Review: Love, Chai, and Other Four Letter Words

There’s not much more that frustrates me as a reader and a reviewer as when I read a book that I’m expecting to enjoy but I don’t and I don’t know why. There was no reason that I could tell that I wouldn’t enjoy Annika Sharma’s novel Love, Chai, and Other Four Letter Words. Rom com with depth? I love those! But there was something that I struggled with and I haven’t been able to put my finger on it in the few months since I finished it.

Here’s the book’s description:

Kiran needs to fall in line. Instead, she falls in love.
Kiran was the good daughter. When her sister disobeyed her family’s plan and brought them shame, she was there to pick up the pieces. She vowed she wouldn’t make the same mistakes. She’d be twice the daughter her parents needed, to make up for the one they lost.
Nash never had a family. The parents who were supposed to raise him were completely absent. Now as a psychologist, he sees the same pattern happening to the kids he works with. So he turns away from love and family. After all, abandonment is in his genes, isn’t it?
If she follows the rules, Kiran will marry an Indian man. If he follows his fears, Nash will wind up alone. But what if they follow their hearts?

I am sure that part of my issues came from cultural differences. I’m white. Kiran is Indian. My family life is very, very different than hers. I am well aware that my experiences are not better than anyone else’s and welcome other viewpoints. But I think I really struggle when grown women aren’t able to live the lives they want because their elders wouldn’t allow it or if it could impact negatively on the family. I respect my elders, absolutely. I love my mom but if she tried to control my life by determining who I could or could not date (as in the case of this novel), I’d be furious. I tried really hard to put all that aside and tried to get into the mindset of Kiran, just like Nash tried to too. And it was hard. Nash struggled as well and I did appreciate how Sharma wrote some of the scenes where he blundered and had to unlearn and relearn what kind of cultural biases he had. Because I have to keep doing that same sort of work. Sharma is not writing this book to educate people like me but the beautiful thing about reading widely and diversely is that you end up learning things with every book, even novels.

I think I also just didn’t really like Kiran or Nash. I couldn’t fully understand either of their personalities nor how their relationship was really supposed to work. Not from a cultural standpoint but from a purely romantic standpoint. I saw some sparks but I was missing something. I usually want to be friends with the characters I read about and these two were ultimately forgettable. I’d enjoy chatting to them at a party (remember parties?) but I wouldn’t think about them again.

I might try reading the next books in the Chai Masala Club books because I’m interested to see if I connect more with those characters and if Sharma’s writing gets stronger.

Final random notes. If you describe the dude as being blond, PUT A BLOND DUDE ON THE COVER. And I know many Millennials, like myself, love Harry Potter but given all the shitstorm surrounding JKR, perhaps these references to the books need to...just not exist.

Love, Chai, and Other Four Letter Words wasn’t a winner for me and I definitely encourage you to read other reviews on Goodreads about Annika Sharma’s novel.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*