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  1 When Dimple Met Rishi
Author: Menon, Sandhya
 
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Class: Fiction
Age: 12-19
Language: English
Demand: Moderate
LC: PZ7.1
Grade: 7-12
ISBN-13: 9781481478687
LCCN: 2016023129
Imprint: Simon Pulse
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Pub Date: 05/30/2017
Availability: Available
List: $19.99
  Hardcover
Physical Description: 380 pages ; 22 cm H 8.25", W 5.5", D 1.4", 1.01 lbs.
LC Series:
Brodart Sources: Brodart's Diverse Titles: Asian & Pacific Islander (Teen)
Brodart's For Youth Interest Titles
Brodart's For Youth Interest: Popular
Brodart's Insight Catalog: Teen
Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles
Brodart's YA Reads for Adults
Bibliographies: Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 13th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 14th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 15th ed.
New York Times Bestsellers List
New York Times Bestsellers: Children's Middle Grade and Young Adult Books
Rise: A Feminist Book Project for Ages 0-18
Senior High Core Collection, 21st ed.
Senior High Core Collection, 22nd ed.
Texas Tayshas Reading List
Young Adult Fiction Core Collection, 4th ed.
Awards: Best Fiction for Young Adults
Colorado Book Award Winners
Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices
Horn Book Guide Titles, Rated 1 - 4
Indies Choice/E.B. White Read-Aloud Book Award Winners and Honors
Kirkus Best Books
Kirkus Starred Reviews
School Library Journal Best Books
School Library Journal Popular Picks
VOYA's 5P Picks
VOYA's 5Q Picks
VOYA's Perfect Tens
Starred Reviews: Kirkus Reviews
~VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates Magazine - Retired Journal)
TIPS Subjects: Romance
Family Life
Social Life and Customs
Asian-American & Pacific Islander
BISAC Subjects: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Romance / Romantic Comedy
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Diversity & Multicultural
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance
LC Subjects: Arranged marriage, Fiction
Arranged marriage, Juvenile fiction
Dating (Social customs), Fiction
Dating (Social customs), Juvenile fiction
Dating, Fiction
East Indian Americans, Fiction
East Indian Americans, Juvenile fiction
Families, Juvenile fiction
Family life, Fiction
SEARS Subjects: Love stories
Social systems, Fiction
Reading Programs: Accelerated Reader Level: 5.1 , Points: 14.0
Lexile Level: 700
Reading Counts Level: 5.3 , Points: 22.0
 
Annotations
Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles | 05/01/2017
Publisher Annotation: When Dimple Shah and Rishi Patel meet at a Stanford University summer program, Dimple is avoiding her parents' obsession with "marriage prospects" but Rishi hopes to woo her into accepting arranged marriage with him. 384pp.
Starred Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews | 03/15/2017
A clash of perspectives sparks this romantic comedy about two first-generation Indian-American teens whose parents set an arranged-marriage plan in motion, but it backfires big time--or maybe not? In the alternating voices of her two protagonists, Menon explores themes of culture and identity with insight and warmth. Seamlessly integrating Hindi language, she deftly captures the personalities of two seemingly opposite 18-year-olds from different parts of California and also from very different places regarding life choices and expectations. Insomnia Con, a competitive six-week summer program at San Francisco State focused on app development, is where this compelling, cinematic, and sometimes-madcap narrative unfolds. Dimple Shah lives and breathes coding and has what she thinks is a winning and potentially lifesaving concept. She chafes under her mother's preoccupation with the Ideal Indian Husband and wants to be respected for her intellect and talent. Rishi Patel believes in destiny, tradition, and the "rich fabric of history," arriving in San Francisco with his great-grandmother's ring in his pocket. He plans to study computer science and engineering at MIT. But what about his passion for comic-book art? They are assigned to work together and sparks fly, but Dimple holds back. Readers will be caught up as Rishi and Dimple navigate their ever changing, swoonworthy connection, which plays out as the app competition and complicated social scene intensify. Heartwarming, empathetic, and often hilarious--a delightful read. (Fiction. 14-adult). 384pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2017.
~VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates Magazine - Retired Journal) | 06/01/2017
5Q 5P J S. Dimple Shah is so excited to attend the summer web development conference Insomnia Con that she is not even suspicious when her parents are equally keen for her to go. When Rishi Patel walks up to her and jokingly says, "Hello, future wife," the only thing Dimple can do is dump her iced coffee on him. It turns out that both Dimple and Rishi's parents have been hoping love would spark between the two teens for a long time. After their "meet cute" gone awry, they begrudgingly get to know each other, even though both are focused on their own futures. The more they hang out, the less romance seems like a bad idea ... Menon weaves a vibrant, joyous, funny love story between two smart, strong, sexy, funny, wonderful people who happen to be first-generation Indian American. Dimple and Rishi resist, but it is clear, virtually from the start, that this is a perfect match. They are purely equals, and each bolsters the other. Menon does not fall into any stereotypical traps--no lame, interfering third parties, no stupid misunderstandings. Conflicts arise naturally; Dimple and Rishi are perfectly able to think through them and come up with solutions, on their own and as a team. Some readers may dislike that Dimple and Rishi decide to have sex (with special emphasis on the word "decide") but it is handled beautifully and movingly. Menon is firmly in Jane Austen territory here and proves superbly adept at handling her characters'--and readers'--hearts.--Matthew Weaver. 384p. VOICE OF YOUTH ADVOCATES, c2017.
Journal Reviews
BookPage | 06/01/2017
12 and up. As When Dimple Met Rishi opens, 18-year-old Dimple Shah has graduated from high school and been accepted to Stanford. She loves iced coffee and coding, but not her mother's incessant harping about her appearance and future wifehood. She's thrilled when her parents send her to Insomnia Con, a summer program for budding coders at San Francisco State University. On the first day, Dimple sits on the SFSU campus, eyes closed, sipping iced coffee and feeling hopeful that maybe, just maybe, her parents were "finally beginning to realize she was her own person, with a divergent, more modern belief system." But her tranquility is shattered when she hears a friendly male voice say, "Hello, future wife." A horrified shriek and an iced-coffee-flying-through-the-air later, Rishi Patel is left dripping, and Dimple (fleeing at a dead sprint) is worried she has a stalker. This doesn't seem like an auspicious beginning to a beautiful relationship, but--thanks to Menon's warm, funny characters and a story that sensitively and evenhandedly explores what happens when traditional values and modern ideas collide--readers know better. At first, though, Dimple doesn't. She's spent so many years defending herself against her relentlessly overbearing mother that's she's understandably twitchy about dating. Besides, she's at Insomnia Con to code! Rishi, who's been accepted to MIT, is there to code, too--but also because his and Dimple's parents plotted to throw them together and nudge them toward marriage. "I think arranged marriage is still fairly misunderstood in America," Menon says from Colorado, where she lives with her husband and two children. "On TV, you usually see really old guys marrying helpless, vulnerable women, but that's not what it's like in my family and the families I knew growing up. I wanted to portray arranged marriage as it's more commonly found in middle-class India." Menon grew up in India and came to America at age 15. While her marriage wasn't arranged, she says, "Pretty much all of my relatives' were, so it's pretty normal for me to think about it." In Dimple and Rishi's case, the two have more in common than they realize: Just as Dimple always feels like she's not good enough for her parents, Rishi feels distant from his own. His dad urges him toward a practical business education, despite Rishi's love for drawing comics. However, Rishi is more in tune with his parents when it comes to marriage: He trusts them and believes in the importance of tradition. Of course, because he's male, he hasn't experienced a lifetime of being told to wear more makeup and to stop caring about school so he can focus on becoming marriage material. Menon notes that in Indian culture, especially for daughters, it can be "hard to see past your mother constantly telling you how you should be, how things should be, what you should change. It's hard to see that as coming from a place of love, or that it's the only way they know how to communicate that they want you to end up in a good place in life." For Menon, this divide was a crucial addition to the story. "It's a very universal experience for anyone with a controlling parent," she says. "In the end, Dimple's mom was really proud of her and wanted what was best for her, even if that was communicated in a convoluted way." As in any good rom-com, time passes and the two get to know each other, allowing perspectives to shift and defenses to weaken. Dimple realizes that Rishi is a good, talented person who stands up for her when it matters. (It doesn't hurt that he's handsome, too.) And Rishi acknowledges that fierce, lovely Dimple has been experiencing arranged-marriage pressure in a very different, demoralizing way--and that perhaps it's OK to pursue... Review exceeds allowable length. Linda M. Castellitto. 384p. BOOKPAGE, c2017.
