Sari, not Sari is a fiction book written by Sonya Singh. The book narrates the story of a South Asian woman, a successful and ambitious CEO of a company specializing in Break Ups, who is struggling in finding her identity.
In this article today, I will provide a short summary of this book and my personal review.
Book Summary
Manny Dogra is a confident and beautiful woman, CEO of a Break-Up company that helps people manage their relationships and breakups. She is the typical successful CEO. She is bold, ambitious, and determined.
The story develops by narrating her office life and how her team and herself tackle each breakup case. Each chapter starts with a break-up request which is drawn from the author's real life.
Manny doesn't have her parents around who she lost in an accident. Her life is filled with her time at the company and preparing for her wedding. She is engaged to her fiance, Adam who is more than nothing busy traveling and never taking time for his relationship with Manny.
Manny was raised as an American and never thought of her South Asian heritage. She never questioned it or wanted to learn more about it.
One day as she is approving her picture for a magazine cover page, she notices how the picture was photoshopped to make her look more white. Suddenly, she gets into a crisis which makes her question her cultural identity.
One day an annoying and very insistent man named Sammy shows up at her office desperately asking for help for his breakup case. Although she refused to help him out, she decides to get into a deal with him in exchange for Sammy providing a crash course about Indian culture. Manny agrees to help Sammy temporarily break up from his white girlfriend while she will learn about the Indian culture at Sammy's brother's wedding.
What follows next are days of music, dancing, and wedding preparation. She connects really well with Sammy's family and starts building a special relationship with Sammy which later develops into something more than a friendship.
As she spends time with Sammy's family, she starts to appreciate her Indian culture and learn more about some secrets related to her parent's past.
The book ends with Manny connecting to her culture and finding her own identity.
Book Review
I personally really loved this book. It was fun, educational, and humorous.
It was an easy-to-read book, with a very easy writing style.
The book pretty much revolves around the main character, Manny Dogra, and how she starts to connect with her identity and culture.
In terms of the content, the book is very descriptive with a vivid and detailed description of what it takes to typically prepare an Indian wedding.
I did feel the book has a good storyline for a Bollywood movie. Indeed, the relationship between Manny and Sammy was pretty unexpected but almost expected if you are familiar with Bollywood movies. You wouldn't expect to fall in love with an annoying client who is wanting to break up temporarily with his white girlfriend. Would you?
I felt the relationship between Sammy and Manny was a bit rushed and really resembled what we are used to watching in Bollywood movies. The same goes for the plot twist we didn't see coming towards the end.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a light and fun read at the beach.