I would like to thank NetGalley and Push for granting me the opportunity to read eARC in exchange for an honest review. Though I received this e-book for free that in no way impacts my review. I give this book 3.5 stars, but only 3 stars in review (as only whole numbers are accepted) until I see if the typographical errors are corrected in the finished copy.Tanuja Desai Hidier's fantastically acclaimed cross-cultural debut comes to PUSH!Dimple Lala doesn't know what to think. Her parents are from India, and she's spent her whole life resisting their traditions. Then suddenly she gets to high school and everything Indian is trendy. To make matters worse, her parents arrange for her to meet a "suitable boy." Of course it doesn't go well -- until Dimple goes to a club and finds him spinning a magical web . Suddenly the suitable boy is suitable because of his sheer unsuitability. Complications ensue. This is a funny, thoughtful story about finding your heart, finding your culture, and finding your place in America.What I like About This Story:This is a lovely story about figuring out who you are, or at least the first solid steps, since we are continually evolving throughout our lives. Dimple's best friend is her opposite. Gwyn is tall, thin, with blond hair and blue eyes. She is the American ideal. And to top it off she has the personality to match, outgoing, bubbly, open, engaging, effervescent. In short Dimple thinks Gwyn is incandescent, the bees-knees, the sunshine under which she flourishes. Dimple considers herself to be a wallflower, as she never seems to know what to say, or what to wear for that matter. It doesn't help her already stunted self-esteem that she has womanly curves. Not slightly curves, but all-out hourglass curves. And when she looks around she sees white girls that are tall and thin, thin, thin. So she is constantly comparing herself to Gwyn and others like her and coming up short, so to speak. She doesn't feel like an American, but she doesn't feel like an Indian either, so she feels as if there is no place she fits.Dimple is sweet and wholesome. Her character is so naive that it's to the point of almost being too over the top. But she has a good heart. Once her blinders start coming off she becomes an even more enjoyable character. It takes her looking outside her own messy feelings to get the beginning of a grasp on the similarities between all people, regardless of ethnicity, body type, skin/hair/eye color - underneath we all have a heart, a pair of lungs, muscles, teeth, bones, etc. Even Dimple's cousin and parents show insecurities that sail right over her oblivious head. On the surface Gwyn is a good foil for Dimple, demonstrating that no matter what your exterior looks like you can still feel you are never _fill in the blank_ enough. Yet each girl is so wrapped up in their own internal insecurities they are blind to the fact that everyone else is going through the same thing at some level. Neither girl recognizes that they are envious of one another. Eventually things come to a head and the two girls finally let out some of their frustration, anger, and accumulated slights that they attribute to the other. This serves to illustrate how bad it is to keep your feelings bottled up, yet it also shows that you will survive airing things out with the party causing them, even if it means risking permanent damage to the relationship.Karsh, Kavita, and Zara Thustra (who can resist a character named after part of the title of a Friedrich Neitzchie book?), are all great characters. Each help Dimple find herself in one manner or another. And each is also flawed to some degree, some more than others.A series of events happen that make Dimple finally look around, really pay attention to the world and people in her sphere. This in turn leads to a cascade of mini-epiphanies almost daily, and with each one another piece of her life falls into a more comfortable relationship with the rest of her. Suddenly she discovers connections where she'd never before noticed them, opening up her eyes to her own personal growth as well as the growth of those around her. Growth and changes that are not solely limited to her age group either.What Didn't Work For Me:While I loved Dimple's devotion to Gwyn, I felt that the relationship was very unbalanced. It frequently felt as if Gwyn was simply taking advantage of Dimple - "borrowing" and of her clothes that she liked, doing the same with Dimple's jewelry, even going so far as to try to appropriate her very culture and 'be more Indian.' It often seemed that is was all about Gwyn, and she only contacted Dimple when she needed something. Though this behavior is explained, somewhat, that still didn't seem to justify her treatment of such a loyal friend.Conversely I wanted Dimple to wake up and smell the coffee. It astounded me how she let Gwyn walk all over her. If she did get frustrated she stuffed it down deep and went right back to basking in the glow that was Gwyn. Dimple was clearly partly to blame for Gwyn's treatment of her.Although Karsh was wonderful I was a wee bit disappointed that the story was set up so that Dimple's happiness hinged on "getting her man." That's not to say she didn't grow by leaps and bounds in other ways, but giving another person so much power over her happiness seemed to defeat the purpose.My final pet peeve was two-fold: the frequent use of non-English words that were not explained or made clear by their context, and the tremendous amount of typos. One can only hope the typos are restricted to the ebook and not the print version. Plus, this is an advance release copy, so hopefully all the typographical errors will be cleaned up before the release of the final product.Overall Impression:A wonderful, meaningful story about coming to terms with growing up. The fact that the lessons weren't restricted to just one age group or ethnicity was a very nice bonus, as it helped demonstrate that we all struggle with many of the sameissues. They may not be exactly the same, but odds of finding someone who isn't going through the same thing, or went through it, are slim to none. There are some sections where Ms. Tanuja Desai Hidier crafted some remarkable phrases, creating absolutely vivid images that made the entire book come to life. One such example is as follows -History wasn't that easy a thing to learn, seemed to be what I was learning. It wasn't a static story about dead people. It was a revolving door fraught with ghosts still straining to tell their version and turn your head, multifaceted and blinding as a cut diamond.All in all I found this to be a great teaching book, without feeling like you are being preached to or deliberately taught any lessons. I would certainly recommend this book for high school libraries (not middle school due to some discussions about sex, as well as underage drinking and one incident of drug use).
