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

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!

Content Warnings

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.

Content Warnings

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.

Content Warnings

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