10 Things I Hate About Pinky

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Readers of Sandhya Menon’s Dimple and Rishi series are likely familiar with funny, spunky Pinky Kumar, an activist who backs hundreds of causes and feistily fights for every one of them. She finally gets her own book in 10 Things I Hate About Pinky, which involves fake dating, summer vacations and a whole lot of sweet, sweet tropiness.

Pinky is the family wild child – to her strait-laced parent’s general chagrin.  Her lawyer mom is utterly flummoxed by Pinky’s… well, Pinky-ness, and Pinky is tired of their complaints of her choice in boyfriends. She decides to do something about it – by faking a relationship with Samir Jha, the next door neighbor at their family’s Cape Cod summer house.  She figures a few months with Samir as her ‘respectable’ Ivy League-bound boyfriend will silence them and allow her to have some personal space.

Samir has taken some hard knocks himself. He’d cared for his mother during her long illness – an illness from which she’s now – thankfully – recovered.  But Samir has been left with emotional scars that cause him to stay on the straight and narrow, never veering off the path of the predictable. He makes a list every morning and follows it to the letter.

As Samir and Pinky spend the summer together – embarking on dates and  joining forces to protest the destruction of local wetlands – they’re both forced to grow up a little, change a little.  Each will learn unexpected things about their parents, and slowly but surely, their fake relationship threatens to turn real.

As always, the Dimple and Rishi-verse is a delightful place to visit, and Pinky’s been my favorite secondary character throughout the series’ run.  The romance she gets here is well –earned and wonderful, and I enjoyed watching each of our protagonists grow up and change as time goes on, Pinky and Samir are healthy for one another and have a terrific little romance, one that appeals to every single generation.

The Cape Cod setting is perfect for someone like Pinky to get her activism on, and the way racism within the activism community is handled is brilliantly and deftly done.  Every character is complex as they try to figure out what’s right, and how to do good things to the best of their abilities.

There aren’t many flaws in the book’s complex brew; Pinky is understandable in her desire to be appreciated by her mother, as are Pinky’s mom’s feelings about her own blighted and lost freedom.

10 Things I Hate About Pinky is just as good as From Twinkle with Love, my other favorite Menon book, and young readers will cherish it just as thoroughly.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent bookstore

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Reviewed by Lisa Fernandes

Grade: A

Book Type: Young Adult

Sensuality: Kisses

Review Date: 11/09/20

Publication Date: 07/2020

Recent Comments …

  1. excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.

Lisa Fernandes is a writer, reviewer and recapper who lives somewhere on the East Coast. Formerly employed by Firefox.org and Next Projection, she also currently contributes to Women Write About Comics. Read her blog at http://thatbouviergirl.blogspot.com/, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thatbouviergirl or contribute to her Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissyvsEvilDead or her Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/missmelbouvier

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hreader
hreader
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10/12/2020 11:29 pm

Thank you for the review. I mostly agree with your take. I was taken out of the story when Samir so easily ends up in Cape Cod for the summer with his “girlfriend” after a few texts with Pinky. Neither family really seemed worried about it or talked to each other, which seems unrealistic for high school students. I just had to kind of gloss over it to get to the story.

Lisa Fernandes
Lisa Fernandes
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Reply to  hreader
10/13/2020 1:50 pm

I had to do that too, TBH, especially since Samir is not the impulsive type. But I could handwave it since he’d spent so many summers there before and routine was such a comfort for him.