Uma Krishnaswami (Children's Literature)
Dimple Rohitbhai Lala, turned traumatically seventeen, longs for something other than her immigrant parents' deathly respectable version of Life in America. Trouble is, her gorgeous friend Gwyn's social circles turn out to ring a little hollow, to say the least. Through the lens of her camera and the friendly machinations of a politically enlightened cousin, Dimple gets a close-up look at a hitherto undreamed-of universe in the local Indian (or is it South Asian?) club scene. The music is fusion, and the pace thrums with the energy of the young, the focused and the drop-dead fabulous, all of whom only succeed in making Dimple feel positively provincial. This is further complicated by the presence of the very boy Dimple has previously felt compelled to spurn because her parents have decided he is wonderfully suitable. By the time she finds her balance and gets the guy, it's a bit like being back on the ground after a rollercoaster ride of tumultuous emotions expressed in prose both breathless and breathtaking. Which (all in all, baapray!) is a pretty apt representation of the teen years. Tanuja Desai Hidier depicts the youthful "desi" community (the Hindi word "desi" means "of or from my country") in loving detail and extravagant, unafraid color. Caste representations feel a little less authentic, since few Hindus stick with the oversimplification of four castes that the narrator falls back on here, and that the Western world predictably finds fascinating. Still, it's the nuance of context, conundrums of naming and being named, the meaning of "us" and "them" and everything in between, that form the heart of this densely packed and often very funny novel. Such themes are not new in the literature of the South Asian diaspora, where point of view is all and readers are expected to sing along, never mind if they don't get all the words. What is refreshingly new is the rendering of these ingredients so they are consumable by older teen readers. Here is a protagonist with all the contradictions and quirks of adolescence, her quick irreverence belied by her more than slightly wide-eyed awakening, and by the demolition in succession of a series of ethnic, cultural, and sexual stereotypes. Language and content might be found objectionable by some. 2002, Scholastic, $16.95. Ages 14 up.

CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 2003)
Seventeen-year-old Dimple Lala is a first generation Indian American living in New Jersey. The end of Dimple's junior year of high school marks the start of a summer of self-discovery for this young woman who loves taking photographs but doesn't think of herself as a photographer. She fails to claim her passion just as she fails to embrace her Indian heritage as a positive part of her identity. Dimple's parent seem determined to hook her up with a suitable boy, and they believe they've found one in Karsh, the son of an old friend from medical school in India. At first, as Dimple tells her best friend, Gwyn, she is seriously uninterested in Karsh. But just as she's taking a second look, tall, thin, blonde-haired, picture-perfect Gwyn, whose just been dumped, looks too, complicating Dimple's feelings for both her best friend and this young man who has begun to intrigue her. Dimple is also becoming immersed for the first time in a vibrant South Asian club culture in New York City, thanks in part to her cousin Kavita, recently arrived from India and a student at NYU. Kavita also invites Dimple to attend a student conference on South Asian identity. That Gwyn participates even more eagerly than Dimple, throwing herself into "becoming more Indian" because of her interest in Karsh, and her need to find something to fill the void of an emotionally barren family, is just one of the many funny, embarrassing, authentic, and genuine moments that abound in this sparkling, complex, appealing first novel from Tanuja Desai Hidier. Some of Dimple's revelations over the summer initially shock her, such as her cousin coming out as a lesbian, and her own realization that the beautiful young woman she's seen dancing in the clubs is actually a young man in drag, but she is able to absorb these experiences into her understanding of these individuals without judgment. (Less easy for Dimple to face is the aftermath when she gets drunk for the first time, and her first experience getting high. Yet it seems unlikely that Dimple will seek out either activity in the future, even though neither are wholly condemned by her or her peers.) It's hard for Dimple to navigate her changing relationship with Gwyn, especially after discovering that her best friend, whom she thought she knew so well, has been holding back a lot from her. But perhaps the greatest revelation she has by summer's end -- beyond her own newfound ability to embrace who she is and what she cares about -- is that her parents are so much more complex and extraordinary than she ever imagined. Their greatest wish is not for Dimple to find a husband, but rather a soul-mate, whoever that might be. CCBC categories: Fiction For Young Adults; The Arts; Understanding Oneself And Others. 2002, Scholastic Press, 413 pages, $16.95. Ages 15 and older.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2002 (Vol. 70, No. 18))
