Kismat Connection is such a sweet, confidently-told, well-paced book, and you could be forgiven for not realising it is Anaya Devarajan’s début novel. It’s a fun fake-dating romance in which two teenagers try to escape the karma that threatens to haunt their futures for all eternity.

Madhuri Iyer is doubly-doomed. Her mother informs her that she’s astrologically done for, and her senior year will be a disaster. She’s also living under the burden of a family ‘curse’ which dooms her to fall into true love with her first boyfriend. Madhuri thinks this is ridiculous, and she’s determined to have a good time during her last year of high school. To escape the family’s curse, she decides to date someone she has no actual romantic interest in, so she can head to college a free person in control of her own destiny.

She enlists Arjun Mehta, her childhood best friend who she would never (not ever!) have feelings for, to pretend to be her boyfriend. The goal is to get that ‘first boyfriend’ label out of the way and break up at the end of senior year, leaving her free to determine her adult dating destiny. Arjun agrees (mostly because he’s had a huge crush on Madhuri for years), and the twosome proceed to enter their senior year together, swearing they’re dating and all the while insisting romance will never happen. Unfortunately, fake relationships beget real feelings, but can Madhuri overcome her stubbornness and admit she really has found true love?

Kismat Connection is very tropey and very cute. Arjun is a kind prince charming, smart and kind, and Madhuri is self-possessed and driven. That means she’s hard-headed when it comes to the arrival of true love, but her behavior is understandable. Madhuri’s attempt to figure herself out as a young Indian-American woman is touching and sweet. Madhuri’s mom is astrology-mad, which results in Madhuri feeling like every inch of her life has been destined by the stars and there’s no room for her to make choices of her own. Who wouldn’t rebel against such circumstances? But her family are also wonderful, quirky people whose adventures are fun as heck to track. I loved Raina, Madhuri’s sister, in particular.

The book is a sweet, simple story about first love that definitely leaves the reader happy and yearning for more. Devarajan’s prose is supple and easy to sink into. Kismat Connection will make any teen happy, and it will please adult readers as well.

I DNF’d this book around 25%. I enjoyed the writing style a lot and it was very easy to read, but there were SO MANY plot holes and confusing points. I honestly don’t know how this isn’t a much earlier draft.

I love this book. Yes, it is a pretty typical romance. It follows the basic plot pattern. There are beautifully unique aspects though such as the Indian culture and heritage embedded throughout. Threaded through are also stories of immigration, cultural appreciation, divorce, gossiping and bullying. This is well written and just a quick enjoyable read. Highly recommend.

Quick Premise:
Madhuri receives a poor astrology reading while her best friend Arjun receives a positive one. Madhuri is also frustrated by an infamous family curse in which all of the female family members end up falling in love and marrying the first person they date. In order to stop this from happening and to prove the curse wrong, she enters a fake dating agreement with her best friend Arjun from September until June of the next year (That's a little long for a fake dating agreement for me but okayyyy). The only problem is Arjun has been madly in love with her forever -- we love an unrequited best friend trope tbh. They have opposing views on fate & free will, so this "experiment" is a very fun idea!

Representation: Indian American main characters, disability rep (Crohn's disease) & abandonment of a parent

Thoughts:
While I loved the representation & the highlighting of Indian American culture, I didn't love this as much as I thought I would! I also appreciate a semi grumpy x sunshine trope of the two, & Arjun was really down bad for Madhuri. He is a sweet lil honey who we should protect at all costs. However, the dialogue and pacing felt choppy and awkward at times, and I just felt like I was being told more than I was being shown. I wanted to feel their romance, and ultimately, I didn't. I felt their friendship but the romance didn't have enough build up or tension for me. I would read from the author again in the future but something about this just didn't fully do it for me.

I couldn't tell why the two characters liked eachother, they had no chemistry and their dialogue felt awkward and forced.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ananya Devaeajan for the ARC.

