The Bollywood Bride is Sonali Dev’s second novel. We were crazy about her first novel, A Bollywood Affair ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ). The Bollywood Bride is more ambitious in emotional scope and much darker. It has the same joyful celebration of Indian and Indian-American culture that made Bollywood Affair so much fun – there’s a lot of food, extended family, and shopping for saris and sherwanis.

Overall, though, the book works less well as a romance than it does as an exploration of trauma. Trigger warning for almost everything – child abuse, sexual abuse, harassment (sexual and otherwise), and mental health issues and cultural barriers to treatment. This isn’t a light-hearted romp, but it is very well-written.

Here’s a non-spoilery version of the plot: Ria, a Bollywood film star, is known as “The Ice Princess” because she is intensely private and avoids personal relationships (although she knows all about the lives of the movie crew and is respectful and kind towards them). When Ria travels to Chicago for a family wedding, she is forced to confront her childhood friend and lover, Vikram. Ria broke Vikram’s heart and she can’t tell him why. She’s always believed that she has to guard her secrets, but as the wedding preparations throw her, her family, and Vikram together those secrets become much harder to keep.

CarrieS: My super short review is, As a novel, this book is great, but as a romance novel, it’s not as good because the hero is not terribly convincing as a character. It’s interesting that we don’t get his point of view directly. That would have helped, because his character swings back and forth a lot between angel and jerk.

RHG: Yeah, it’s…. it’s kind of old school in that way? We get very little of the hero’s POV and it’s all about her. And yet decidedly neo-classic in that the trauma the heroine goes through has actual lasting consequences that aren’t fixed by magic wang.

CarrieS: With regard to the romance, I understood why Vikram was hurt and angry, but I never believed in him as a character or believed in the romance because his character changed to fit the plot, not the other way around. When the plot demanded that Ria and Vikram be estranged, he was a douchebag. When the plot demanded that they get together, he was a walking saint. A lot of the things he said and did made sense on their own, but they didn’t flow organically. His character seemed contrived, not natural.

Also Mira totally got screwed over, and that made me really unhappy because I loved her.

RHG: I mean, look, she got screwed over, but in a way to let her go to seek her own hero, who hopefully doesn’t need his head slammed in a door multiple times, so you go, Mira. You do you.

Yes, Vikram is a problem hero. When he’s a dick, he’s a HUGE dick, and not in the good happy sexy fun times way, but in the “you need a better grovel” way.

Ria- God, I just felt so bad for her. I had a false start with this book because the angst and the trauma she went through (all of which was backstory) was too much for the mood I was in at first. Once I tried again I devoured it in a day, and not just because I wanted Indian food. (Though I did and I do, and I really wish Indian food liked me as much as I like it. UNREQUITED LOVE).

CarrieS: I definitely wouldn’t recommend this to people who say they read romance primarily for escape. It was grueling. At times I felt like I was just watching Ria being kicked (metaphorically) in the head over and over again. When it was over, I didn’t have good book sigh so much as I had that washed out feeling like I get after a really tough therapy session. But as a book about trauma, extended family, and cultural issues around mental illness I thought it was very good.

And I did love how the food and the fabrics brought some joy and levity to the story. I am so hungry right now – also I want Ria to take me shopping!

One thing I liked was that a lot of the characters acted in surprising but believable ways – people were complex. I liked it that Mira was a sympathetic character, and that the author didn’t go the easy route by having Ria’s romantic rival be a villain.

But I was upset that the major antagonist was so vile because I thought the story would have been more interesting and believable if she had been a more nuanced character. Given her age, her culture, and what she knows about Ria’s backstory, she could have been written in a way that showed that yeah, she should respect her son’s decisions, but also she could have had actual valid things to worry about.

RHG: The strength of the book was showing how these subsets of family all worked with and around each other. I especially loved Ria’s relationship with Uma and the rest of her aunties (God, I loved the aunties so much), and how they tried to give her as much stability as they could without the messiness of actually talking about what the problems were.

But I need Ria to get help. I really did. I needed someone to see that she was holding on by her fingernails and HELP HER.

CarrieS: I felt the same way – seeing her stuffing so much agony inside was very hard to read. Did you ever decide that Vikram was a worthy romantic hero? Do you picture a HEA for them?

RHG: I think, now that the Big Misunderstanding(s) have been cleared up, and they both know where the other is coming from and who the other person is, yeah, they can do it. There’s work, lots of work involved, but I think they can do it.

I think not really getting much from his POV was a weakness. I get why he was her Hero when they were both kids, but in the two weeks of wedding festivities, what the hell, hero?  WHAT THE HELL.

CarrieS: Regarding grades, I’d give it a C- for romance (I hated Vikram, and I didn’t feel he was well-written) and an A for everything else which was grueling but also amazing. I guess I’d average it to a B+ with trigger warnings all over it.

RHG: I’d give it a B+, with the understanding that if you’re looking for happy and light with gorgeous food, you’re only getting one of those things.

Also don’t read this while hungry.