An Indian-American teen experiences a dizzying summer chasing boys, her best friend, and her identity. Dimple Lala is accustomed to being one of only two Indians in her suburban New Jersey high school, but custom does not lead to comfort, and she feels acutely that she has no real place either in the Indian community of her parents or the American world of her peers. When her best friend Gwyn, blonde, beautiful, and endlessly charismatic, fixes her up with a college boy for her 17th birthday and she becomes monumentally, stinking drunk, her parents decide to take drastic action in the form of an arranged introduction to a "suitable boy." Dimple does her best to fend off their good intentions, but, too late, she finds herself falling in love, almost against her will, with said suitable boy, who actually spins a mean disc as a nightclub DJ. Dimple emerges as a smart, funny, and original voice whose familial, friendship, and identity struggles are both universal and beautifully specific. Newcomer Desai Hidier crafts a frequently hilarious narrative whose familiar teen-quest-for-identity plot is peopled with highly distinctive and likable characters and is overlaid with a fearless and glorious sense of linguistic possibilities that (along with some idiosyncratic punctuation) seems positively Joyceian. The wordplay is fairly simple at first, but as the plot progresses and Dimple's feelings and understandings become more complex, the language becomes increasingly metaphorical and abstract. On a solo nighttime photographic tour through New York, Dimple comes close to a cultural epiphany, and the descriptive language takes off. At one point she describes exiting the New York subway: "From a swift tunnel of cut blackness and counterfeit light through a yellowy pool of candle wax turnstiled, metal still muggy to the touch from that rush of hungering hands and up the stairs and out the narrow door into that greater darkness but this one enormously ongoing and violently adorned." If the plot is a tad predictable, if the love interest is just about too good to be true-who cares? The exuberant, almost psychedelic linguistic riffs will catch readers up in a breathtaking experience that is beyond virtually anything being published for teens today. 2002, Scholastic, $16.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 13 up. Starred Review. © 2002 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Claire Rosser (KLIATT Review, November 2002 (Vol. 36, No. 6))
This is an especially witty, intelligent immigrant experience novel, written by a young woman who grew up in America and probably was ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) herself. It has a lot of pages for a YA novel and each page is filled with words, smallish print. Clearly Hidier loves words and knows how to use them lavishly. In a way, it is a reflection of the Indian culture in general, filled with colors and food and aromas and action. I like the cover art: basically, the eyes and forehead of an Indian woman with a red question mark where the bindi (red dot) goes. The narrator is named Dimple Lala and she lives in New Jersey. Her parents are well-educated Indian immigrants who adore her and hover over her anxiously. She is in high school. Her best friend is a Caucasian American named Gwyn, who lives nearby. Gwyn has a rotten home life and spends a lot of time with Dimple's family, admiring the clothes, food, and above all, the loving parents. Gwyn is beautiful and into boys, sex, and the wild side while Dimple looks on admiringly. This lengthy story, filled with characters and situations, tells how the two mature, seeing one another differently. Finally, each girl is able to see herself in a new light. For Dimple, this means accepting all the plusses and minuses of being an Indian in America, finding a way to fit the two cultures together and falling in love with someone who is comfortable in both cultures. Dimple is an accomplished observer, and she uses this skill while taking photographs, an essential part of being herself. How she goes into the "darkening room" as her parents call it, to lose herself in the development of the prints, is almost like going back into the womb to be reborn. On a foray into NYC, she meets a beautiful girl named Zara, only later realizing that Zara is male, a transvestite. They become friends, and Dimple persuades him/her to allow her to photograph the transformation Zara undergoes with clothes and makeup to turn from young man to young woman. This series of photographs is published in a New York magazine; for the first time, Dimple feels proud of her accomplishments and has a glimpse into a future where she is seen as an artist. Another part of the plot is that Dimple's parents arrange a meeting with the son of an old friend from India. She is horrified at the manipulation and claims to hate the guy, so Gwyn feels free to pursue him. Slowly over time, Dimple realizes that she is jealous and interested in Karsh for herself. This causes a major fall-out between the friends, but is a catalyst for Dimple's coming to terms with her own cultural heritage. And the girlfriends finally resolve their differences and in doing so, find their friendship is much stronger than it ever was before. Hidier's voice is original. Here's a bit of dialogue between the two girlfriends: Gywn says, "You see...with an Indian boy maybe you can, you know, explore all that stuff. Go Kamasutronic, so to speak." I think YA girls who love to talk and make up language and analyze everything about their lives will really love this book. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: S*--Exceptional book, recommended for senior high school students. 2002, Scholastic, 432p., $16.95. Ages 15 to 18.

