Those familiar with author Sonali Dev know that her books involve a lot of food, complicated family issues, and angst. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors has all of these qualities, but the angst overwhelmed the romance to the point where I didn’t believe in the happy ending. I did, however, want to eat ALL the food.

Trisha is a neurosurgeon in San Francisco. Her wealthy parents immigrated to America from India. They demand excellence and intense family loyalty from their children. They have blamed Trisha all her adult life for befriending a bad person in college, which eventually made Trisha’s brother, who is in politics, vulnerable to blackmail. So despite her successful medical career, she feels like an outcast in her own family.

DJ is an Anglo-Indian chef who grew up working class in England with a father of Indian descent and a Rwandan mother. He is struggling to establish himself in the US, and one of his jobs involves catering an event for Trisha’s parents. When Trisha goes into the kitchen in search of a snack, neither Trisha nor DJ know that Trisha is DJ’s sister’s neurosurgeon. DJ doesn’t know that Trisha has had a terrible day and Trisha doesn’t know anything about what goes into being a chef or why you should not mess with the food without permission. Basically, Trisha is hideously tactless and snobby and DJ barely keeps his temper.

As it happens, Trisha and DJ are thrown into continuing proximity because she is indeed treating his sister, Emma, for cancer. DJ and Trisha have to work together to convince Emma, who is an artist, to have an operation that will save her life but take her vision. It takes a long time for the two of them to stop being awful to each other, but gradually they come to a mutual appreciation of each other’s accomplishments. Once mutual respect shows up, love is not far behind.

This book isn’t so much a straight adaptation of Pride and Prejudice as it’s an exploration of Pride and Prejudice themes. Thus, we get a lot about family ties and expectations, but no exact analogies to Austen’s Bennet sisters. Trisha and DJ are each, at various times, a little bit Lizzie and a little bit Darcy. DJ is actually short for Darcy James, but in that first kitchen scene, the snobby Trisha is the Darcy to DJ’s Lizzie. At other times, they switch roles. They are both prone to leaping to conclusions without much context and they both think highly of themselves (as well they should). Side characters, such as Trisha’s sister Nisha, combine traits of various Austen characters. For instance, in Nisha, we see traits of the medically nervous Mrs Bennet combined with the warmth of Jane.

I’m a big fan of Sonali Dev, but I found this book to be a difficult read. One of my favorite things in romance is when characters bring out the best in each other simply by existing. In this book, for almost the entire book, DJ and Trisha bring out the WORST versions of each other – the most judgmental, insecure yet arrogant versions, and the most insensitive, clueless sides of themselves. It’s an interesting concept, but it doesn’t lead me to root for them as a couple.

Some of these conflicts seemed natural and others contrived. I found it hard to believe that Trisha was unaware that food is sometimes considered to be an art form or that being a high-end chef requires intensive training. I found it outright impossible to believe that Trisha is unaware of the dangers she is subjecting DJ, who describes himself as “black”, to when she expects him to use a hanger to break into a borrowed fancy car (she accidentally locked the keys in it) in a heavily policed area. That scene was so terrifying that I never quite got over it, which is unfortunate since it happens halfway through the book.

Meanwhile, Trisha’s family is so awful to her that by the time they finally reconciled I didn’t believe in the reconciliation. I didn’t feel satisfied. I felt that they were emotionally abusive and toxic and I didn’t WANT Trisha to reconcile with them. I had the same problem with DJ and Trisha’s romance. By the time they exchange apologies and melt into a kiss, it’s too late in the book. As the reader, I didn’t get to enjoy any happy times with them – it’s all strife. The last chapter allows them to demonstrate a comfort with one another that gives me hope, but that’s awfully late in the game. To be fair, this does parallel the structure of Pride and Prejudice. Perhaps in my case the conflicts between all the characters, familial and romantic, were too close to home.

On a better note, I enjoyed the relationship between DJ and his sister Emma, and I thought her emotional process as she faced a difficult decision was realistic and moving. I liked it that she was basically a wonderful person, and I liked it that sometimes she was a huge jerk, because it made sense in the context of her emotional journey. Trisha’s finest moments come as she works with Emma and relinquishes some of her surgeon control to let Emma make her own choices.

Sonali Dev is an amazing creator of character and I suspect that this book with be A grade stuff for many readers. I enjoyed the conversations around class, race, and disability (in Emma’s case). However, the book left me stressed out instead of happy. I have a personal low tolerance for certain kinds of conflict that not all readers will share, and I think some of my dissatisfaction came from the feeling that for me, the amount of conflict was not balanced by the amount of positive interaction. I liked Trisha, and I liked Dev, but I didn’t always like them together.