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3.02 AVERAGE
3.02 AVERAGE
If you love the "fake dating" trope, you will enjoy this take! Fake business partners, to be exact. The characters and the drama were enough for a light, summer beach or poolside read. I found the writing to be a bit melodramatic at times, but entertaining.
medium-paced
Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately I could not get into this novel. The story was slow and it was difficult to pinpoint the romantic interest. I did not find this novel humorous nor entertaining.
Unfortunately I could not get into this novel. The story was slow and it was difficult to pinpoint the romantic interest. I did not find this novel humorous nor entertaining.
3.5 but not enough to round up to 4
I AM sorry bc I was SO looking forward to this and I really just did not like it. The first 150 pages were frustrating because of how great Manny seemed and how strongly negative a taste Sammy left in my mouth. Then somehow along the way, I did fall in love with Sammy and there was a peaceful honeymoon section of like 80 pages where I was so happy (about 60% of the way through) when things were going well and I was losing myself in the story and the character arcs. And then the climax came and blew things up out of NOWHERE. The Manisha fight? Huh? The twist with Mr. Patel? What????? And of course the manufactured drama to split up the lovebirds, only to bring them back together two pages later. It gave me whiplash. Mostly, I was disappointed because I had so much hope for this incredibly creative story idea and felt that it got bogged down by very irritating narration- sis and other abbreviations; I am, I do not, and other non-contractions that read equally as unnaturally; and the strange, stilted descriptions of the eyes beaming and other expressions that knocked me out of my reading flow. It was like a robot was trying to write fiction/ Siri autogenerating text, and it was so unnatural. I loved Sonya’s other novels and it left me wondering if she rushed this one? or had an editor trying to make this one swing young to engage a new audience? It alienated me for sure :(
I AM sorry bc I was SO looking forward to this and I really just did not like it. The first 150 pages were frustrating because of how great Manny seemed and how strongly negative a taste Sammy left in my mouth. Then somehow along the way, I did fall in love with Sammy and there was a peaceful honeymoon section of like 80 pages where I was so happy (about 60% of the way through) when things were going well and I was losing myself in the story and the character arcs. And then the climax came and blew things up out of NOWHERE. The Manisha fight? Huh? The twist with Mr. Patel? What????? And of course the manufactured drama to split up the lovebirds, only to bring them back together two pages later. It gave me whiplash. Mostly, I was disappointed because I had so much hope for this incredibly creative story idea and felt that it got bogged down by very irritating narration- sis and other abbreviations; I am, I do not, and other non-contractions that read equally as unnaturally; and the strange, stilted descriptions of the eyes beaming and other expressions that knocked me out of my reading flow. It was like a robot was trying to write fiction/ Siri autogenerating text, and it was so unnatural. I loved Sonya’s other novels and it left me wondering if she rushed this one? or had an editor trying to make this one swing young to engage a new audience? It alienated me for sure :(
**I received a free ARC through netgalley**
Manny Dogra's work life is great; her personal life--not so much. Her parents are recently deceased and her fiance is never around. And she's feeling disconnected from her South Asian roots. Enter Sammy Patel, a guy with an extended family and a week's worth of traditional celebrations that he's willing to include Manny in, for a price.
The premise had promise, but the pacing of this book wasn't great. Manny and Sammy didn't meet until about a third of the way through and then had very few interactions on the page. With so little of the story focused on them, we had to be told how great they were together rather than getting to watch their story unfold.
Manny's growth was better fleshed out, and I found that part to be more believable. But I was hoping for more on the romance front.
Manny Dogra's work life is great; her personal life--not so much. Her parents are recently deceased and her fiance is never around. And she's feeling disconnected from her South Asian roots. Enter Sammy Patel, a guy with an extended family and a week's worth of traditional celebrations that he's willing to include Manny in, for a price.
The premise had promise, but the pacing of this book wasn't great. Manny and Sammy didn't meet until about a third of the way through and then had very few interactions on the page. With so little of the story focused on them, we had to be told how great they were together rather than getting to watch their story unfold.
Manny's growth was better fleshed out, and I found that part to be more believable. But I was hoping for more on the romance front.
So, I checked this book out before looking at the reviews, and it appears a lot of Indian readers have concerns about the Indian representation. I can't speak to that aspect of this book, but I can tell you that as a romance, it fell very short. Lukewarm enemies to lovers who don't spend that much time together and end up with instalove, as well as a hardy dose of miscommunication and some lowkey cheating. Not to mention some pretty harsh relatives. I wasn't rooting for anyone this entire book. Not a single person. But I didn't throw it across the room, so 1.5 stars it gets, rounded up.
