When Dimple Met Rishi

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dimple is adamantly opposed to a traditional life and settling down. She sees romantic relationships as a threat to her plans for using her coding skills to design an app that would change people's lives by helping them manage their chronic illnesses. Rishi believes in traditions to the point of suppressing his own passion for creating comic art (graphic novels) in favor of following in his father's engineering footsteps. He's totally on board with the idea of an arranged marriage to the daughter of friends of his parents. Dimple? Not so much! Despite a less-than-auspicious first meeting, their attraction builds, and the two turn out to be a better team than either could ever imagine.

This character-driven YA romance is absolutely delightful, and the narrators make it even better! I'd been seeing this book mentioned over and over on #AskALibrarian on Twitter on Thursday mornings, and decided to see what all the fuss was about. I'm so glad I did. I loved it!

For readers' advisors: character doorway is primary. Some swearing, no violence, a tasteful fade-to-black first-time sex scene, and lots of kissing/petting. Main characters and their families are Indian-American. Another character is, I think, Hispanic? I forget exactly. The obnoxious "Aberzombies" are rich white kids.

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A Closed and Common Orbit

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this book SO much! I had a hard time getting into it because I started reading it quite soon after finishing book #1 in the series (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet), and book #2, although it begins right where #1 leaves off, only tangentially mentions the characters from the first book. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the original characters at all, but once I got past that and started learning more about Jane 23, Pepper, Sidra, Blue, and eventually Tak, I became completely absorbed in their story.

For readers' advisors: character and setting doorways are primary. The world-building is incredible, and I spent much of the book wishing fervently that I could reach in and hug the characters. A fair amount of swearing, especially when Jane is a rebellious teenager. Some references to sex but no sex scenes. Not really any violence except for when Jane kills her first feral dog as it attacked. A Closed and Common Orbit has a non-linear structure, alternating between Jane's story in the past and Sidra's in the present. ("Present" being hundreds of years in the future somewhere else in the galaxy.) Many completely different species, and humans are far from dominant. There is really no such thing as a "white" person any more. One of the characters comes from a 4-gendered species, and xe is of the gender that regularly switches between male and female. (Can I just add how much I love the creation of neutral gender pronouns in this series?! Xe and xyr are SO much more useful and specific than using the plural "they" to refer to a singular person. I wish this would transfer to real life!)

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The Big Kahuna

The Big Kahuna by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The 6th installment of the Fox and O'Hare series is just as much of a fun romp as the first 5. Very fast-paced and story-driven, with very little character development (OK, none), but it made me laugh out loud several times, so I'm rounding up to 4 stars. Some swearing, sexual innuendo, and violence (especially blowing things up), but none of it is graphic.

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Dreaming in Chocolate

Dreaming in Chocolate by Susan Bishop Crispell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It took me a long time to read this book after I checked it out. I must have just seen that it was a magical realism book written by Susan Bishop Crispell and placed it on hold without really reading the synopsis very closely, and when I started reading the book and learned it was about a young, single mom whose daughter was dying, I put it down. On the other hand, I didn't return it to the library, and eventually I picked it up again. I'm glad I did because it turned out to be less sad than I expected. Largely because of a) the lovely tone and b) the fact that Ella is the healthiest dying person you could imagine.

I loved the atmosphere of the book--a wintery small town in western North Carolina that actually felt much more like the New England setting of The Gilmore Girls than anything in the South. Still, the author is from North Carolina, whereas I've never been there, so I'll take her word for it.

It was pretty hard to believe that in such a small town where everyone knew everyone else, Noah could possibly NOT know that Penelope had had a daughter. He did visit a few times over the years, after all, and he was close with his family. And it was similarly unlikely that he wouldn't have been able to find out Ella's birthdate and do some math to figure out who the "mysterious" father was. So I had a hard time with some of the basic premises (these and others) of the story, which is what lowered my overall rating.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the characters, empathized with their pain, and wanted to smack them upside the head when they were being foolishly stubborn. Like the entire time Penelope refused to make the recipe for curing heartbreak that the apothecary table gave her--I mean, hello? At least make it to cure your mother's heartbreak? Or see that it could help with BOTH of your own sources of heartbreak? Or other people's? Honestly, girl!  Trust the table!

For readers' advisors: character and setting doorways. A smattering of swearing, especially later on in the book. No sex, although the main characters got as far as starting to remove some clothing. No violence. Winter setting that makes you want to curl up with some tasty hot chocolate, possibly of the magical variety!

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Delivery Bear

Delivery Bear by Laura Gehl
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this one. On the surface, it's a super cute story of a bear who's always wanted to deliver things for a living, and one day he gets the chance to do his dream job. Except, because he's a bear and not a bunny, he has to talk the manager into giving him a chance, and then he ends up scaring the customers because, you know, he's a big bear. He tries to make himself look more like a bunny so he won't scare people, but it doesn't work, and then finally he remembers to be proud of who he is and instead starts singing a song of his own creation to let the other animals know he means them no harm. This works, and he succeeds.

In the context of the animal world, it's delightful and makes perfect sense. He's a big bear, and the other animals would normally be prey or at least in danger, so their fear is completely logical. He does what's necessary to solve that situation.

However. When you look at the allegorical overtones, that's when things get icky. I am unsettled by the inherent prejudice of the manager telling Zogby that he doesn't "have the Fluffy Tail Cookies look." I am unsettled by the concept of Zogby trying to change himself in order to fit in or make others accept him, although we all do this to a certain extent. It makes me think of African Americans having to "act white" in order to seem less threatening to the white people in charge.

I do appreciate the message of being who you are because who you are is inherently special, though. And it's good that Zogby does break down the employment barriers, thanks to customers calling to praise him.

My daughter picked this book out from the library, and we read it once or twice. The overtones that unsettled me went right over my daughter's head, which is good. I'm not sure I'd want to keep reading it to her without also having a conversation about these troubling issues, however, and she's still a little too young to really comprehend, so this book is going back to the library.

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