The writing style didn’t pull me in the way I wanted it to.
And she was adamant about clinging to her American upbringing and defying the cultural norms while in India – valiant in some situations, but it felt like she was often toeing the line to disrespectful and/or reckless behavior.
For example, she thought her parents were too reliant on what she perceived as outdated and rigid traditions, and she reacted to most situations in a whiny ‘my parents just don’t understand me’ kind of way. Her behavior often came off as childish and slightly oblivious while she was working through her self-discovery process. To be completely honest, Preeti was kind of exhausting. There were a couple things that made this a likeable, not loveable, read for me. The author also did a nice job of exploring the dynamics of Preeti’s family, including their individual choices regarding their identities and the silent sacrifices each of them made to protect each other. The book got me thinking about the concepts of cultural belonging, caste systems, and the experience of first-generation immigrants in a way I haven’t before. When a family tragedy occurs, she travels back to the city of her birth in India and begins an unexpected journey of reconciling her American upbringing with her Indian heritage. (Side note: I’m not really sure what the age cut-off is for going through a “coming-of age” phase, but if a woman in her thirties no longer qualifies, we can call it a quarter-life crisis instead.) The main character, Preeti, is a first-generation immigrant living in Los Angeles. This book is a coming-of-age story about a woman torn between two cultures. Torn between two beautifully flawed cultures, Preeti must now untangle what home truly means to her. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of her heritage, Preeti catches a startling glimpse of her family’s battles with class, tradition, and sacrifice. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm.īut when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she’ll have to face her estranged parents…and the complicated past they left behind.
All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. In Mansi Shah’s stunning debut novel, a family tragedy beckons a first-generation immigrant to the city of her birth, where she grapples with her family’s past in search of where she truly belongs.Īfter her parents moved her and her brother to America, Preeti Desai never meant to tear her family apart.
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