reading Well-Behaved Indian Women means getting your heart squeezed and wrung out a good number of times but by the end you're wrapped in a warm blanket that lets you know everything will be all right. I was glad to see this mother-daughter duo find their strengthand voice to demand that they can also be happy!

~ Bel

The Marriage Game by Sara Desai

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A high stakes wager pits an aspiring entrepreneur against a ruthless CEO in this sexy romantic comedy.

After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn’t know he’s arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door…

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he's forced to share his space with the owner's beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

Source: ARC provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review

I wanted humour and witty repartee and it was all here in The Marriage Game. This opposites-attract, forced-proximity romance pits Layla, a whirlwind of a personality HR recruiter against Sam, a disciplined CEO. They are like fire and water but the attractive kind that you can't help to tear your eyes away from. Returning home to San Francisco after she discovered her reality tv boyfriend was cheating on her, Layla has to restart her life and her career. Her father offers her the office space above their restaurant with the intent to renege on the lease that he had agreed to with Sam. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Sam doesn't get the message so his and Layla's first meeting does not go off well. Both are insistent on the right to be there and boy do they butt heads! When a stranger shows up responding to her dad's ad, Layla thinks it's the perfect opportunity to take the guessing game out of dating and go on these dates to eventually find someone to marry. Sam thinks it's the worst idea ever but because her father is unavailable, he agrees to chaperone these dates. They have an agreement regarding the office that is dependent on the result of these dates. Shenanigans ensue.

Layla and Sam can deny up and down in front of everyone how much they detest each other but the truth is that they're not only intrigued but rather in lust. There's so much self-sabotaging of dates and crazy run ins that I was eager for the next mess they'd land in. I truly got a kick out of Sam's reactions to her dates. He had the best zingers and comebacks that I fell a little for him. Layla, though could not be suppressed. Not only did she trudge through the dates, she actually enjoyed giving Sam grief. It's been a while since I've felt two characters challenge each other the way they did and I was so into them. Honestly, these dates just gave them an excuse to be nearby but it proves to become a conundrum for Sam who's bent on achieving his own agenda which is to exact revenge on someone who hurt his family. It's an incident that's part of his past that he has purposeful left behind but continues to haunt him. Being around Layla is a reprieve from his guilt. But when the borders he's built to separate his worlds start to break down, so does he.

The only thing that's iffy to me about The Marriage Game is the initial set up where Layla wants to oust Sam from an office space that's legally his. That scenario is flimsy and let's be reasonable, rude. Anyway, it can be easily discarded as Layla and Sam's interactions pick up steam and become this ridiculous crazy train of blind dates, meddling but well-meaning aunties and constant ribbing. I live for this stuff and The Marriage Game delivers all that and the laughs brilliantly!

~ Bel