Rating: 4/5

Genre: YA Contemporary

Recommended Age: 13+ (some sexual content)

Pages: 303

Author Website

Amazon Link

I received a copy of this book via KidLitExchange and Farrar Straus Giroux. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Synopsis: Five girls. Three generations. One great American love story. You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture--for better or worse. Ranee, worried that her children are losing their Indian culture; Sonia, wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair; Tara, seeking the limelight to hide her true self; Shanti, desperately trying to make peace in the family; Anna, fighting to preserve her Bengali identity--award-winning author Mitali Perkins weaves together a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new.

I’m not one for contemporaries, but this looked like a cute little romance and family book that I could get into. And for the most part it was. The character developments of the main characters are amazingly well done and the world building is as well. And overall the plot and the pacing are really good. I felt for these characters and I really enjoyed this book.

However, I felt that this book, while charming, was a bit discombobulated. The book switches POV suddenly and you have little indication of the time or character that the book switches to. The book also has a lot of plot points that never really get resolved. Another point about this book is that the tagline is “five girls”, but the book is actually about 4 girls and 1 woman since we got little of Didu’s backstory.

Verdict: It’ll make you hug your parents. If you enjoy contemporaries this is the one for you.