Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Tell Me How to Be

This book truly floored me. It was a meditation on grief but one of the things I loved about it is that it was about a grief familiar to all of us but rarely explored, the grief of might’ve beens. There is Akash, an alcoholic closeted gay man, still deeply affected by the trauma he experienced as a child in the form of homophobic bullying at school, his first love as a teenager, and the fact that he had no space to process that trauma because his family didn’t allow that space for him. Then there is his mother Renu, mourning the loss of her husband and Akash’s father, but even more so, losing herself in the reverie of what might have been if she had fought to stay with her first love, Kareem when she was a young adult and her parents arranged a marriage for her. Both characters lose themselves in regret, and it causes such tension with each other in the present. The denouement of the book and the way these parallel storylines came together was devastatingly beautiful and really got to the essence of the human condition. All of the characters are beautifully drawn. The prose is beautiful. And every single beat of the story felt so incredibly earned. I read this in one sitting. Absolutely loved it.

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Tell Me How To Be was a fantastic read. I loved the Indian representation, the complicated family dynamics, and the exploration of different aspects of identity and belonging. The writing was great and the dual narrative perspective worked really well for me since it served to emphasise one of the strengths of this book - the parallels and similarities in the lives of Akash and his mother Renu. He’s gay, but closeted especially to his family, trying to make it in the music industry- not exactly what his parents wanted for him, is haunted by memories of his first love, and drinks too much. She meanwhile is grieving her husband while feeling guilty for not loving him the way he loved her, and is still harbouring feelings for her first love, a love that was forbidden for cultural reasons. In wrestling with their past, their guilt, and the expectations they felt burdened with Akash and Renu move towards finding themselves and finding their way back to each other. While most reviews focus on Akash’s storyline - and it is a good one and arguably the major one - I will admit a fondness for Renu’s. Being a woman of a certain age myself I could relate to her and many - but not all - of her struggles. I was attracted to the way she was now putting herself first. My feelings about the author not giving her the ending I wished for are decidedly mixed!

One thing I specifically want to mention is Renu’s book club, populated by white women. If you need a lesson in how not to interact with someone from a different cultural background to your own, look no further. Their behaviour was totally cringey and wrong on so many levels. I’d like to hope it was an exaggerated parody, but I fear it wasn’t.

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taleswithtrix's review against another edition

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4.0

This book was a page turner! We get two different perspectives, Akash, a closeted gay Asian American and his widowed mom, Renu who is coping with struggles of her own family/love life, past. The flipping perspective in fairly short chapters kept me super intrigued with cliff hangers left and right; I didn’t want to stop reading.

We don’t see many stories or novels written about Asian Americans in the LGBTQIA community so I really loved that Neel Patel shined a light here. We get all of the Indian-esc perspective living in a predominantly white community in Illinois, plus the LGBT+ perspective within a non-white community.

It had me feeling all sorts of ways because of the homophobia and racism that is throughout but also from the other side. As a white American married to an Indian man, I really enjoyed Jessica (Akash’s white Sister In Law) and Renu’s relationship; the struggle to not feel judged or misunderstood when two culture and races have different expectations, etc. was very relatable for me. Many things Renu felt about white women rubbed me the wrong way. And I also hated how the book club treated Renu. I think had they lived in a more diverse American community things would’ve been different; I’d be interested to see how he would write it differently set somewhere like Boston or DC.

Akash and Renu’s struggles, feelings, experiences were very raw. While I hated Bijal (Akash’s brother) most of the book, I loved how the family grew and came into their own personally as individuals and as a family.

I also loved all the 90s music references and vibes!

This one is definitely worth a read!

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mcz_reads's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I was swept away by this book. The novel is divided into four parts, and throughout each part the POV frequently switches between the two main characters, Akash and Renu. The small segments from each character’s perspective made this book a quick read, and the immersion into each character’s emotional and memories drove me to finish the book in 24 hours.

This brief story shows the effects of racism, classism, homophobia, and misogyny experienced externally and internally by a minority community. The character arc for each narrator was handled well. I would have liked the savor their resolutions a little longer—the end felt very abrupt after such a slowly paced story. The pace was really the only aspect I wish had been handled differently; for the first part of the book, the flashbacks to the past were more interesting than anything happening in the present. The timelines become more balanced as the book progresses.

The scope of this book feels small, but that’s not a bad thing. I got the sense that this book is meant to tell a very specific story about these individual characters. But I think the specificity is what makes the book meaningful.

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leah_alexandra's review

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was pretty good. It was well-paced, and I think the two narrators were well developed and fleshed out. Overall though I wasn’t blown away. At times I felt as though I had read this story before, and other versions have impressed me more. Some parts felt cliched, especially (despite what other reviewers have seemed to find) the depictions of the casual racism of all the “nice” white women in the book. I’m definitely here for takedowns of racism cloaked in white folks’ “politeness” or “curiosity,” but would have loved these versions to have more specificity—they felt tired to me.

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nini23's review against another edition

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Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I wasn't too taken with Patel's book of short stories If You See Me, Don't Say Hi, some of the faults from there have carried over. The relationship between Akash and Jacob and this prototype of messed up young gay brown guy with cultural baggage gives me the nagging feeling I've encountered this character before. After rifling through my bookshelves, it's an amalgation of Patel's previous characters and Shyam Selvadurai's Shivan in The Hungry Ghosts. The majority of the male characters in Tell Me How To Be are doctors, again a complaint I had from the other book, surely there are other professions that Indian American diaspora go into?

My favourite part of the novel has to be Renu's scathing take-down of her white bookclub. Renu and her best friend Chaya together are a hoot. However, I wish that miscarriage wouldn't be used as lazy shorthand writing stand-in for female emotional trauma. Furthermore, miscarriages are common (a third of pregnancies) but most of Patel's main female characters seem to suffer from repeated ones at which point this would necessitate further medical investigation. Also, I don't buy the perfect Gary Stu nature of Renu's husband Ashok, overall the whole Kareem-Renu-Ashok relationship conundrum and resolution left me nonplussed - sincerely hope it's not a patriarchal finger wagging at married women to be satisfied with who they have and stay within their boundaries.

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ana_distracted's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book is slow paced but it pulled me in quickly and held my attention throughout the story. Tell Me How To Be is one of the best books I’ve read this year – really one of the best books I’ve ever read. The story focuses on the characters’ struggles and their family dynamics. It explores how trauma in one generation affects the next generation and how keeping secrets from family members damages relationships. I enjoyed the slow peeling away of the main characters’ experiences to explain their present-day choices and motivations.

My one criticism of this story is that one of the characters seemed to be an alcoholic but at some point, the character just decided to stop drinking too much. This seemed unrealistic and to minimize the hard work and of facing an addiction.

I recommend listening to the audiobook. The narration is amazing! Vikas Adam is so good at doing the different voices, that I had to check that there wasn’t more than one narrator.

I received an advance audiobook from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

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