Cute. Some of the characters' reactions seemed disproportionate/unrealistic and took me out of the story a bit.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review
➼ three stars
Sari not Sari did not disappoint but it did not blow my mind either. As someone who grew up watching Indian movies and tv shows I was so excited to read this book and follow the journey of the main character while she tried to connect with her culture and find out what it actually means to be a “real Indian”.
The heartwarming parts of this book were definitely those where Manny finally realised that there is not only one way to be a part of a certain culture and that you can always come back to it.
In my opinion the book should have been a bit longer because the plot felt super rushed and I didn’t really find it realistic that everything happened in a span of only one week.
The romance suffered because of this too. I didn’t feel any connection between Sammy and Manny and the miscommunication was too much for me. It is what I hate the most in romance books. Arguments also happened and then were resolved too quickly. Some dialogue was also cringey but I can survive through that.
I get that this is a debut novel and because of that I was open minded and I did like this book in the end. I related to the family bits a lot which is a plus. In conclusion it was a sweet and quick read!
➼ three stars
Sari not Sari did not disappoint but it did not blow my mind either. As someone who grew up watching Indian movies and tv shows I was so excited to read this book and follow the journey of the main character while she tried to connect with her culture and find out what it actually means to be a “real Indian”.
The heartwarming parts of this book were definitely those where Manny finally realised that there is not only one way to be a part of a certain culture and that you can always come back to it.
In my opinion the book should have been a bit longer because the plot felt super rushed and I didn’t really find it realistic that everything happened in a span of only one week.
The romance suffered because of this too. I didn’t feel any connection between Sammy and Manny and the miscommunication was too much for me. It is what I hate the most in romance books. Arguments also happened and then were resolved too quickly. Some dialogue was also cringey but I can survive through that.
I get that this is a debut novel and because of that I was open minded and I did like this book in the end. I related to the family bits a lot which is a plus. In conclusion it was a sweet and quick read!
thank you to netgalley and simon & schuster for providing me with an arc!
sari, not sari is pitched as rom-com following ceo manny dongra who goes to an indian wedding with one of her clients, sammy patel, in order to reclaim her indian roots. as an indian-american, i firmly believe that this book was written for a white, western audience, going so far as to be downright offensive towards indians and members of the indian diaspora.
the premise itself starts off as problematic. implying that there’s a single week-long “crash course” to take in order to be a true indian is culturally insensitive. there are numerous cultural differences throughout india, with states and regions having different customs and traditions surrounding weddings. these traditions are given different levels of importance and have different names across state and regional borders and manny acting as though she’s becoming an expert in indian/indian-american culture after attending a few events at a single (presumably, based on the last name patel) gujarati wedding is insensitive and downright harmful.
without any major spoilers, let me dive into the specific problems i had with the plot and the way certain characters were written.
the indian immigrants (who were all in manny’s parents’ generation) were written as stereotypical caricatures who spoke broken english and were feverishly obsessed with marriage and relationships. rajiv, a man who owned an indian food truck in manny’s hometown frequently teased her about not knowing about her indian culture and repeatedly implored her to find an ideal indian boyfriend/husband in broken english. manny repeatedly brushed him off and ignored his attempts to connect her to her roots. i was willing to dismiss this as a one-off occurrence, but it happened again throughout the book. both of sammy’s parents spoke in fragmented english as well, for no apparent reason. in both the conversations that sammy’s mom was part of, she brought up manny’s upcoming wedding and her daughter’s inability to find the ideal fiancé. of course, this is a book centered around a wedding, but there’s no need for “traditional” indian parental figures to repeatedly bring up prospective weddings in short conversations that have almost no bearing on the plot and lean into the stereotypes of indians being obsessed with finding the perfect spouse.
