My Twitter feed lost its mind when this book by Nisha Sharma won a RITA award. I didn’t even know what the RITA awards were before that point, but I figured if this book won an award, it had to be worth checking out.
It is. If you’re into YA romance with tons of Bollywood references, this book is for you. If you loved When Dimple Met Rishi as much as I did, you’ll love this one.
Winnie is an Indian American living in Princeton, NJ. She loves movies, especially Bollywood romances, and wants to pursue a career in film.
When she was born, Winnie’s parents paid an Indian pandit to check her star chart to see if there was romance in her future. The pandit prophesied that the name of Winnie’s true love would start with an R, she would meet him before her 18th birthday, and he would give her a silver bracelet as a token of his affection.
When we first meet Winnie, she’s 17 and she’s burying everything she ever gave to her ex-boyfriend, Raj. She had been off at film camp at NYU for the summer, but before she left, Raj had said he wasn’t interested in pursuing film, that he wanted to go to school in Boston and that Winnie should follow him to Boston instead of pursuing her dream of studying film at NYU. She had told him she wanted a break from their relationship, but apparently that meant he was supposed to sit around and wait for her to figure out what she wanted because she got super pissed when she found out he had hooked up with some crazy bitch named Jenny over the summer.
Now Winnie isn’t sure what she’s going to do. The pandit had successfully predicted both her parents’ marriage and her own existence (there was some question as to whether her mom would be able to get pregnant), so they had all put a lot of stock in this prophecy and they were all so sure that Raj was her true love, but now she doesn’t want to be with Raj and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.
Pretty much as soon as Raj and Winnie break up, another Indian guy in film club, Dave, is all over Winnie. Apparently he’s had a crush on Winnie since freshman year, but when she started going out with Raj, he backed off because he couldn’t stand Raj.
So Dave and Winnie start going out, but Winnie is all worried about the fact that she’s going against the prophecy and should she follow her heart or her star chart?
The ending is pretty predictable to anyone who’s ever watched a romcom, but I won’t spoil it. I’ll just say that it was a delight to listen to and I enjoyed every minute of it.
What did you read/listen to this week? Any other comfort reads?