I am honestly torn on how I feel about this book. On the one hand, I love me some fake dating, but there was something that just felt weird about it.

Arjun and Madhuri have been best friends since they were 11 and both have some major trauma and issues surrounding their ethnicity. It was really great to have these subjects represented and have some dialogue about their feelings. Madhuri's mother does an astrological reading for them both that reveals that Arjun is going to have a stellar senior year while Madhuri, a perfectionist in everything, is going to fail in school and in love. There's also a bit about Madhuri's "family curse" in which they all marry their first romantic partner and live happily ever after. Madhuri rebels against this, but in doing so, is just so unbelievably selfish. She creates the Kismet Experiment in order to have a fake relationship with Arjun and "break" the family curse. She does this without caring about anyone's feelings. Not Arjun who has been in love with her for the better part of a decade; her family who already love him like a son/brother; her friends who are also his friends; and herself--because what is going to happen when she loses her best friend?

Overall the story was cute, but it both felt like it moved too fast and too slow. I wish that Madhuri had a bit more character growth.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review! I had such high hopes for this book but was pretty disappointed. The cover is undeniably gorgeous. And the synopsis is intriguing-a girl decides to fake date her best friend who has secretly been in love with her for years in an attempt to thwart her fate. I really wanted to like this, but the writing was not great. The pacing of the romance was too fast and I had a hard time connecting with the characters. But one of the great things about this book was seeing Madhuri embrace her Indian culture despite her history of being bullied for it.

Thanks to NetGalley for this Arc.
i wanted to like this book so much more than i did, but unfortunately, i found this book to be just Okay.
there were somethings i liked: the familial relationships and cultural aspects.
and things i didn’t like: the dialogue.
and a BUNCH of things i felt ‘meh’ about.

The kidmat connrction is easily one of my favorite books i’ve read this year, (and the year isn’t even over yet!!). First, i would like to say that this cover is just beautiful. Second I would like to say that Arjun and madhuri had undeniable chemestry and their banter was amazing. I loved how both characters are so relatable when it comes to child negectance, bulling, and self discovery. This book taught some valuable lessons about embrassing your culture and to accept that you are worthy of the love that is given to you. The iyer family and their dynamic was amazing and the way that they expess their love to arjun is just so wholesome.
I give this book a 4.8 out of 5 stars because while i enjoyed this books so much, i felt that the pacing was a little too fast. Overall this book was amazing and as soon as i picked the book up i couldn’t but it down.

The cover art is absolutely gorgeous!


Desi protagonists, horoscopes, fake dating, friends to lovers — in theory these tropes could have come together to create a beautiful story. But something about Kismat Connection just doesn't work. The narrative is choppy and I couldn't connect to any of the characters. The whole kismat/curse concept is weak and unconvincing. Initially the author tries to "get right to the point" but in doing so she fails to establish the characters motives in greater depth. I guess the "family curse" was an attempt at a novel segway into the fake dating concept (which is not used particularly well)...

The cultural representation was nice! Specifically the parts about how certain cultural elements are now "trendy" and "exotic" but many of us were once bullied for the same. Thr Bharathanatyam portions were also quite good. Overall, the story had potential but the execution could have been better.

[Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.]

Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan is a YA romance novel steeped in Indian culture. It follows best friends Madhuri and Arjun when they start fake dating after Madhuri's astrology reading is not what she expects. This is the author's debut novel and I was originally interested in this book because I loved the cover but the synopsis sounded great. As someone who reads a lot of new adult romances, I was excited about the prospect of a fake dating YA romance. However, the romance did not feel like the main focus of the story. I did love all the Indian culture references as well as how Madhuri struggles accepting it. It is not that she does not love her culture but she has been bullied for it in the past and she prefers to keep her culture at home and not at school. I liked that this was explored and how Madhuri's feelings about it changed in the book. This story also has themes of relationships with friends, parents, and siblings. Madhuri and Arjun have very different home lives which affects their interactions with each other and others. Unfortunately, I did not love Madhuri and Arjun's relationship. They are supposed to be fake dating but that stops really early on in the story. There was also a lot of telling instead of showing. It was hard for me to root for a relationship when the characters are rarely together on the page. When they are together it is rushed and conflict is usually involved. I loved a lot about this book but I wish the romance between Madhuri and Arjun was executed differently.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for a review!

Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan was, at best, a YA story of two friends becoming lovers through an experiment. That's the cut and dry version, because, well, there's not much more to it.

While the author attempts to make the story more than just an experiment, with Madhuri's dance dilemma and Arjun's family issues, it just wasn't enough to make it a plot point.

The switch in POV was a good choice but the thoughts each character had didn't change much throughout the novel. I expected more from Arjun, I wanted better for him. I didn't understand why he chose her and continued to choose her all the time. Madhuri, for her point, had no likable traits, was ungrateful, and her picture perfect relationship with her family just wasn't it.

More than that, the falling in love moments between the two felt so unrealistic and dry, I couldn't sense why the two even liked each other. There was little to no banter, lots of polite talk, and feeling comfortable around one another. The arguments they got into, the random curse (that felt like it came out of nowhere) and fortune telling, it all went over my head. It just didn't add up.
Unfortunately, I'm giving this book a (generous) 🌟🌟🌟/5.

what a cute, sweet read that just scratches my romance-lover brain's itch for pathetic soft boys! i'm such a sucker for a simp-at-first-sight

It takes a lot for me to not finish a book. Kismat Connection had a lot of elements I like – fake dating, friends to lovers, personal growth. But the story was so disjointed that I couldn’t latch on to any part of it. The fake dating lasted for about five minutes, the friends to lovers sort of happened – but not really, the personal growth never really happened. And new details kept getting dropped in at random moments, but not in a way that moved the story forward. The family “curse” only appears to go back two generations, and doesn’t really seem like a curse.

I did enjoy the exploration of culture and the struggle as a teen to balance embracing your culture with fitting in with your peers.

I made it 80% through before I gave up. I couldn’t connect with the characters and finally just gave up. I received an ARC from Net Galley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. This was a contemporary YA romance that was a friend's to lovers storyline. The Indian culture of this story for Madhuri and Ajurn was important and ran throughout this novel. The characters were ok but I just didn't enjoy this one like I thought I would.

Update - I met the author at yallwest, she was so frickin cool😭 and apparently the cover was also designed by a Tamil artist, which makes the rep given by this book (characters, author, designer) even better!

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I loved the Indian culture rep in this book! The relationships depicted (family, sisterhood, friendships) were really wholesome.

I found the pacing of the relationship to be a bit hot and cold at times which I found a little difficult to follow, but thinking back, I kind of understand it now, because the MCs go through so much personal emotional turmoil.

I loved all the grand gestures scenes so much 😭

-- ty to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

This book was SO sweet and SO charming. The two central characters in the romance were incredibly easy to root for, yet both had their own individual and complex character arcs. I loved the friends-to-lovers and seemingly-unrequited pining, especially from Arjun. It's so refreshing to read a book where the male main character is such a simp for the girl he loves.

I adored the story, the world building was amazing. I love meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it. The writing was also really nice. I couldn't put the book down and I can't wait for others to read and enjoy this story as well.

I love the cover! The representation for South Asia made me so happy. I'm usually not a fan of friends to lovers but Madhuri and Arjun were too cute! I definitely recommend Kismat Connection to any one who wants to diversify outside of the regular YA contemporary romances. Thank you to Inkyard Press and Netgalley for the ARC!

Thank you NetGalley and Ananya Devaeajan for this ARC!

This is such a cute friends to lovers YA romcom!

I really enjoyed Madhuri & Arjun’s love story. I love how they grew up together.

A cute, fun, funny, easy read. I recommend if you like YA romcoms!