So I admit I'm not the _target audience for this. YA isn't really my jam, but I do find a good YA here and there that interests me. This spoke to me and reminds me of my childhood and family dynamics.

This is the story of Zahra Khan, who is Bengali-American and living in Paterson, NJ, with her traditional Bengali family. She is 18 and her mother is trying to marry her off to Harun, who comes from a rich family. They don't like each other, so they purposely fake-date and try to sabotage their own match. Meanwhile, she's falling in love with the cute new dishwasher boy at the place where she works, leaving her to make some tough choices.

I'm also not a general fan of love triangles, and unfortunately I wasn't too big of a fan of the one here. I feel like it causes the relationships and love to feel underdeveloped, since it has to be split between two possible LIs, and I didn't really feel the chemistry between one of the boys (but I did feel some with the other, I won't say which though).

I loved the Bengali rep, learning more about the culture and the family dynamics, which is very similar to my own. I'm not Bengali but I am Asian-American, and my family treated me quite the same when I was 18, but unfortunately they didn't come around the way Zahra's family did (as I suspect happens quite a bit in real life). So it was nice to see my own experience represented in a book, as well.

Zahra's family and friends were also fun to read about, and the story was a quick read, and I really liked the ending. I didn't know what a lot of the Bengali terms meant, but I was happy to look them up. And all that talk about food! Made me hungry!

Ending is predictable but satisfying.

Overall a fast, cute read and I enjoyed it. ( )