96 Words for Love

November 1, 2018

Gr 10 Up-After being accepted to UCLA, Raya starts to wonder if that is where her true passion lies. Right before her beloved Daadee passes away, she tells Raya that she has left something for her and her cousin Anandi at the Rishi Kanva ashram in the Himalayas she had stayed at in her youth. Raya decides that this is her opportunity to find herself and who she is meant to be, so the teen convinces her parents to allow her to live at the ashram with her cousin for a month. While solving her Daadee's mystery, she meets Kiran, a boy she desperately doesn't want to fall for on her journey to self-discovery, but does, and she meets a slew of other people who change her for the better. All of the characters in this story are well fleshed out with their own internal conflicts. Throughout, readers are also told the story Shakuntala and Dushyanta and how their love story parallels what both Raya and her Daadee have experienced. This is a readable, relatable story that touches upon social justice issues, such as sex trafficking, which at times feel like vehicles in place only to move the love story along. VERDICT A general purchase for libraries looking for romantic coming-of-age stories with depth.-Kristyn Dorfman, The Nightingale-Bamford School, New York City

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2018
When Raya Liston spends a month at an ashram in India, she doesn't just find herself: She also finds true love.Seventeen-year-old Raya has a plan: major in English at UCLA and make her Indian mother and biracial (half black, other half unspecified) father proud. Spending the summer after high school at the Rishi Kanva ashram in the Himalayas with her cousin Anandi is definitely not the plan--until she receives a phone call from her dying grandmother, Daadee, saying she's left something important for Raya and Anandi hidden on the ashram grounds. Against her better judgment, Raya leaves for the ashram, where she unexpectedly falls in love with Kiran, a budding filmmaker who breaks rules as passionately as Raya follows them. In the process of falling in love and uncovering the secrets Daadee left, Raya realizes that the real question is not what she wants to do but who she wants to be. An insightful, layered feminist retelling of the Hindu myth "Shaktunala," the book features a diverse cast of characters who grapple with equally diverse issues in a richly drawn setting. Raya's candor and self-reflection infuse the narration with the perfect balance of insight and momentum. Her relationship with her family is particularly refreshing: Unlike in most books about diaspora, Raya's Indian relatives support her, guiding her through conflict rather than creating it.A beautifully crafted, truly feminist coming-of-age story featuring nuanced characters in a unique setting. (Romance. 14-18)

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