When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
Genre: Contemporary
Release Date: 30th May 2017
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source: Bought
Add it: Goodreads
Rating: 
Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, 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 as him—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, 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 gravitate 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.
I bought this book when it was on sale for 99p, and I have to admit it was mostly because of the ~drama~ surrounding it. As far as I can tell, someone wrote a negative review, people didn’t agree with it, and it all kicked off on Twitter. Obviously I had to make up my own mind because jumping into the chaos (which I haven’t actually done because who has time for Twitter drama any more?) so I bought the book.
I have to admit, I didn’t really enjoy it. It was an okay YA contemporary, but I had issues with it. A lot of this is probably because of who I am as a person, and the person that I am really doesn’t like reading about domestic abuse. I’m quite sensitive in that regard, I suppose.
My main issue was that Dimple kept punching (or wanting to punch) Rishi. I feel like I can make slight allowances depending on the setting and situation, but like I said, I’m pretty sensitive to domestic abuse and anything similar. In this situation it was just too much. I am not on board with anyone hitting their love interest. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Dimple and Rishi’s entire relationship is going to be abusive, or anyone is going to suffer from domestic abuse in the long run, but I couldn’t deal with the punching out of anger or exasperation.
And did I ship it? No.
That said, the controversial coffee scene was hilarious. If some random guy came up to me in a coffee shop and introduced himself as my future husband, I would also throw coffee at him and run the hell away.
I liked Rishi, although I didn’t relate to him at all because our beliefs are just so different. But he was an interesting character. I also liked it when Rishi’s brother showed up because that added something to the plot that was previously missing. I.e. excitement. Dimple was… yeah. Eh. I wish I could have seen her doing some more coding because I wanted to read about a female coder.
I did really enjoy Dimple and Celia’s relationship, which started out online and then grew to an IRL friendship. There were a few hiccups along the way, but I liked them.
So this isn’t the best book. There’s not much of a plot, it’s very basic YA, but I did enjoy the Indian representation and the few funny scenes that were scattered throughout.