OKAY, let me start off by saying that this book (When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon) is very *cute* and overall very good and entertaining. It has romance, it has humor, it has like-able characters, and it has a great premise.
Dimple is a teenage geek-girl who loves to code and wants to become a web/app developer. 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.” 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? Sort of. They actually send her to camp to meet their ideal-husband candidate Rishi, who is a hopeless romantic and actually wants to go along with his parents’ wishes. Of course when Dimple discovers this plan she promptly throws coffee at poor Rishi and berates him. Except then….she doesn’t. She finds that she likes Rishi and decides to at least be his friend for the duration of camp.
I don’t want to give too much more of the plot away, but I will tell you the downsides to this novel:
- Dimple starts off as this bad-a**, independent, and free-thinking
intelligent girl. But she pretty much gives this up right away. Why? - She is so mean to Rishi….why?
- The book glosses over the “Coding Camp” part. Coding is Dimple’s passion and the camp is the setting for the entire book. Yet, as far as actual “code-speak” goes…there is none. The author completely skips her actually doing her supposed obsession in favor of drama with her fellow snobby camp-mates. This would have been a chance for girls who actually code to geek out and read about their hobby.
Despite these things, this book is very charming. The multicultural angle is different (although also underutilized) and refreshing. If you’re looking for something that isn’t too deep, then this is a good book for you.
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