As I've roamed the Twitter lands, I've heard roars and whispers about how awesome and needed Menon's writing is. The Dimple and Rishi universe has been celebrated and rightfully lauded in tons of blogs and book websites. After falling in love with From Twinkle, With Love, I was all the more eager to jump into Menon's debut series.

Dimple Shah is a computer science nerd with her whole life planned out. She's going to work her butt off, take the web development world by storm, and break glass ceilings everywhere. After her acceptance at Stanford, the next step in her plan is to attend the prestigious Insomnia Con and win a tête-à-tête with her coding idol, Jenny Lindt. Everything is going smoothly until a problem in the form of a boy walks up and excitedly tells her she is his future wife. What??? (Reader, she throws her coffee on him and it's FANTASTIC)

Rishi Patel is a definitely-not-what-are-you-talking-about comic art nerd, with his whole life planned out. He's a dutiful son and proud Indian American, who will purse engineering and computers like his father (that career pays the bills, duh!). His parents have arranged Dimple Shah to be a potential marriage candidate, and they're going to hit it off at Insomnia Con, attend college and grad school together, get married, and be the ultimate Indian American power couple. Rishi knows it. Everything is going smoothly until he gets coffee thrown at him.

This book is fantastic. Reading When Dimple Met Rishi gave me the same feeling I get when I arrive home after a long day of fighting the patriarchy, take a hot shower, wrap myself in a fuzzy blanket burrito, and drink hot chocolate. It's so comforting and feminist, and yet realistic about the obstacles Dimple faces being a women of color in the tech field. Rishi is such a positive masculine character, and Dimple's fire is such an inspiration. On a craft level, Menon performs interesting rapid POV switches between her two leads, and she pulls off this storytelling choice with aplomb.

Another thing that drew me to the book was I wanted to read a counterpoint to the many, many Western/white authored stories of arranged marriage going horribly awry. In these stories, the tradition of arranged marriage is very fraught, almost sinister and frightening, because of how easily it transforms into forced marriage. But I know the statistics: 90% of marriages in India are arranged; India has one of the lowest divorce rates in the world. Menon's work shows that arranged marriages can be loving, and arranged partners can bring out the best in each other. Dimple and Rishi's compatibility and their parents' support of their decisions are breaths of fresh air in the book world.

In sum, if you're looking for a fluffy, feminist love story with strong characters and smashed clichés, treat yourself to When Dimple Met Rishi already!