The Bollywood Bride

August 3, 2015
Dev (A Bollywood Affair) replaces true connection with overdone drama in this middling contemporary romance. Bollywood star Ria, who lives and works in Mumbai, returns to Chicago for the first time in 10 years for her cousin’s wedding. There she meets Vikram, with whom she was in a serious relationship as an adolescent, and the two of them have to deal with the brutal way Ria broke up with him at the start of her film career. Ria had reasons beyond the attractions of stardom to consider herself ineligible for a relationship, and those reasons intrude between the two as they rekindle their romance. The cultural details of Mumbai and of Chicago’s Indian immigrant community are well-handled, and the book’s attitude toward mental illness is an interesting cross between Indian and American social norms. But a lack of real communication between the lovers renders the plot unbelievable, and it never acquires any emotional weight.

Bollywood film star Ria Parkar travels from Mumbai back to Chicago for the first time in 10 years to attend her cousin Nikhil's wedding. Even for those unfamiliar with the vocal nuances of the Indian community, narrator Priya Ayyar distinguishes with finesse between the uneducated maid, the up-and-coming film hero, the professor, and everyone in between. During the lengthy wedding celebrations, Ria has to face Vikram Jathar, the love of her life--whose heart she broke and life she ruined. Occasionally, the emotional weight of the story causes the narration to drag, but, overall, it's well executed and enjoyable. While this title has a slight connection to Dev's earlier BOLLYWOOD AFFAIR, they don't form a true series. K.M.P. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

March 1, 2016

Ria Parker has avoided going home to Chicago for far too long, offering up convenient excuses about her demanding Bollywood career. With her beloved more-brother-than-cousin's impending wedding, Ria finally heads stateside from Mumbai to face the family. For ten years, she's managed to avoid first-and-only-love Vikram, thinking that she's saved him from a miserable future looming with insanity. But when she meets him and his new girlfriend--virtually in flagrante in the family basement--running away this time proves impossible. Dev (Bollywood Affair) continues her bicultural Bollywood streak, albeit this time adding more steam than substance. Attempts at inclusion of weightier fare--a Chinese American adoptee who grew up in foster care, mental illness, cultural appropriation, social justice--feel clumsy and misplaced. Thankfully, versatile Priya Ayyar with her mellifluously fluent accents switches seamlessly from sibling banter and adoring older servants to overwrought sex scenes and dancing aunties without missing a beat. Where better editing might have erased dozens of unnecessary pages as the gorgeous-but-flat characters play out their inevitably predictable plot, Ayyar manages to entertain listeners. VERDICT Recommended for fans of the author. ["Both a sexy love story and an exploration of how a tormented young woman learns to overcome family turmoil and look forward to a future with the man she loves": LJ 10/1/15 review of the Kensington pb.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.