Booklist | 04/01/2017
Grades 9-12. It's not always as easy as boy meets girl. In the case of Rishi Patel and Dimple Shah, it's more like boy is arranged to marry girl, and girl attacks boy with iced coffee. In her delightful debut, Menon tells the story of two Indian American teenagers, fresh from high school and eager for adulthood. While Rishi's version of growing up involves happily following his parents' life plan (giving up art for engineering and accepting an arranged marriage to Dimple), Dimple sees college as her chance to escape her immigrant parents' stifling expectations (which include little more than wearing makeup and finding a suitable Indian husband). And yet, when Dimple and Rishi finally meet, they are both shocked to realize what it is they truly want--and what they're willing to sacrifice to get it. While Menon's portrayal of the struggles of Indian American teens is both nuanced and thoughtful, it is her ability to fuse a classic coming-of-age love story with the contemporary world of nerd culture, cons, and coding camp, that will melt the hearts of readers. Kuss, Rebecca. 384p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2017.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books | 06/01/2017
R. Gr. 9-12. Dimple's parents would like their second-generation daughter to have more traditional Indian values, but Dimple is an American girl-ambitious, independent, and focused on her career as a coder rather than attracting an "Ideal Indian Husband." Rishi, on the other hand, is all about filial piety, and he is delighted when his parents suggest an arranged marriage with Dimple. Dimple is blindsided when this handsome but geeky guy approaches her in their prestigious summer app-development program, claiming her as his future wife. As meet-cutes go, this one is a disaster, but Rishi handles his failure well, backing off the marriage talk and allowing Dimple to take the lead in developing their relationship. Of course the two are thrown together in Dimple's single-minded quest to win the funding to develop and market her app, and their feelings for each other develop with an intensity worthy of a Bollywood romance. What saves this from being too treacly, however, is the genuine likability of Rishi set against the initial prickliness of Dimple. The romance goes so well at first, in fact, that readers will wonder where the conflicts required for plot interest will emerge, but they do, and their resolutions are all the more satisfying for being steeped in the sweetness that came before. The cultural pleasures and pressures each teen faces are integral to the way Rishi and Dimple approach their everyday lives and relationships, and the ethos is unapologetically positive even as Dimple chafes against her mother's traditional approach to femininity. With just the right blend of substance and fluff, this makes for a perfectly sigh-worthy beach read. KC. 384p. THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIV. OF ILLINOIS, c2017.
Horn Book Guide | 11/01/2017
3. Rishi is excited to meet Dimple, a girl his parents have chosen for him to marry; fiercely independent Dimple knows nothing of the arrangement. After a bad first impression, the two, with differing attitudes toward their religion and Indian American culture, fall in love at their summer web development program in San Francisco. Alternating narration provides deep character insight in this delightful, observant rom-com. asf. 380pg. THE HORN BOOK, c2017.
Publishers Weekly | 03/27/2017
Ages 12-up. In this bright and funny debut novel, Menon introduces two intellectually gifted teens from traditional Indian families who meet at a summer tech conference in San Francisco. The twist: Dimple and Rishi's parents have arranged their marriage. Rishi is aware of the arrangement; Dimple is not. Rishi longs for a traditional marriage like the one his parents have, but Dimple is adamantly opposed to her parents' efforts to push her toward the same, favoring a career and education over family. After a disastrous initial meeting (Dimple throws iced coffee at Rishi), the two creep toward friendship and love, a slow process recounted through their alternating points of view (often switching multiple times within a single chapter). This frequent back and forth provides a detailed play-by-play of the teenagers' shifting emotions as Menon vividly conjures the joy, self-doubt, and humor of first love. Romance-loving readers will celebrate the ways that Rishi and Dimple learn to respect and appreciate their Indian heritage and traditions but also manage to go their own way. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (May). 384p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2017.
School Library Journal | 03/01/2017
Gr 7 Up. POP--Dimple is a headstrong girl who is passionate about coding and web development much to the chagrin of her parents, who wish she would focus more on her appearance and attracting a husband. Basking in her acceptance to Stanford, Dimple is surprised when her parents agree to let her attend a six-week "Insomnia Con" in San Francisco. Not long into her convention, Dimple discovers why her parents were so willing to let her go. She has been set up to meet a potential husband--the very traditional yet charming Rishi. The plot is moderately paced as the romance between the pair flops, then flourishes. The characters are refreshing, even if familiar. Rishi has a hidden love of comics, Dimple is a feminist who secretly yearns to please her parents, and the "Aberzombies" are the superficial prep school kids who get their jollies by making Dimple and Rishi feel like outsiders. The strength of the story comes from its blending of Indian culture and values into a modern-day romance that scores of readers can enjoy. This novel touches on issues of identity while remaining light and fun. VERDICT A strong choice for any young adult collection. Christina Vortia, Hype Lit, Wesley Chapel, FL. 384p. SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2017.
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