i’m still catching up on reviews – but in the meantime the Cybils winners have been announced! Head on over and take a look – I’m taking three of the winners home from the library today.

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon. Read by Sneha Mathan and Vikas Adam. Dreamscape Media, 2017.

Dimple, newly graduated from high school, wants nothing more in life than to be a web developer.  Her overbearing mother wants her to start wearing make-up and proper, girly Indian clothes, so she can attract a good Indian husband.  Dimple is thrilled when her parents give her permission to attend nearby Insomnia Con, an intensive summer workshop in app development, with the promise of the winning app having a chance to be looked at by programming star Jenny Lindt.

Rishi is planning to leave California to attend MIT, as his parents wish.  But he hopes to have a family, and believes that compatibility, as ensured by a traditional arranged marriage, offers the best hope of long-term happiness.  His parents, after all, are still happily married.  He signs up for Insomnia Con as a way to meet Dimple and see if they are as compatible as their parents think they will be.

But as Dimple’s parents didn’t clue her in, or tell Rishi that she doesn’t know, things start off badly, with Dimple throwing her iced coffee in Rishi’s face.

The only flaw in this novel is that it presents “Is it possible for a woman to have a career and a family” as a serious dilemma – which I know it still is, but I would hope that enough women have been doing it for the past four decades or so that it should be less of an issue.  Regardless, I loved both focused Dimple and family-oriented Rishi.  I really appreciated that it wasn’t just “will Dimple see how awesome Rishi is?” but that Rishi had his own challenges in life that Dimple was able to help him see around.  Programming, sweet romance, friendship, and cheesy Bollywood dance moves blend in this delightful teen/new adult book that I’ve been recommending to all kinds of people since I read it.