Tanuja Desai Hidier

When I first read this book, I was somewhere in my teens and appreciated the world Hidier painted for Dimple Lala, an American Born Confused Desi living in New Jersey who suffers an identity crisis (like most teens) for not fitting in with her Indian roots or her American peers. I related very much to her character in so many ways and found myself rooting for her throughout, wanting to almost be her. And I remember feeling a sense of melancholy loss when the book ended. What happened next? show more How did senior year go?

Now, many years later, I randomly picked up this book again and found new surprises awaiting me reading it as an adult.

First of all, I understood Dimple's frustrations that stemmed from not knowing how to fit in and where she did fit in, but I was so frustrated with her. Gwyn, her alleged best friend and "super twin" was insufferable and treated Dimple horribly as a friend, essentially walking all over her and only reaching out to Dimple when she needed something. Yet Dimple, through POV narration, repeatedly cycles through different points of this supposed great friendship, going into details about how much they've shared and how much they've been there for each other. But in the story, we really only see Dimple being the great friend. What does Gwyn do? Perhaps this history of their friendship was meant to salvage Gwyn's reputation for their reader? But I couldn't find any redeeming qualities about Gwyn. Besides the history, why were they even friends? Also, it's enraging to see Dimple just remain mute whenever being annoyed by Gwyn (though she somehow had more patience than me with dealing with her), like every time Gwyn stole her food or basically pushed Dimple off of seats she was clearly already sitting in. The entire scene where Gwyn is introduced to Karsh for the first time is cringeworthy. The cherry on top of this super fantastic friendship is of course the showdown, when Dimple *finally* reveals her irritation with Gwyn and Gwyn turns it back around on her. As a reader, I found the Dimple's handling of the argument (along with the rest of the friendship) unsatisfactory at best. Somehow, even with their making up in the end, I highly doubt these two are bound to be friends for life.

My favorite characters are definitely Dimple's parents and her cousin Kavita. Dimple has a tough time realizing just how amazing her parents actually are, and I found myself appreciating them just as much, if not more, as the last time I visited them. I love their relationship with each other and with Dimple and Kavita. I would love to have an Aunty and Uncle like them in my life. Kavita is also someone I could see myself hanging out with. She's far more interesting than Gwyn and Karsh combined and I do think it would've been nice to see more of her and have her character more fleshed out.

Finally, I thought Karsh was a total dreamboat during my first reading, what with his patience, understanding, good looks, charm, and all-knowing sensitivity. I loved the way he was able to spearhead the way to help bring Dimple out of her shell and out of her lens, so to speak. Now I'm all, when did he ever indicate to Gwyn he only viewed her as a sister?? He's 20 years old and a very sought after college boy who is not a total "good boy" with his occasional drinking and smoking weed habits, yet he couldn't pick up on any of Gwyn's overly flirtatious signals? I found this extremely hard to believe. Also, when explaining his behavior with Gwyn to Dimple (e.g. calling her endearing names, dancing with her, etc.), Karsh uses his heroic charms of trying to be all nice, helpful, and protective to everyone else as an excuse. Shut up, Karsh! He couldn't even be direct with Dimple, "reading" her palms instead of a direct, "Hey, I like you. Let's go out some time." Boys.

Don't get me wrong. I still love this book. There are just the right amounts of happy and sad to usurp the annoying bits. And I'm so ready for the book's sequel. Let's hope it's a good one! show less

Originally published on Tales to Tide You Over

Born Confused is a quintessential teen coming of age novel with boyfriend issues, best friend issues, drinking, drugs, and the whole bit. But at the same time, it’s so much more than that. This novel is about a search for identity.

It’s a walkabout as Dimple tries to navigate between her parents’ culture and her own mixed American and Indian (or South Asian as presented in the book) culture. Add that into the mix of high school trauma where show more she is one of two Indians, the other of whom is Sikh. Then toss in a best friend from childhood who is the high school dream with her blond hair and perfect form, and you get a very complicated, deep novel that explores culture clash on several levels between India and the US, high school and college, and even suburbia and New York City.

This book had me hooked from the beginning with the culture clash, but had someone described it to me, I might have turned away which would have been a real pity. The style is almost stream of consciousness, the comfort of the traditional narrative voice stripped away such that even dialogue is given another typesetting to remind us that everything is filtered through Dimple’s perspective. This is crucial later in the book where we (along with Dimple) realize that what she’s taken as a given is not, and her inability to see beyond that surface has consequences.

