When Dimple Met Rishi (Dimpleverse, #1)

by Sandhya Menon

[nannah]

A good friend recommended this to me, and I'm SO sorry I didn't enjoy this as much as she did! The concept of the story was so much more unique and interesting than the actual execution.

Content warnings:
- in-book sexism and misogyny

When Dimple Met Rishi is a boy meets girl type story in which Dimple Shah, an Indian-American girl with very traditional parents, is in an arranged marriage with Rishi Patel, and meets him at a coding camp called Insomnia Con. The only problem? She doesn't know about the marriage at all.

I loved the insight into some of the Indian-American experience. I love the fact that the book is part of the #OWNvoices hashtag, lending a lot of authenticity to these characters. The first half, too, was original, fresh, and the dynamics between Dimple and her family were incredibly interesting to read.

Unfortunately, after the great moment when Dimple threw her iced coffee at Rishi (their first meeting; and if someone came up to me claiming to be my future husband I'd do the same thing!), things got a bit cliche and uninteresting.

The book takes place at a coding camp, because it's Dimple's huge dream to become a coder. Her idol will be present to help the winner with their app (which they'll be working on during the entire summer). You'd think this girl would want to spend some actual time coding. I was SO looking forward to some details about this because I have absolutely No experience with anything in this field. Plus, diverse ladies in STEM!

But what I got was literally a paragraph of them working on the app, and the rest of the book centered around the romance. I knew it was a romance coming in, but I expected at least some effort going into the actual coding part of the plot. To make things worse, for some reason that never made sense, in the middle of this CODING camp, they had a talent show that gave the winner $1000 towards their app? A talent show?? How does that relate to coding in any way? It's a cheap trick to make create more scenes for Rishi and Dimple to be closer physically, add some Bollywood dancing, and have them fall over each other, etc.

The characters also became unbearable at Insomnia Con. I know it's been said before, but Dimple ... Oh, Dimple. For a self-proclaimed feminist, or whatever, she sure loves to hate on women. She's a typical "not like other girls" girl, judging any other woman who wears too much makeup or wears booty shorts or does anything that she Doesn't Approve Of. There could be cultural things/upbringing at work here, but Dimple is the most judgey fictional character who is never actually checked for her attitude. She's also nearly abusive, hitting Rishi over and over, and when Rishi comments on it, Dimple actually says something like, "you need to change your idea about how girls behave." AKA, I'm not like other girls --> I hit/abuse people ?? What exactly is she trying to say here?

Anyway, besides all this, the ending is on par with most Hallmark Holiday specials, making me cringe and speed read through it so I wouldn't be embarrassed. This book simply isn't for me, or maybe I'm just not the audience for it. I wanted more STEM stuff!