sarahrahrah 's review for:

A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev

2.0

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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The premise is interesting, but not executed well in my opinion. The 4 weeks of growing friendship/attraction was so boring and unbelievable that I nearly DNF, but the intrigue picked back up again at the end. 

I found both characters to be unrealistic and contradictory. Especially Mili - we're meant to see her as an innocent village girl clinging to this "marriage" to someone she hasn't seen in 20+ years; and she was very naive and innocent about the world. But also she was fiercely independent and had gotten herself to America to study (which, kudos, that's awesome and intriguing). But then it just goes back and forth between that strength and bumbling through her innocence/naiveité. I think the characterization just needed to be fleshed out a bit more.

 My biggest beef is that her reaction to

having sex with Samir and losing her virginity made no sense. Her somewhat coming on to him just did not fit AT ALL with her innocent character who was so committed to her "husband". Idk, maybe it just felt preposterous to me because of how boring/unbelievable I found their falling in love montage to be. But even so, she was still blushing about saying the word "dick" even when she started seeing it as more than friendship. So how could that same person then be found in this scene?!

 

Also her friendship with her roommate felt odd, and the whole driving out for the wedding just felt like wasted pages because we never actually saw them as close friends, and just kinda had to believe because the author said so