The filter effect is supported metaphorically throughout because she has a natural talent with photography. She’s more comfortably behind the camera lens, recording rather than experiencing her life. A creative pursuit is a wonderful way to expose the heart of a character, but in Born Confused, the camera acts more as a distancing effect for Dimple until she has a breakdown/breakthrough and goes out to discover her soul.

This book gave me everything I was hoping for in the book I reviewed last week and more. It looks into the heart of the teen experience, but more than that, it explores the added complication of first and second-generation immigrants. The novel does not hesitate to touch on the hard topics of losing a beloved family member (her grandfather dies before the book starts but it has a big impact) and the discovery that parents are people too with as much complexity and confusion.

I could talk about how lost Dimple is, about how she both wants to embrace and reject her heritage, about how her best friend appropriates all that is her in a weird situation that’s much more complicated than it seems, or any of a half a dozen events that bring us through the novel. Dimple is not all knowing. She does stupid things as often as brilliant, she’s the victim at times, and has to learn how to take control of her life. Always there is the camera and how her pictures act as a metaphor for her understanding, moving from black and white to color to comprehension.

As I said in the beginning, this is the quintessential teen novel. At the same time, it has broader implications regarding self-identification, acceptance of others, and so many other important aspects of growth that people struggle with at any age. It’s a powerful read, and well worth it, no matter what your age.

P.S. I received this title from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review. show less

I went into "Born Confused" expecting a teenybopper chick lit turkey and was promptly blown away by how absolutely wonderful it was. Hidier adopts some trendy aspects to her writing--hyphens in lieu of quotation marks and a Francesca Lia Block-esque style in some descriptive passages. But don't let that fool you; there is a massive amount of substance and insight underpinning this frosting. "Born Confused" flawlessly captures the confusion and loss of adolescence without becoming syrupy or show more trite. Hidier's characters are extremely nuanced, and what's more, they're often painfully ignorant of their own strengths and shortcomings, although the reader never is. The narrative juggles a huge cast and never drops a ball or sells someone short. I knew these people in high school. I was these people in high school. Combine this with wonderfully true to life settings (the dance club! the urban scenes! the college apartment! the house party! the food!) and you have an excellent, excellent read. Do yourself a favor and check it out now. show less

I remembered reading this book when I was in high school, and I was thinking about it again and decided to give it another go. I got so much more out of it this time around. I have been reading tons of blogs, about cultural appropriation and privilege, and picked up a lot that I didn't when I read it 10 years ago--I hardly even understood how awful Gwyn was back then, for example. It was also funny to see the things going on that Dimple was not yet aware of, but were crystal clear just from show more the little details and dialogue. Kavita and Sabina, for example. Kavita's coming out scene almost moved me to tears, actually, because her nervousness and then relief and giddiness at having done it and been accepted were so palpable.

The imagery was very imaginative and rich (if a tad heavy at times), and I really felt like I was inside Dimple's head. The scene where she smokes pot had this crazy surreal quality that made me feel like I was right there with her. And her family is so wonderful that I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall in their house--her parents are heartbreakingly sweet, and Kavita so loving but also the perfect cool older cousin. I loved how Dimple grew to see them all as human beings with flaws and stories of their own, which is a big part of growing up.

The huge glaring flaw in all of this was definitely Gwyn. Even putting aside her absolute cluelessness, the exotification of her best friend's culture (and family!) and all the cultural appropriation and insensitive comments, she is the worst, most horrible friend. I could not understand why Dimple thought she was so amazing. Everything she did was incredibly selfish and self-centered. Yeah, her backstory is tragic and she's jealous of Dimple's loving family. But all she did was interrupt Dimple, encroach on all her boundaries, condescend, and undermine her at every opportunity to try to make herself look better by comparison. Eating all her best fries, showing up in the exact same outfit (in a smaller size) on purpose, not telling Dimple about Karsh's birthday, completely ignoring her best friend any time there was a boy around. I was really glad when Dimple finally confronted her and they had their big fight, but then felt like it was undermined in their big reconciliation scene, when Dimple decided she had also been a bad friend and apologized first. The only redeeming thing Gwyn did was have the magazine use Dimple's photos (thereby letting Dimple gain recognition for her photos). "Letting" her have Karsh didn't even seem that generous to me, since she could tell the whole time that Karsh was into Dimple and only gave up when she had exhausted everything and still couldn't win him over. I think the book would have been much stronger if their friendship had been allowed to come to an end, since all of Gwyn's cultural insensitivity and undermining of Dimple was very glossed over so that they could reconcile.

Anyway, aside from that I really enjoyed the book and will probably read the sequel when it comes out. I want to hang out with Dimple and her family a little bit more. show less