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A review by kricketa
What I Meant... by Marie Lamba
2.0
ever since sangeet's widowed aunt chachi moved in, she's been sucking the fun right out of the house. worse, she's stealing their money AND eating all the good snacks, then lying about it, causing sang's parents to believe that she, sang, is bulimic. as if sang doesn't have enough on her mind- the coolest guy in school likes her, but she's not allowed to date yet...and her best friend gina is acting weird. how can sang get her parents to trust her so that she can show them what chachi really is, and start dating?
this didn't really work for me. the aunt is made out to be a completely one-sided villain with no redeemable qualities. i thought this would get explained somehow- maybe because her husband died and she misses india or something- but no, she's just cold and strange. some generalizations made me uncomfortable as well: jason likes sang because she's exotic (half indian) -- the goths are all scary and shove sang around-- and a flirty classmate with large breasts is christened "slutty sara." we never really find out what the deal is with gina, and at the end, i didn't feel that sang really learned how to deal with her problems at all- chachi just gets caught, that's all. (after a melodramatic scene in which she shoves sangs face into the floor, bloodying her nose, when sang doesn't bow low enough during a religious ceremony...ugh victim's complex??).
BLAH BLAH BLAH. in short: the plot and characters interested me enough to finish the book but i was ultimately disappointed.
this didn't really work for me. the aunt is made out to be a completely one-sided villain with no redeemable qualities. i thought this would get explained somehow- maybe because her husband died and she misses india or something- but no, she's just cold and strange. some generalizations made me uncomfortable as well: jason likes sang because she's exotic (half indian) -- the goths are all scary and shove sang around-- and a flirty classmate with large breasts is christened "slutty sara." we never really find out what the deal is with gina, and at the end, i didn't feel that sang really learned how to deal with her problems at all- chachi just gets caught, that's all. (after a melodramatic scene in which she shoves sangs face into the floor, bloodying her nose, when sang doesn't bow low enough during a religious ceremony...ugh victim's complex??).
BLAH BLAH BLAH. in short: the plot and characters interested me enough to finish the book but i was ultimately disappointed.