Vicki Arkoff (Midwest Book Review, "Vicki's Bookshelf" column, December 2002)
Who can resist a protagonist named Dimple Lala? She's a lively, club-going teenager just like anyone else, except that she's not exactly sure who she is: a normal American girl or a dutiful Indian daughter. And now that she's 17, her life is one melodiously complicated mess. She's trying to get over a break up with her boyfriend, but her best friend is smitten with a new boy so in't there when Lala needs her. The last straw comes when her traditional parents make it clear that they wish for Lala to honor tradition by accepting an arranged marriage to a "suitable boy." It's unthinkable to thoroughly-modern Dimple until she discovers the boy in question spinning records in a club. Written by an Indian-American now living in London, the award-winning author slips every now and then, using British slang ("bloddy bollocks") for her American characters. But Hidier makes it easy for readers to fall right inside Dimple's lengthy story as she struggles to find true love and friendship while discovering her relationship with her own culture. The details are as savory as the chai and masala spices that flavor. Once readers get over the author's odd choice of abandoning quotation marks, the rapid-fire dialog will be hungrily digested. By the end, each reader will find it impossible to imagine a time that they had not loved Dimple "with every Dhage na Dhin, Dhage na Dha of (their) drumming heart." 2002, Scholastic Press, 414 pages, $16.95.

Fern Kory (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February 2003 (Vol. 56, No. 6))
The epic story of the “Indian Summer” of a New Jersey teenager begins on the last day of her junior year. Seventeen-year-old Dimple Lala, whose clever, self-deprecating narration pulls the reader through an almost day-by-day accounting of this eventful period, is one of two Indian-American students in her high school; she sees herself as a “too curvy, clumsy, camera-clacking wallflower with nothing but questions,” in contrast to her confident, free-spirited best friend, Gwyn. Like Dimple, the novel starts out all-American and becomes increasingly comfortable with its Indian side, which Dimple eventually reclaims from Gwyn, whose single-minded colonization of Dimple’s ethnicity (and the suitable Indian boy meant for Dimple) rocks Dimple’s world. Her horizons expand as she discovers a lively community of young people inventing what it means to be Indian and American here and now (“These people were not my relatives and the chicas wore cool shoes. I couldn’t believe I’d thought the place would be full of aunties”) and rejects--and then falls for (and wins)--the suitable Indian boy. Finally, she comes to a more clear-sighted appreciation of her friends and relations, understanding that “everyone had a story. Everyone was making a story, all the time. And this was only the beginning of mine.” In between, Dimple and the reader meet enough memorable characters to stock a volume of Dickens and misunderstandings enough to propel a Jane Austen plot. Not every reader will be prepared to go the distance, but those who get caught up in Dimple’s story will be reflecting on hot thematic issues while basking in the warmth of a love story generous enough to include the reader in its glow. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2003, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2003, Scholastic, 413p, $16.95. Grades 9-12.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2003)
Seventeen-year-old Indian-American Dimple Lala feels confused--about her beloved but domineering best friend, about the "nice Indian boy" her parents find for her, and about her college-student cousin's eye-opening opinions about "South Asian identity." Readers undeterred by the detail-laden, heavily descriptive writing style will enjoy this funny and thought-provoking coming-of-age novel. Category: Older Fiction. 2003, Scholastic, 413pp, $16.95. Ages 12 to 14. Rating: 3: Recommended, satisfactory in style, content, and/or illustration.

Carolyn Carpan (VOYA, February 2003 (Vol. 25, No. 6))
Sixteen-year-old Dimple Lala, the only child of loving East Indian parents, has a good life. Dimple is confused about her identity, however, and despite her passion for photography, she lacks the self-confidence to pursue it. Her parents want her to embrace her Indian heritage, but because she has always lived in New Jersey, Dimple wants to be more American, more like her best friend Gwyn. When Dimple's parents set her up with Karsh Kapoor, the son of a family friend, she goes through with the uneventful meeting for her parents' sake. Later, in a chance meeting at a club, Dimple is surprised to discover that she likes Karsh. When Gwyn decides to go after Karsh, Dimple feels that she is no competition for her vivacious friend. Her interest in Karsh sparks a need to know more about her heritage, and Dimple gets involved in the local South Asian community. Dimple finds other South Asian Americans who are struggling with identity issues, including a lesbian couple and a drag queen, and she no longer feels like a misfit. As Dimple becomes more comfortable in her own skin, she moves from black-and-white to color photography, realizes she loves Karsh, and has a falling-out with Gwyn. Dimple's happy ending is a little too tidy, particularly her fast reunion with Gwyn, and therefore is a bit unbelievable. An unusual and delightful coming-of-age story, it begins rather slowly, but Desai Hidier's vivid descriptions and sense of humor will hold the attention of readers, and they will cheer on Dimple. VOYA CODES: 4Q 3P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2002, Scholastic, 432p, $16.95. Ages 12 to 18.