rob, one of the side characters, is a gay white man who feels the need to consistently tell jokes and puns with hindi words as the punchline. when manny first has a crisis over whether or not she is “indian enough” after the whitewashed magazine cover is released, she goes to rob’s house to vent and seek his advice. this didn’t sit right with me for multiple reasons. the main one, of course, is that rob is white. there’s no way he can understand the unique experience of being the child of indian immigrants and growing up to realize that you aren’t as connected to your heritage as you’d like to be. my discomfort was only heightened by the fact that manny emphasizes that she does have an indian friend at work (anjali) repeatedly throughout the first few chapters. yes, it’s possible that she didn’t want to bother anjali outside of work hours and keep their relationship strictly professional, but the fact remains that rob is also her coworker and manny had no qualms over bringing her personal struggles to him. furthermore, it feels like rob doesn’t take manny seriously at all. like i said before, i don’t think he’s in any position to offer substantial advice because of his race, but as manny’s supposed best friend, the least he can do is be understanding. instead, he laughs at manny and asks how best “to get some of this indian back into her” as though you can become a “real” indian by taking a supplement. rob also compares people not viewing manny as indian as people not realizing that he is gay after their first look at him. lgbt white people likening their sexuality and gender identity to race is a well-documented issue that’s become even more prevalent in the past few years, and i did not expect a south asian author to include this kind of incident and portray it as harmless and well-intentioned. as a reader, i did feel like we were supposed to empathize with rob and believe that he was doing his best as a white ally, but, frankly, he was in no position to. in terms of his poorly executed puns, when manny is leaving rob’s apartment, she asks him not to pity her, to which rob responds that she means “sarry for your sari,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. later on, when manny calls rob from the wedding, he calls her a “masala mama” and refers to sammy as a “dosa daddy.” again, i don’t understand why rob, as a white man, is being applauded as comic relief using hindi words and indian foods as the punchline. i don’t understand why no one bothers to put him in his place. i don’t understand why he feels he has any right to make these jokes in the first place, and why one of these jokes is where the book gets its title from.
manny asks anjali to pack for her before she leaves on a last-minute flight to go to the wedding. anjali brings up how manny doesn’t own any indian clothes, to which manny responds that it’s fine. after all, the wedding is in california wine country in the fall and if worst comes to worst, she can just wear shorts. anjali rightfully gasps at this and reminds manny that no one ever wears shorts to an indian wedding, and that she’ll need to go to some sort of indian boutique as soon as she lands in california. despite this, it still takes manny a few minutes to register that she can’t wear shorts to an indian wedding and she tries to tell herself and anjali that it’ll be busy enough that “no one will look at what she’s wearing.” regardless of how culturally whitewashed and removed from indian culture she is, i find it hard to believe that manny wouldn’t know that you don’t wear shorts to an indian wedding. in fact, you don’t wear shorts to a wedding, period. the only case i can think of in which shorts would be appropriate would be at a christian beach wedding afterparty or something along those lines, and the fact that she tries to justify wearing those shorts didn’t sit right with me at all. for someone who is so eager to reclaim her indian roots, manny seems incredibly reluctant to respect the customs and traditions of indian weddings.
because the book hasn’t been published, i don’t want to go further into any of my thoughts about any more specific scenes quite yet and want to keep the rest of this review as spoiler free as possible. that being said, i was appalled by how offensive this book was, as india was treated as a cultural monolith with archaic and outdated traditions. on top of that, the romance aspect of the book was rushed and felt as though it had been thrown in at the last minute. overall, this was an ill-conceived book that left me dissatisfied at best and disrespected at worst.
sari, not sari is pitched as rom-com following ceo manny dongra who goes to an indian wedding with one of her clients, sammy patel, in order to reclaim her indian roots. as an indian-american, i firmly believe that this book was written for a white, western audience, going so far as to be downright offensive towards indians and members of the indian diaspora.
the premise itself starts off as problematic. implying that there’s a single week-long “crash course” to take in order to be a true indian is culturally insensitive. there are numerous cultural differences throughout india, with states and regions having different customs and traditions surrounding weddings. these traditions are given different levels of importance and have different names across state and regional borders and manny acting as though she’s becoming an expert in indian/indian-american culture after attending a few events at a single (presumably, based on the last name patel) gujarati wedding is insensitive and downright harmful.
without any major spoilers, let me dive into the specific problems i had with the plot and the way certain characters were written.
