4 stars for Sari, Not Sari by Sonya Singh!
**The UK title for this book is The Breakup Expert.**
Synopsis:
Manny Dogra is the beautiful young CEO of Breakup, a highly successful company that helps people manage their relationship breakups. As preoccupied as she is with her business, she’s also planning her wedding to handsome architect Adam Jamieson while dealing with the loss of her beloved parents.
For reasons Manny has never understood, her mother and father, who were both born in India, always wanted her to become an “All-American” girl. So that’s what she did. She knows next to nothing about her South Asian heritage, and that’s never been a problem—until her parents are no longer around, and an image of Manny that’s been Photoshopped to make her skin look more white appears on a major magazine cover. Suddenly, the woman who built an empire encouraging people to be true to themselves is having her own identity crisis.
But when an irritating client named Sammy Patel approaches Manny with an odd breakup request, the perfect solution presents itself: If they both agree to certain terms, he’ll give her a crash course in being “Indian” at his brother’s wedding.
What follows is days of dancing and dal, masala and mehndi as Manny meets the lovable, if endlessly interfering, aunties and uncles of the Patel family, and, along the way, discovers much more than she could ever have anticipated.
It feels like a miracle that I was able to get this book read before my tour date today. Thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada and Lonely Pages Book Tours for the copy of the ebook and the opportunity to be part of the book tour (and for letting me move my tour date back a couple of days!!). I really enjoyed this sweet, culturally vibrant romcom!
Normally when I read a romcom, I'm looking for spice. This one didn't have a ton of spice, of the sexual variety (although plenty in the food sense of the word) in it, but it didn't need it. Adding in a ton of steamy sex scenes would have ruined this meaningful story. This book is perfect for those people who love a love story but are looking for one without all the spice. In this instance, I didn't miss it at all. The story is rich enough without it.
After being whitewashed in a magazine photo, Manny begins a journey of self-discovery to connect to her Indian roots and find out what being a strong, proud, successful, Indian woman means to her. Through some twists and turns, her journey leads her to be Sammy Patel's the plus one at his brother's wedding. At this point, we romcom connoisseurs can probably guess how the story is going to end and that's okay. For the most part that's what I want when reading a romcom. I really enjoyed the banter between Manny and Sammy. Once they agree to their plan, they both start to relax a little bit more and it's easy to see 1) how easy it is for them to be around each other and 2) that they both desperately needed someone to talk to.
In my opinion, though, Manny and Sammy are not the shiny stars of this book. The richness of this story comes from the celebration of Indian culture and the delightful side characters. To me, Sari, Not Sari read like a love letter to Indian customs and traditions. The author doesn't ignore the fact that some of the customs and traditions are a little harsh (like not speaking to someone because they married someone from another culture), but she also does an amazing job describing the love and joy that can be found in really large families. While reading, my mind was just full of the bright, vibrant colors being described and I found myself googling so many of the amazing dishes. I wanted to know what these flavorsome dishes were and I wanted to be experiencing them alongside Manny. Each side character added an additional layer to Manny or Sammy's lives and I would love to sit around and gossip with Manny's sister and cousins or have Anjali work her magic and organize my life. If Rajiv and his wife invited me to dinner then I wouldn't be able to sleep in anticipation of the evening.
After all this rich layering of Indian culture on top of Manny's desire to discover what being Indian means to her, I was disappointed with the ending. The author spent so much time bringing everything to life and the ending was so rushed. I finished the book being like, wait what? We were cruising along at a nice 60mph and then all of a sudden we are going 120mph and at the destination. The ending did not feel in keeping with most of the rest of the book and that's why I gave it only 4 stars.
My plan had been to try and make some of the dishes mentioned in the book, but after some research, I realized that I was not prepared for what all that entailed. The amount of time and work that goes into so many of these dishes was astounding. It quickly became apparent that I had not planned enough time to execute them before the book tour. So instead of massacring an entire cuisine, I booked a table at Bombay & Co (https://www.bombaynco.uk/ Instagram: @bombaynco) for my husband and I. It was a much better decision. Seriously check out their Instagram because their pictures are stunning. Mine does not do their food justice. We had sev poori, ghee roast masala dosa, kheema pav, chicken tikka, onion bhaji, warm and crispy naan, and the absolute best dal fry you could ever want. Every single dish was delicious and I'm already craving more. This was a much better choice than making it myself and also made for a really tasty date night.
Thanks for stopping by!
-Kim
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