Kismat Connection

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experiment will have a deadline of [a date that corresponds with other important high school events] KISMAT is also a love letter to family. I adored the way Devarajan wrote her family relationships, especially the found-family relationship between Arjun and Auntie Iyer. Family is depicted as something you can lean on and trust, always knowing it is there if you need help. KISMAT also emphasizes that family can also be made, and is so much more than what you are born into. This message was such a comfort to read, and I really enjoyed the hug-like feeling I got every time I saw characters comfort each other, as families do. Likewise, Arjun’s character development was a nice foil to Madhuri’s. In fact, his character was exceptionally rare in that he was not simply a prop for Madhuri but had his own trials and adversities to overcome. His complexity added a lot to the overall story. KISMAT CONNECTION is love if it were somehow s KISMAT is a love letter to communication. Not just in the sense that it was beautifully written and filled with evocative images, but with the honest communication between characters. It was really refreshing to read such clear and honest communication and to read characters who try their best to be as honest as they can with each other. I need more books with clear and honest communication!!

go on 1 date per week. if no actual dating occurs, then the relationship was not a real attempt. both parties must converse at least once a day. We really don’t get a buildup of Madhuri and Arjun’s relationship. They start out as best friends with Arjun secretly in love Madhuri for years. Madhuri is constantly denying that she even likes him then like a switch she all of a sudden is in love with him. I also felt like a lot of the relationship building was done behind scenes. This could also be because it was hard to tell how much time went by between the scenes. We didn’t really get to see them grow their relationship, just them constantly having arguments about different things. Finally, I really enjoyed the way Devarajan incorporated Indian culture. She did so in many ways, and I particularly loved that Bharatanatyam was such a huge part of Madhuri’s identity.Madhuri is determined to break the prophecy of her mother's reading before time is up and when she creates an experiment of sorts with Arjun, she's sure she has the leg up here. Unfortunately for her, the universe has ways of following through with its plans even when you try your damnedest to get ahead. Arjun agrees to the experiment because he has only ever had eyes for Madhuri, and maybe this is his shot to make her see things the same as him but her determination has the power to get in between them if he's not careful. Kismat Connectionis a wonderful debut YA romance novel with Indian culture woven into the story. I absolutely adored this book, and I can’t wait to read more by Devarajan. The novel was impressive in general, but especially so because it is the author’s first book (published at age 21 I might add). I was so excited to hear that she has more projects in the works as well! Arjun and Madhuri’s relationship as friends and how it grew into something more, or even just learning that it could, looks like it's the focus of this story but there is so much self-acceptance you get to watch happen. Our two characters may be self-assured in some aspects of their life but this story just shows how much you have to learn about yourself in your senior year of high school. This is a book I wish I read as a teenager. Growing up, I felt like the future I’d envisioned for myself wasn’t mine to take. The astrological prophecy element is fantastic (and important) Indian rep, but it serves as an amazing metaphor for just how uncontrollable life can feel like as a teen. I saw myself in Madhuri’s desperation to confirm her free will, particularly in the way no one seemed to understand that the life people envisioned for her wasn’t the life she wanted. Positive life changes are only as positive as the individual’s desire for it, so her isolation hit home HARD. And Arjun! As the daughter of a workaholic, I wish I could’ve seen representation of his dynamic with his absentee mother much sooner. All I saw on TV and in books was your typical Disney supportive family that showed up for every life moment. My parents were (and still are) supportive, but it would’ve been cathartic to see that support doesn’t look the same in every family. Parents are people too, and people are flawed. Their actions and priorities won’t always align with their children’s desires. It would’ve been a relief to know I wasn’t the only one. arjun gets a very positive astrology reading, madhuri gets a very negative astrology reading. and then separately, madjuri has a family curse where the women always marry the first man they date. and to combat the curse, madjuri wants to not-fake-date arjun. it's real dating. but there is a deadline for when the relationship ends. it feels fake; she doesn't have feelings for him until she does, which is a normal trope for fake dating. but arjun has loved her for like, a decade. so it's not fake dating, it's not a fling where they're both into it until the deadline. it's this third weird gray area where i am not interested in what's happening because i know that arjun loves her and i know that madjuri needs to get over herself before they can be happy. but i am not interested in madhuri coming to terms with the family "curse".

Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Librarians Group is the official group for requesting additions or updates to the catalog, including: the weakest plot contrivance was definitely the "kismat experiment" thing. if madjuri truly wanted to prove the family curse wrong, she would've dated someone who she didn't like from the beginning. her "hypothesis" is not a hypothesis and she's supposed to be a stem girlie. arjun and madjuri's astrology readings directly contradict each other so they have "opposing hypotheses" for the experiment, but i don't remember what that means or why it even matters. i think if the author had committed to either the astrology reading bit or the curse/experiment bit, the book would've felt more focused. if you're committing to the experiment bit, then i think it would've been fun to have madhuri write out a classic high school lab report format. thank you to netgalley and inkyard press for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. Ananya Devarajan is in her fourth and final year at the University of California, Irvine, where she is pursuing a major in Neurobiology and Behavior as well as a minor in English. After graduation, she will be attending medical school at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Middletown, New York. Like many of her characters, Ananya is a second-generation Indian American young adult.

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Arjun and Madhuri both have the same culture and customs but they handle them very different. Arjun is proud of his culture while Madhuri is ashamed of it. And this makes sense because she was bullied multiple times about it. I just thought she was really rude to her mother when it came to some aspects of her culture. I think Madhuri could have handled it better. I was happy that near the end of the book she started to become more confident and she started to embrace her culture again. I actually started to like Madhuri near the end of the book. I thought that the culture talk throughout the book was very interesting. I loved getting to know more about the Indian culture and I even found myself looking things up after reading it in the book to try to understand more about it.