Dating Dr. Dil: a novel

Dating Dr. Dil is a fun, engaging, Taming of the Shrew-inspired rom-com about American Desi culture. Thirty-year-old Kareena Mann is a successful attorney who continues to live with her father and grandmother in her childhood home, to which she is passionately attached, just as she had been to her mother. Career-focused, she is feeling the pressure to marry. Blindsided by her father's decision to sell their home, she promises to get engaged in exchange for money for the down payment. But she does not want an arranged marriage, holding out, instead, for a sweep-her-off-her-feet love match. Dr. Prem Verma is a thirtysomething cardiologist who believes that the stress of love is dangerous for the heart, and wants an arranged marriage based on compatibility. He is also committed to building a health center for the South Asian community and is attracting wealthy donors as host of The Dr. Dil Show. But when Kareena and Prem's intense blowout on the TV show goes viral, his donors drop off, and her dating prospects decline. Prem proposes that they get engaged to secure their goals--his health center and her home. With a light touch, Sharma (Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance, 2021) immerses readers in a deeply emotional and witty story of love arranged and love inevitable.

Sharma (Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance) half-heartedly retells The Taming of the Shrew in this tepid rom-com about 30-year-old, Indian American career woman Kareena Mann, who has "the entire New Jersey South Asian population" hounding her to get married. Kareena wants true love, but she also wants to buy from her father the house her late mother built. This goal is within reach using the wedding fund her mother started for her, but her traditionally minded father refuses to give Kareena the money until she's engaged. Prem Verma, the local TV show host better known as Dr. Dil, needs money to build a community health center, and his mother, too, will pay him to get married. After the pair's televised argument about love goes viral, they agree to fake a relationship to get the money from their parents. Though well-grounded in Desi culture, the novel's engagement with The Taming of the Shrew is meager at best, throwing out most of the plot and themes. It's not quite successful on its own terms either: flashbacks to Kareena and Prem's improbably all-inclusive conversation during their drunken first meeting ruin the pace of many scenes, and the ever-present interstitial of an Indian advice columnist adds little. Sharma took an ambitious swing and missed. Agent: Joy Tutela, David Black Literary. (Feb.)

When Kareena Mann turns 30, it seems like everything in her life falls apart. Her family forgets her birthday, and her father informs her that he's planning to sell the house and move away. Kareena hates the idea of losing the family home, but she doesn't have enough in her savings for a down payment. Her father has promised her a small amount of money when she gets engaged, so that's that--Kareena has to fall in love right now. Dr. Prem Verma has no interest in falling in love and getting married, but he does need some money to fund his clinic. After an argument between him and Kareena goes viral, her aunties make him an offer: if he can convince Kareena they're meant to be together, they will give him the funding he needs. Filled with banter, steam, and Indian culture, Sharma's (Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance) latest is a charming rom-com. The character development is top notch, and readers will love seeing the protagonists realize that love can be a welcome surprise. VERDICT This first book in Sharma's "If Shakespeare Was an Auntie" series is a recommended first-tier purchase.--Amanda Toth

An anti-love cardiologist must reassess matters of the heart when he is attracted to a sharp-tongued lawyer seeking true love. On her 30th birthday, Kareena Mann learns that her father has decided to put her late mother's beloved house up for sale. When Kareena protests, her father agrees to give her the house if she gets engaged within four months. Determined to marry for love, Kareena is looking for prospective soul mates when she runs into Prem Verma. They quickly forge a connection, but Prem upsets Kareena when he leaves their date abruptly. He further courts her rage when, on an episode of The Dr. Dil Show, the talk show he hosts on a local South Asian television network, he launches into a cynical tirade against love. Prem, who hosts the show to court investors interested in funding a community health center for the South Asian diaspora, is appalled when he finds out that Kareena's public display of anger could endanger his goals. After a brief conversation with her aunties, Prem sees that if he can convince Kareena to pretend to be engaged to him, they will both get what they want: Prem can secure his future, and Kareena can get her home. But matters become complicated when they begin to like each other despite their diametrically opposed views. A loose adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, the inaugural installment of Sharma's If Shakespeare Was an Auntie trilogy is replete with endearing references to Indian, specifically Punjabi, culture. Kareena and Prem are engaging protagonists, and the relationships they each share with their closest friends are fresh and fun. But because the ties that bind them to their families are underdeveloped and the depth of their intergenerational trauma remains unplumbed, Sharma's sincere attempt to unpack South Asian stereotypes sometimes winds up unwittingly bolstering them; for instance, while Kareena's aunties have the potential to leap off the page as memorable characters, there is little more to them than their fervent desire to see Kareena married. An uncomplicated and sometimes-entertaining rewrite of Shakespeare's enemies-to-lovers play. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* Dating Dr. Dil is a fun, engaging, Taming of the Shrew-inspired rom-com about American Desi culture. Thirty-year-old Kareena Mann is a successful attorney who continues to live with her father and grandmother in her childhood home, to which she is passionately attached, just as she had been to her mother. Career-focused, she is feeling the pressure to marry. Blindsided by her father's decision to sell their home, she promises to get engaged in exchange for money for the down payment. But she does not want an arranged marriage, holding out, instead, for a sweep-her-off-her-feet love match. Dr. Prem Verma is a thirtysomething cardiologist who believes that the stress of love is dangerous for the heart, and wants an arranged marriage based on compatibility. He is also committed to building a health center for the South Asian community and is attracting wealthy donors as host of The Dr. Dil Show. But when Kareena and Prem's intense blowout on the TV show goes viral, his donors drop off, and her dating prospects decline. Prem proposes that they get engaged to secure their goals—his health center and her home. With a light touch, Sharma (Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance, 2021) immerses readers in a deeply emotional and witty story of love arranged and love inevitable. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

When Kareena Mann turns 30, it seems like everything in her life falls apart. Her family forgets her birthday, and her father informs her that he's planning to sell the house and move away. Kareena hates the idea of losing the family home, but she doesn't have enough in her savings for a down payment. Her father has promised her a small amount of money when she gets engaged, so that's that—Kareena has to fall in love right now. Dr. Prem Verma has no interest in falling in love and getting married, but he does need some money to fund his clinic. After an argument between him and Kareena goes viral, her aunties make him an offer: if he can convince Kareena they're meant to be together, they will give him the funding he needs. Filled with banter, steam, and Indian culture, Sharma's (Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance) latest is a charming rom-com. The character development is top notch, and readers will love seeing the protagonists realize that love can be a welcome surprise. VERDICT This first book in Sharma's "If Shakespeare Was an Auntie" series is a recommended first-tier purchase.—Amanda Toth

Sharma (Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance) half-heartedly retells The Taming of the Shrew in this tepid rom-com about 30-year-old, Indian American career woman Kareena Mann, who has "the entire New Jersey South Asian population" hounding her to get married. Kareena wants true love, but she also wants to buy from her father the house her late mother built. This goal is within reach using the wedding fund her mother started for her, but her traditionally minded father refuses to give Kareena the money until she's engaged. Prem Verma, the local TV show host better known as Dr. Dil, needs money to build a community health center, and his mother, too, will pay him to get married. After the pair's televised argument about love goes viral, they agree to fake a relationship to get the money from their parents. Though well-grounded in Desi culture, the novel's engagement with The Taming of the Shrew is meager at best, throwing out most of the plot and themes. It's not quite successful on its own terms either: flashbacks to Kareena and Prem's improbably all-inclusive conversation during their drunken first meeting ruin the pace of many scenes, and the ever-present interstitial of an Indian advice columnist adds little. Sharma took an ambitious swing and missed. Agent: Joy Tutela, David Black Literary. (Feb.)