Kismat Connection - by Ananya Devarajan (Hardcover)

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.

Kismat Connection had an interesting premise. I like astrology and was excited to see how it was woven into the story. I was also interested in learning more about the Indian culture. I enjoy YA romance and this one was no exception. I think the biggest thing for me when I am reading YA, is reminding myself that these kids are in high school and they are going to be whinny. Madhuri comes across as very selfish and rude many times throughout the book. I felt bad for Arjun multiple times. Wondering why this poor boy was with her. Madhuri started to redeem herself as the book went on and was nicer to her mother. The book flowed well, though at times it was difficult to know how much time had passed between different things happening. I stayed engaged throughout. Overall, this is a sweet book full of love, family, and young people finding themselves. I recommend to those that enjoy YA romance.

Kismat Connection features a conversation of destiny versus free will, culture versus identity, and of course a will love prevail plot. Arjun believes in his prophecy based from the stars. Madhuri refuses to fall to the family curse of first true love and believes that she can will it away. As best friends they decide to sign a contract to "date" as a work around destiny. However, when Madhuri realizes it might be real, will she stick with it? This book felt disjointed from the beginning. It felt like plot points were out of place and that conversations were missing. It never had an even flow and it was so sporadic in terms of how much time had passed between events or conversations. We were told too many things without experiencing enough of them. I wanted more connection between Madhuri and Arjun without it being so flat. I never felt connected to Madhuri. She was very off-putting and leaned a little too hard into some stereotypes. Arjun was a little easier to connect with and I feel like his emotions came through more, especially in regards to his own home life. I did like that they knew each other so well, but were also so oblivious to their feelings. There were some good conversations about culture and main society using cultures as trends along with the main conversation of will versus fate.

This book follows the story of two Indian American teens named Madhuri and Arjun. Essentially they get their fates read and they can either choose to accept their fate or fight against it. Madhuri chooses to fight against her fate at first, while Arjun accepts it. This book definitely did a great job of demonstrating what it’s like to be a teen, especially one who grew up with Indian culture. Though Madhuri annoyed me at times with her constant fight against fate, I understand where she was coming from. With Arjun, honestly I was just mostly sad for everything he had to go through with his parents and his relationship with Madhuri. But overall he was a great character. This book did some romance, but it was not super heavy on it . It definitely leaned more towards a coming of age story than anything else, which is perfectly fine. If you want a cute, coming-of-age Desi romance, then this book is for you!

Madhuri Iyer is a teenage girl who has always run away from her destiny. Her parents are very much into astrology and listening to charts. She’s always rejected her mothers readings and decided to take fate into her own hands. She’s also tried to run away from her family “curse” which dictates that she will be together forever with whoever she dates in her first relationship. In order to beat her destiny, she decides to trick fate by fake dating someone she thinks she will never fall in love with. Enter Arjun Mehta, her best friend who has already been hopelessly in love with Madhuri since they were kids. I love a good fake dating trope. Sprinkle in some best friends to lovers and this was a recipe for a cute tropey book. I loved Arjun from the beginning. He seemed like a sweet and kind person who was ready to do anything for Madhuri even if it hurt him in the process. I hated how much he seemed to suffer because of his mother and I was glad he had the Iyer’s to help him along. Madhuri’s parents seemed like such angels. Especially her mother. My heart went out with Madhuri when she was having such a hard time embracing her culture because she didn’t want to get bullied. The fact she had to give up things she loved and pretend like she wasn’t proud to be Indian because of how people at school treated her broke my heart. Raina and Josie seemed like such strong allies to Madhuri and even though Arjun had Liam, he was barley mentioned in the book. I wanted to see more of them and their relationship as friends. I also wanted to see more of lacrosse and Arjun’s friends on the team. It was said that a lot of girls liked Arjun but he didn’t talk to anyone except for Liam & Madhuri at school through the whole book. There were times I hated how Madhuri treated Arjun. The fact she was so flip floppy with him and was stringing him along for a while made me so mad for him. I wanted them to be together but she obviously had to get her act together. The ending was very cute and I’m glad there was a sweet resolution to their issues. I really appreciated how short and sweet this was and how emotional I got while reading it. I’ll be looking forward to more books from this author!

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review! Four stars! Kismat Connection is a super cute story! I love the dual POV, the fake dating trope, and the way that the two MCs are just made for each other. I love Madhuri’s relationships with her sister, best friend, and parents. They are everything they should be and I love it. I’m now convinced that everyone needs a Josie and a Raina in their lives. I do wish we got the same thing for Arjun and his POV, more of his friend Liam and more with his father. Maybe his relationship with his mother wouldn’t sting as much if his father was in the picture or talked about more. I do love the found family aspect for him at the end of the books though. All in all, LOVED THIS. Would be great to see a spin-off in their world and get to see what these two are up to in the future. Can’t wait to see what Devarajan writes next!

According to Madhuri’s family curse, she will spend happily-forever-after with her first boyfriend. Determined to live by her own free will, Madhuri convinces her best friend Arjun to be her experimental boyfriend, knowing she’ll never fall for her childhood friend. Will Madhuri prove the curse and her star chart wrong or is this experimental relationship more than she bargained for? KISMAT CONNECTION was an adorable and heartwarming YA romance. I loved the charming characters and the rich inclusion of Indian culture. Madhuri is caught between two worlds and this book looks at what that’s like for her and Arjun. The characters were a little on the under developed side, but overall, I still really enjoyed their story. Madhuri and Arjun complemented each other well. Themes of family, culture, coming-of-age, love, and destiny are explored. The fake-dating trope was different from what I typically see in romance books in that the dating was very brief, but it fit with what was happening in the storyline. I enjoyed KISMAT CONNECTION and would recommend it to fans of YA romance. This was a great debut novel and I look forward to seeing more from the author. Thank you to Inkyard Press for the giveaway copy.