Book Review: When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

Goodreads Synopsis: Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.

The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

My Review: Oh god. I don't even know where to start with this review; my thoughts are all over the place. This was literally like reading a Bollywood movie, but instead of skipping the cheesy parts, I had to read through all of them and cringed every time. 

Let's start with the good:

• Insomnia Con was fun.
• Dimple's drive and focus was admirable. 
• Rishi was a really sweet character.
• The dual POV narration worked really well!

And a couple of not-so-good things:

• This book focused way too much on the romance. Every time the two characters said a sentence to one another, they were "falling for each other". Please, this is instalove in disguise. I would've enjoyed more about Dimple's coding experience.
• I am actually Indian in ethnicity as well, and no one I know uses as much Hindi/Urdu while conversing with friends as these two. And while I appreciate Dimple wearing kurtis with jeans, I don't know anyone who does this as consistently as her (this may be just me though, maybe I'm unexposed?).
• The writing seemed a little juvenile.
• Rishi was nice, but also a little desperate. He doesn't even know Dimple at all and still falls for her! In fact, this pretty much sums up the book:

Dimple: *exists*

Rishi: Will you marry me?

Overall, not what I was hoping for, and I give the book 2.5 stars. What do you think? Have you read WDMR? Was it good rep.? Tell me below!