I want to start by saying that the author of this book is only 20 years old! I noticed that in her author’s note and thar just amazes me that someone so young has a book out already. In addition, what a cute cover and fun storyline.
Madhuri’s mom reads charts for her and her friend Arjun every year. While Madhuri bristles at having her future predicted, Arjun loves it. In addition to these yearly predictions, Madhuri also has a family “curse”. Madhuri calls it a curse anyway. In Madhuri’s family, every woman’s first relationship results in true love and marriage. Well, Madhuri is absolutely not having that. She wants more free will in her choices.
This year, Madhuri’s chart shows a few things that majorly upset her and Arjun’s chart makes him very happy.
Madhuri’s chart predicts an especially bad school year. This is her senior year and she’s bound and determined that she will be going to an Ivy so she can’t allow a bad school year.
Because of this, Madhuri wants to fight against her fate to prove it wrong. She decides the best way to do this is to babe her first relationship and make sue it has an end date. She asks Arjun to be her boyfriend, she wants him to agree to date and breakup. But she doesn’t know he’s been in love with her for years.
Arjun’s chart predicts that he will be given an opportunity with someone who has rejected him multiple times and will continue to hurt him until she realizes her feelings for him.
So, based on that, I assumed Arjun entered the deal with Madhuri because he thought this was what fate was predicting. But it turns out that Arjun thought the prediction was about his mom! This part of the story broke my heart. I’m going to dig into it a bit more so I’m going to mark the rest of my review with a spoiler warning.
****spoiler warning*****
**Arjun’s mom has been letting him down since he was a child. She made work her first priority after Arjun’s dad left and this resulted in Arjun being left home alone a lot. It started with a night alone with Arjun was in 6th grade and by his senior year his mom is gone for weeks or months at a time. It’s awful. And I’m not sure it’s totally believable that no one turned his mom in for leaving a kid home alone like this. But I’ll continue on here and say that Madhuri’s family became Arjun’s non official family. If Arjun needed fed, Madhuri’s mom fed him. If he needed a place to sleep or a ride to school, Madhuri’s family took care of it. Madhuri’s family is definitely Arjun’s real, non blood related family.
And it honestly kind of bothered me to see how Madhuri and Arjun’s mom treated him in similar ways. Poor Arjun had some serious issues with his mom and was looking for love, maybe with Madhuri but he needed Madhuri’s mom’s love even more I think.
I wanted poor Arjun to have a family more even than I wanted him to end up with Madhuri. Of course you’ll root for both, I did. **
I received an early ebook edition from NetGalley and then won a physical arc from BookishFirst.
Madhuri’s mom reads charts for her and her friend Arjun every year. While Madhuri bristles at having her future predicted, Arjun loves it. In addition to these yearly predictions, Madhuri also has a family “curse”. Madhuri calls it a curse anyway. In Madhuri’s family, every woman’s first relationship results in true love and marriage. Well, Madhuri is absolutely not having that. She wants more free will in her choices.
This year, Madhuri’s chart shows a few things that majorly upset her and Arjun’s chart makes him very happy.
Madhuri’s chart predicts an especially bad school year. This is her senior year and she’s bound and determined that she will be going to an Ivy so she can’t allow a bad school year.
Because of this, Madhuri wants to fight against her fate to prove it wrong. She decides the best way to do this is to babe her first relationship and make sue it has an end date. She asks Arjun to be her boyfriend, she wants him to agree to date and breakup. But she doesn’t know he’s been in love with her for years.
Arjun’s chart predicts that he will be given an opportunity with someone who has rejected him multiple times and will continue to hurt him until she realizes her feelings for him.
So, based on that, I assumed Arjun entered the deal with Madhuri because he thought this was what fate was predicting. But it turns out that Arjun thought the prediction was about his mom! This part of the story broke my heart. I’m going to dig into it a bit more so I’m going to mark the rest of my review with a spoiler warning.
****spoiler warning*****
**Arjun’s mom has been letting him down since he was a child. She made work her first priority after Arjun’s dad left and this resulted in Arjun being left home alone a lot. It started with a night alone with Arjun was in 6th grade and by his senior year his mom is gone for weeks or months at a time. It’s awful. And I’m not sure it’s totally believable that no one turned his mom in for leaving a kid home alone like this. But I’ll continue on here and say that Madhuri’s family became Arjun’s non official family. If Arjun needed fed, Madhuri’s mom fed him. If he needed a place to sleep or a ride to school, Madhuri’s family took care of it. Madhuri’s family is definitely Arjun’s real, non blood related family.
And it honestly kind of bothered me to see how Madhuri and Arjun’s mom treated him in similar ways. Poor Arjun had some serious issues with his mom and was looking for love, maybe with Madhuri but he needed Madhuri’s mom’s love even more I think.
I wanted poor Arjun to have a family more even than I wanted him to end up with Madhuri. Of course you’ll root for both, I did. **
I received an early ebook edition from NetGalley and then won a physical arc from BookishFirst.