the indian immigrants (who were all in manny’s parents’ generation) were written as stereotypical caricatures who spoke broken english and were feverishly obsessed with marriage and relationships. rajiv, a man who owned an indian food truck in manny’s hometown frequently teased her about not knowing about her indian culture and repeatedly implored her to find an ideal indian boyfriend/husband in broken english. manny repeatedly brushed him off and ignored his attempts to connect her to her roots. i was willing to dismiss this as a one-off occurrence, but it happened again throughout the book. both of sammy’s parents spoke in fragmented english as well, for no apparent reason. in both the conversations that sammy’s mom was part of, she brought up manny’s upcoming wedding and her daughter’s inability to find the ideal fiancé. of course, this is a book centered around a wedding, but there’s no need for “traditional” indian parental figures to repeatedly bring up prospective weddings in short conversations that have almost no bearing on the plot and lean into the stereotypes of indians being obsessed with finding the perfect spouse.
rob, one of the side characters, is a gay white man who feels the need to consistently tell jokes and puns with hindi words as the punchline. when manny first has a crisis over whether or not she is “indian enough” after the whitewashed magazine cover is released, she goes to rob’s house to vent and seek his advice. this didn’t sit right with me for multiple reasons. the main one, of course, is that rob is white. there’s no way he can understand the unique experience of being the child of indian immigrants and growing up to realize that you aren’t as connected to your heritage as you’d like to be. my discomfort was only heightened by the fact that manny emphasizes that she does have an indian friend at work (anjali) repeatedly throughout the first few chapters. yes, it’s possible that she didn’t want to bother anjali outside of work hours and keep their relationship strictly professional, but the fact remains that rob is also her coworker and manny had no qualms over bringing her personal struggles to him. furthermore, it feels like rob doesn’t take manny seriously at all. like i said before, i don’t think he’s in any position to offer substantial advice because of his race, but as manny’s supposed best friend, the least he can do is be understanding. instead, he laughs at manny and asks how best “to get some of this indian back into her” as though you can become a “real” indian by taking a supplement. rob also compares people not viewing manny as indian as people not realizing that he is gay after their first look at him. lgbt white people likening their sexuality and gender identity to race is a well-documented issue that’s become even more prevalent in the past few years, and i did not expect a south asian author to include this kind of incident and portray it as harmless and well-intentioned. as a reader, i did feel like we were supposed to empathize with rob and believe that he was doing his best as a white ally, but, frankly, he was in no position to. in terms of his poorly executed puns, when manny is leaving rob’s apartment, she asks him not to pity her, to which rob responds that she means “sarry for your sari,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. later on, when manny calls rob from the wedding, he calls her a “masala mama” and refers to sammy as a “dosa daddy.” again, i don’t understand why rob, as a white man, is being applauded as comic relief using hindi words and indian foods as the punchline. i don’t understand why no one bothers to put him in his place. i don’t understand why he feels he has any right to make these jokes in the first place, and why one of these jokes is where the book gets its title from.
manny asks anjali to pack for her before she leaves on a last-minute flight to go to the wedding. anjali brings up how manny doesn’t own any indian clothes, to which manny responds that it’s fine. after all, the wedding is in california wine country in the fall and if worst comes to worst, she can just wear shorts. anjali rightfully gasps at this and reminds manny that no one ever wears shorts to an indian wedding, and that she’ll need to go to some sort of indian boutique as soon as she lands in california. despite this, it still takes manny a few minutes to register that she can’t wear shorts to an indian wedding and she tries to tell herself and anjali that it’ll be busy enough that “no one will look at what she’s wearing.” regardless of how culturally whitewashed and removed from indian culture she is, i find it hard to believe that manny wouldn’t know that you don’t wear shorts to an indian wedding. in fact, you don’t wear shorts to a wedding, period. the only case i can think of in which shorts would be appropriate would be at a christian beach wedding afterparty or something along those lines, and the fact that she tries to justify wearing those shorts didn’t sit right with me at all. for someone who is so eager to reclaim her indian roots, manny seems incredibly reluctant to respect the customs and traditions of indian weddings.
because the book hasn’t been published, i don’t want to go further into any of my thoughts about any more specific scenes quite yet and want to keep the rest of this review as spoiler free as possible. that being said, i was appalled by how offensive this book was, as india was treated as a cultural monolith with archaic and outdated traditions. on top of that, the romance aspect of the book was rushed and felt as though it had been thrown in at the last minute. overall, this was an ill-conceived book that left me dissatisfied at best and disrespected at worst.
I really liked this book for the most part. The negative side of it is just that it felt really rushed. I wish that there was more time spent on the two main characters actually building their relationship. As it was, it felt like I was missing something. But once I started thinking about it like it was a Bollywood movie in book form and using that story/plot logic I was able to kind of get over that and enjoy it as it was.