Given the fact that I've been exposed to Indian culture all my life, I was very excited to read this book. I enjoyed following Manny as she has an identity crisis and goes on a journey to learn more about her culture and embracing it and making it a part of her life. She grew up with Indian parents, but was always encouraged to be more American, so she really didn't have much of a cultural background. When she teams up with Sammy to learn all she can we get a good taste of the Indian culture with the dancing, the beautiful customs and traditions, and savory food. This part of the story was really great and I think Ms. Singh did a wonderful job of bringing the Indian traditions and cultures to life. You could almost smell the masala! I do wish the romance was played out a little more, I felt it was a bit rushed. That being said, I did find this to be a lovely, heartwarming story about a girl exploring her identity and finding herself all the while dealing with bias and racism. Very well done, on that front! Lots of fun and laughs that made this a very enjoyable read. This was a good debut novel and I would love to read more by this author in the future.

I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

Sari, Not Sari is a story about embracing yourself, your past, your culture, your family (both birth and found) disguised as a rom-com. It's a fast pace, warm-hearted read that is sure to delight.

a great rom-com read with diversity!
thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an EArc of Sari, not Sari, in exchange for an honest review.

This was originally going to be 3.5 stars then I read the very end of the book and it dropped to 3 stars. The ending did one of the things that drives me crazy in a romance. These characters have known each other for all of a week. I expect that they will get together in the end. However, they should be dating, not getting engaged after a week of knowing each other. The story would not change or lose anything if the characters didn't get engaged so why do it. It makes everything seem really fake and cheesy.

I enjoyed the descriptions of Indian culture (something I haven't read before) specifically revolving around a wedding. I think the set up was really interesting and I liked the characters (although I was more interested in some of the side characters). I didn't totally believe the romance, I believed that they had started to like each other but I didn't believe that characters had fallen for one another. The writing was decent.

I love this book. I wish I was in their lives to be apart of this culture. It is so beautiful and wonderful! Sonya did an amazing job. Absolutely devoured this book!

Sari, Not Sari is Sonya Singh's debut novel. It's a cute, relatively short book. I enjoyed reading the emails. It's a good book to get out of a reading slump, but it wasn't mind-blowing.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC.

Fans of Sara Desai, Sajni Patel and Farah Heron will absolutely be falling in love with this new author. This story was fun and heart warming.

Manny is on a journey to understand her Indian roots as her parents raised her without these traditions. After experiencing upsetting situations of microagressions and blatant racism, the need to find herself (especially culturally) becomes a priority. So she makes a bargain with Sammy Patel and she goes with him to his brother’s wedding where she learns about her culture and meet incredible people. And then read the rest, I don’t want to spoil the book for you.

Both main characters are lovable and deeply relatable even for non-Indian. Sammy has a hard time finding balance with his relationship with his girlfriend and his desire to spend time with his family. Manny is working hard and not doing much of anything else.

This is great for non-Indian readers as well because as Manny learns about Indian traditions, we do too, while enjoying this funny romcom. I will be looking out for this author and her future books.

This was my first arc that i almost didn’t finish. I really wanted to love this one, I felt like I connected to the MC because I too lost my dad, and felt very distant to not my roots, but my dads entire family. But this book wasn’t what I expected it to be. I feel like she was not likeable to me and it made it hard for me to connect to the story. It was a clean romance and maybe that was why I didn’t care for it, I like a little spice. Nothing crazy but a little something is nice. I wouldn’t say I won’t ever read another book by this author, but this one was not for me.

This is a fun and meaningful multicultural contemporary romance. Themes including searching for identity amongst a culture you may/may not feel connected to based on life experience. Once criticism is that the ending felt rushed into a happily ever after.

This was a very sweet and heartwarming story about reconnecting with your heritage, and finding a partner who respects the same things as you do. Definitely an endearing read.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, yet there was feeling that the last few chapters were rushed. Read like a rollercoaster, slow at first and then once it’s reached the peak it went rapidly down to the end.

Manny Dogra's work life is great; her personal life--not so much. Her parents are recently deceased and her fiance is never around. And she's feeling disconnected from her South Asian roots. Enter Sammy Patel, a guy with an extended family and a week's worth of traditional celebrations that he's willing to include Manny in, for a price.

The premise had promise, but the pacing of this book wasn't great. Manny and Sammy didn't meet until about a third of the way through and then had very few interactions on the page. With so little of the story focused on them, we had to be told how great they were together rather than getting to watch their story unfold.

Manny's growth was better fleshed out, and I found that part to be more believable. But I was hoping for more on the romance front.

I started reading this book and realized it was not for me, Good luck to the author and I am sure it will be read and loved by many people.🤗👍📚

I was a bit skeptical of this novel at first; the beginning about breaking up via email made me cringe—this cannot possibly be a good way of ending a relationship. However, the story did improve as I continued to read, and I started to enjoy it, especially because of the focus on culture and how those from immigrant families can be forced to assimilate, and thus, lose proximity to their culture.

This book was super cute all the way up to the last few chapters. The ending felt a bit rushed and like….out of character for the story. It was like unnecessary drama for the sake of drama. But until the end I was throughly enjoying the story, the development and self realization of Manny, and the relationships between Manny and the side characters. That was actually the best part, all the side characters were enjoyable to read.

I will definitely read the next book by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to netgalley for the arc! I absolutely loved Manny and her quest to learn more about her heritage and her culture. Learning about Indian culture through this book was wonderful!! Everything was vibrant and full of joy and color. I also thought the concept of the company Breakup was really interesting and unique! And I loved how close Manny was to everyone there. They were truly like a work family.

I did not love Sammy. Well, I loved Sammy when he was surrounded by his family, but otherwise, he seemed to have a serious attitude problem, yelling, hanging up, saying things he regretted, storming off. He also spent a significant amount of his time lying to his family. I really wish he had recognized those behaviors and that he had chosen to go to therapy to work on them.

Lastly, I hated that last breakup letter. I understand why, but I still thought it was poorly timed and really mindless.

Overall, I would have given the cultural aspect of this book a 5, but the Sammy aspect of the book a 1, so settled on 3 stars. I’m glad I read it but left feeling pretty frustrated with certain parts.

I loved the premise of the book: an Indian-American raised without the Indian traditions and wanting to find her place; sounds real and interesting. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of substance to it. We were given major scenes to move the plot forward, but no real depth of character. Manny never stood up for herself and we never really get to see Sammy and Manny together that makes falling in love believable.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It was a little slow for me barely anything significant happen in the first half of the book. And, then the ending felt super rushed. However, I was easily able to empathise with the WMC and her problems. So, it was just a 3 star read for me

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately I could not get into this novel. The story was slow and it was difficult to pinpoint the romantic interest. I did not find this novel humorous nor entertaining.

Debut novel for this author and it was a pretty good one. A CEO of a breakup up company, Manny really didn’t know much about her heritage since her parents wanted to Americanize her, which was fine until it wasn’t. This was a book about a power woman trying to find herself and love.

I received this ARC through #netgalley and I am voluntarily reviewing this book