Sandhya Menon
projected publication date: May 2017
3/5 stars
Dimple Shah, high school graduate, has no desire to fill her future with marriage and kids, but instead is looking forward to Stanford and a life of coding--her passion--afterward. She resists her parents traditional Indian values and just wants to live life her way. Rishi Patel is just the opposite. He loves the traditions of his family, and he does every thing he can to please his parents: including going to MIT for engineering when what he truly wants is to be an artist. They are set up by their parents to meet at a six week coding conference with hopes that it could become serious in the future. What will happen when the traditional and nontraditional meet?
When Dimple Met Rishi is a standard YA romance with Indian overtones, and that pretty much sums it up. It deals with typical YA subjects: parents, bullying, trying to achieve, making decisions for the future, romantic ups and downs. It switches back and forth nicely between Dimple's perspective and Rishi's, but without a noticeable change in voice, which was a disappointment. Overall, it lacks charm and is not a compelling read.
