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bhnmt61 's review for:
A Bollywood Affair
by Sonali Dev
This book is not what I was expecting. It is much more of a stock romance--especially once Samir arrives in the US--than the exploration of Indian culture I was expecting. But by the end, Sonali Dev won me over. A Bollywood Affiar is an over-the-top farce, rife with clichés, but by the end I loved it.
Mili and Virat were married as children, then haven't seen each other since. Through a series of misunderstandings, he believes the marriage has been annulled and now has a new, pregnant wife, but Mili considers herself a married woman waiting for her husband to come and get her. When Mili's grandmother makes a play for Virat's ancestral home, Virat finds out that the village council never annulled the marriage. Then Virat is nearly killed in an accident, so his playboy brother Samir goes to the US to chase down Mili and get her to sign papers to straighten everything out. You can see where this is heading-- mistaken identities, long held secrets revealed, mountains of Indian food eaten.
I loved this book. I'm even willing to forgive the occasionally purple prose (seriously, this sentence is only one of many similar: "One long spiral curl sprang free from her ponytail and skimmed her mocha skin still tinted pink with the remnants of anger, those high cheeks a barometer of her endless wellspring of emotion." *rolls eyes*) Bollywood Affair is a thoroughly fun read. The over-the-top-ness is part of its charm. Maybe it's like watching a Bollywood movie--I've never seen one, but maybe I'll track some down now. I'm so glad I kept wading through the complicated, somewhat absurd setup (an adult woman thinks she is in love with a boy she hasn't seen since she was four years old?) and kept going.
Mili and Virat were married as children, then haven't seen each other since. Through a series of misunderstandings, he believes the marriage has been annulled and now has a new, pregnant wife, but Mili considers herself a married woman waiting for her husband to come and get her. When Mili's grandmother makes a play for Virat's ancestral home, Virat finds out that the village council never annulled the marriage. Then Virat is nearly killed in an accident, so his playboy brother Samir goes to the US to chase down Mili and get her to sign papers to straighten everything out. You can see where this is heading-- mistaken identities, long held secrets revealed, mountains of Indian food eaten.
I loved this book. I'm even willing to forgive the occasionally purple prose (seriously, this sentence is only one of many similar: "One long spiral curl sprang free from her ponytail and skimmed her mocha skin still tinted pink with the remnants of anger, those high cheeks a barometer of her endless wellspring of emotion." *rolls eyes*) Bollywood Affair is a thoroughly fun read. The over-the-top-ness is part of its charm. Maybe it's like watching a Bollywood movie--I've never seen one, but maybe I'll track some down now. I'm so glad I kept wading through the complicated, somewhat absurd setup (an adult woman thinks she is in love with a boy she hasn't seen since she was four years old?) and kept going.