When Dimple Met Rishi

I LOVED When Dimple Met Rishi! It was a fun, quick read that I could not put down.

Dimple is a strong willed eighteen year old girl who just graduated from high school. She gets her parents to allow her to attend SFSU's InsomniaCon where she will create an app and if she wins, will win the opportunity to meet web designer Jenny Lindt.

Dimple's betrothed, Rishi, is planning to attend MIT for engineering in the fall, but over summer plans to attend InsomniaCon simply to meet Dimple. Dimple has no idea about her arranged marriage and when Rishi introduces himself to her and greets her as "future wife," she throws her iced coffee at him. Needless to say, things do not start off well between the two of them. Much to Dimple's dismay, she and show more Rishi are paired up to work on their app, and over the 6 week contest they learn about each other's talents and push one another to grow and pursue their talents.

As the summer comes to a close, they have to decide what they will do about their relationship. Dimple worries about being in a long distance relationship as well as worries about her future. She doesn't want to be tied down at eighteen nor domesticated; she wants a career in web design. I LOVED how Sandya Menon captured the normal struggles and fears that all kids face in going to college, but also the internal struggles of being an ambitious woman or a boy who doesn't want to let his family down. It was also refreshing to learn about the Indian familial culture. I think all teenagers will be able to relate to Dimple and Rishi, and I can't wait to share this book with my students! #weneeddiversebooks show less

I honestly was not expecting to like this as much as I did. Both Rishi and Dimple are products of their culture, and are forced together by their parents in an arranged match. Only Dimple's having none of it, and Rishi is determined to have his great arranged marriage romance like his parents.

There is lots here about familial expectations, following your own dreams, and making your own path while still acknowledging where you came from. As a child of immigrants, much of this book resonated with me.

The only thing that really didn't sit right with me here is that the arrangement by their parents ultimately worked out. I understand where the author is coming from - the idea that Dimple and Rishi got together despite their parents, instead show more of because of them. But the idea of the matchmaking achieving its goal in a book that celebrated breaking free of familial and cultural expectations seemed to be a disconnect. show less

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family—and from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, show more stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitating toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways. show less

DIMPLE SHAH is an only child who loves her parents but is desperate to leave the nest: she thinks that her mother, particularly, only cares about her appearance and marriageability, when what Dimple cares about is coding. She's been accepted to Stanford, but in the meantime, she longs to go to Insomnia Con, a summer program in San Francisco. To her surprise, her parents agree that she can go - but she doesn't realize she's being set up with...

RISHI PATEL, described (by his brother) as a thirty-five-year-old in an eighteen-year-old's body. Rishi is a Good Indian Boy who loves and honors his parents and his culture; he feels a duty to go to MIT, become an engineer, marry an Indian woman, and produce grandchildren. He is genuinely excited show more to meet Dimple, but their first interaction is a disaster, because he doesn't know that she has no idea who he is.

Menon neatly avoids tired plot points and character (re)actions; despite their terrible meet cute, Dimple and Rishi work together as partners at Insomnia Con and get to know each other; though Dimple has made clear she is not interested in giving up a career for marriage, she comes to care about Rishi, and they make a good team. Rishi is secretly a comic book artist, and when Dimple finds out about his passion, she encourages him to follow his dream, even if it's not practical. Each partner takes steps to defend the other (from the "Aberzombies," for example) and advance their interests (with each other's mentors).

A secondary plot line involving Dimple's roommate Celia and Rishi's younger brother Ashish is woven nicely into the primary story of Dimple and Rishi, and the ending is cinematic.

Dimple is an outspoken feminist with career goals and a big heart; Rishi is considerate and kind. It's easy to root for this pair.

See also: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon, I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, The Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Myracle, You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins

Quotes

...like they didn't know what to do with someone who was so obviously at home with his uncoolness. Someone who had the audacity to feel like he was the cool one when he so obviously wasn't. (105-106)

Lajawab: without answer. (221) show less

**Actual rating - 3.5

This was SUCH an adorable book to read! I loved the mix of all that Indian culture because I love learning about it. I thought that it was interesting the Rishi was more traditional and Dimple less so. It made for some really great interactions between the two characters.

