When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

Summary from Goodreads:

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.

The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

Review:

I had a feeling I was going to love this one. And I was right. Can we take a moment to look at how adorable the cover is? Basically, I knew I would love this because of the cover. Also, looking at this makes me want Starbucks right now. I also read good review after good review.

I waited in line for 30 minutes to pick out 4 hardcover books that a certain publisher wanted to get rid of before packing up from ALA. I was crossing my fingers this book would be there. It was, and it was a well spent 30 minutes. I must have picked up 3 other books, but I don’t even remember what those were.

This book was a breath fresh air in a land of white YA novels. I loved getting a glimpse into the Indian American teen window. I also loved that the main character was a girl who loved coding. I loved that technology was a part of who she was and that she viewed this as more important than what she looked like. Basically, Dimple was awesome.

Dimple was a character meant to knock down walls. She was not girly enough for her mother. She was kind of picked on be her peers for being different (aka: not white and wealthy). She competed and worked so hard on an app that would actually help people as compared to just entertain them. She stands up to her fears about being on stage in front of people. She lets her friends know when they are being dumb. She lets Rishi know what she’s feeling and what she wants. Basically, I want to be friends with her.

I also loved the romance. I loved how sweet, loyal, and caring Rishi was. I loved how differently the two characters viewed their sense of family obligation. I loved how they both had some things to learn about what family obligation truly means. I loved everything about their hate, turned to friendship, turned to love story.

Both Dimple and Rish are flawed in believable ways. And this made them more loveable. This is a perfect summer read. It’s light, funny, and had me squeeling like a fangirl when things happened that I wanted to happen.

I would have liked to have read more about coding. I read about Dimple’s idea and how she worked on it, but I didn’t really get to see her coding and or find out what about it is so cool to her. I’m also not sure I believe the correlations of talent show winners and insomniacon winners. Like what does one have to do with the other?

All in all, this was a fun, fluffy, squeal inducing romance. I recommend it to all YA contemporary fans. I give it a 9/10.