A review by krutikasurve
Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma

2.0

Gah. I was rooting for this one. But god. I think per Brown Tik Tok, there has been this need to define diasporic South Asians. This makes complete sense because we haven’t really gotten the opportunity to explore it as a separate entity from people that are born and raised in South Asian countries. I get it. But I felt this book kind of put a whole essay in there. I think simply telling diasporic stories is enough. But this book just did too much. It’s definitely possible to integrate messages into stories but it wasn’t done well here because nothing seemed tangible? Like everything (except the sex) felt theoretical and it was hard to grab on to as a reader therefore it just felt messy. Like how are two people arguing about the existence of love while throwing food at each other? That’s weird. You want to relate to these characters and, to be fair, you do to an extent. But everything is so up in the air the whole time, it’s just like JESUS. 

 

They could’ve really leaned in on their backstories like with the mom and the fiancee but again, it’s simply brought up like it’s an idea. 

 

Also, it felt like during the editing process, they didn’t go and clean it up. There were times when something was set up only to be disregarded like it wasn’t supposed to be there. And it was frustrating. 

 

Also, the characters were annoying and were a bit extreme and nonsensical. It was cringe. 

 

Also, I said this before and I will say it again. PUBLIC DECLARATIONS OF LOVE ARE NAUSEATING AND EVERYBODY HATES IT. GAG. GROSS.