I though the first half of this book was really great. I love that Dimple was so focused on becoming a programmer (yay girl programmers!) and I thought it was hilarious that Rishi was only there to meet Dimple. And the fact that Dimple had no idea about the whole thing only made it that much better. I found I could relate to both characters in certain ways. Dimple is a female programmer, like myself, which is never easy and there's some bullying at show more the start of the book. Rishi is an artist, also like myself, who is having a hard time turning that passion into a lifelong career. I loved both of those elements though I wished we could have seen more about them.

I found the second half of the book a little boring. We started seeing more of the common YA tropes. There was the whole rich, white, privileged kids as the "bad guys" of a sort which I'm beyond tired of seeing. It's getting to be really unoriginal. Plus the whole plot towards the end has been seen way too many times before. It was a little bit of a disappointment at the ending for me.

I was also a little disappointed with Dimple. She had this really strong view that she didn't need to get married, she wanted a career first. I respected her for that! But then she meets Rishi and it's borderline instalove and all her views change. There was so much talk about how great her personality was, being so independent, and she ended up in exactly the spot she didn't want to be in.

Mostly, this book was interesting. I love learning about other cultures like I did with this book. I'm always really interested in seeing how different people can be and this was exactly that kind of book. show less

This is a delightful, heartwarming, slightly far-fetched (but aren't the best stories) teen romance.

There are scenes that subtly reference past bullying, racist incidents aimed at the main characters, misogynistic episodes, plus multiple incidents where the wealth of some characters is used to the detriment of others, but they are predominantly seen from Dimple Shah's American born, traditionally raised, feminist middle-class Indian perspective. And she is such a fabulous character.

The other viewpoint character is Rishi Patel, but he only comes in to it once Dimple meets him, so more mention than that risks spoilers.

They meet at 'InsomniaCon', a six week summer residential 'camp' for young adults that is aimed at pairs developing a show more phone/web app. This is Dimple's passion, and the aspects of the story that deal with her fight to carve out a space for herself in a very white, very male field are very well handled -- the punches are only slightly pulled, because otherwise this would be less a love story and more a scream into the void. show less

So, this book starts out hilariously. Atleast, the first meeting. Rishi being the dork he is, sees her outside Starbucks and calls her his “future wife”. Dimple, who has no clue of their parents’ arrangement, assumes he is a creepy serial killer and throws her iced coffee at him. What follows is their journey from bickering to being teammates to friends and then lovers.

Dimple is passionate and feisty and so independent. She is annoying at times but otherwise, I really liked that she clearly knows what she wants to do, even though it’s not the “expected” thing. But it’s Rishi who I could totally relate to – practical, stable, the ideal older son – I’ve seen way too many such guys in real life that I was actually show more surprised to find one in a book. But what endeared me to him was his goofiness, his optimism and the way he totally fell for her. The way they get to know each other and fall in love and communicate (except towards the end) was very very cute and I totally gushed and swooned a lot. Their conversations are also quite funny and romantic and gave me all kinds of feels. I also loved that the setting of the book was at a coding competition (or camp sorta). Also, the girl here is the passionate coder and he is the nerdy artist and I loved that about them. They are not the usual type of characters from the books I read, so it was interesting. The gang of bullies and roommate/brother side characters are cliché but I am a huge fan of sappy Bollywood romances most of the time, so I didn’t really mind any of them.

However, what I really loved about this book is how relatable it is to me. Based on Indian families in America whose kids feel conflicted about being both Indian and American, every single character here was someone I knew or they felt similar to me. The parents struggle to keep their traditions alive, trying to keep their kids from becoming totally westernized, the kids trying to reconcile their feelings of both making their parents happy as well as forge their own independent lives – every aspect of this book was something I could really feel and understand. Of course, the little mentions of Bollywood, Raj and Simran, and using Hindi words in intimate conversations felt so real and wonderful and made me very happy. It’s so rare to get to read an Indian YA contemporary that it made the experience better. And the fact that it’s cheesy, romantic and gave me all kinds of feels is an added bonus. show less