I've been holding back on writing a review for this book. There's just so much I want to say about it that I'm not sure if I am capable of verbalizing how much I really adore it. "Born Confused" is a coming-of-age novel about our protagonist and narrator, Dimple Lala. Dimple is American but also Indian, and she has a difficult time fitting in as an American teenager who can't escape her Indian heritage. She has a best friend, Gwen Sexton, who she grew up with and considers her twin since both girls have no siblings and were basically joined at the hips when they were kids, even if Gwen is tall, lean and blonde and Dimple is shorter, curvy, and has the typical Asian black hair. Our story starts on the last day of school, when Dimple turns 17. We get to see Dimple's journey into finding herself in the summer through her adventures with trying to keep up with the ever drifting Gwen, and getting to know an Indian boy named Karsh Kapoor, the son of one her parents' friends, who she originally passed off as "unsuitable".What I loved about this book is that though I am not Indian, I am Asian and I also am American born, but my parents are not. I identified with the struggles of being too American for my parents' liking, and as I grew older, realized that perhaps my family's culture isn't as lame as I had thought. I think Tanuja Desai Hidier really captured the "confused" aspect of an American born ethnic kid really well, especially those of us who still have family ties to the "mother land" and our own parents did not grow up in America. I could see Hidier put a lot of own teenage identity into Dimple.But what she is also fantastic at capturing is the complications that come in close friendships once we begin to grow up. Growing up, I had my own "Gwen", and like all teenagers, we both grew up and began finding our own identities, but it just felt like she (my "Gwen") was so much better at it than I was. Also, the fact that it seemed like she wanted me around less and less was tough to deal with. The only difference is, there was no boy there to really separate us the way this book had both Dimple and Gwen interested in Karsh. But, I did like that this book did not sugarcoat the idea of one boy seeming to drive two friends apart, nor did it seem too dramatic most times. I usually hate (I mean really hate) love triangles in romances because it is so overdone now and it is usually only used as a weak excuse for there to be any sort of conflict, but in this story, I felt it worked fairly well. It wasn't just that a boy came between their friendship, but that the boy coming between was the breaking point. There were a lot of things that had already happened that our two friends had reached that point and Hidier didn't gloss over all of those things. Both Dimple and Gwen are forced to face their changing relationship near the end of the book, and it was refreshing to read two growing young women speak with one another about the way they made each other feel, not just about the boy that came between them. Personally, I think we need more stories about platonic best friends and the real pleasures and challenges that come with it, because we don't get enough looks into those kinds of relationships. Which is odd because a lot of people tend to say that at points both men and women will choose to stick by their friends first yet we often only see the surface value of these things. We don't get a real hard look at why these friendships are valued so much, nor that it can be difficult to want to be there for someone who you love as your own flesh and blood but they can sometimes be unreasonable. But I digress.However, back to Dimple and Gwen, at the same time, I did feel like by the story's end the resolution between Dimple and Gwen seemed a little too neat for my liking, but I can forgive it because, again, this type of relationship isn't looked at deeply enough, so I'll take what I can get.At times I felt like shouting at Dimple for letting so much happen and not speak up for herself, but I would sit back and admit that when I was her age if I was in a situation like hers', I probably would have chosen to keep my mouth shut as well. Also, this is addressed in the story when Dimple goes on a late night adventure alone in New York City.I have read in some of the reviews that Hidier's descriptions were heavy and long at times, I really liked them. She has a way of describing Dimple's world so vividly that when I closed my eyes, I was in it. But it could just be that I really adore the Indian culture that I loved Hidier's descriptions so much.I want to add in my own thoughts on Dimple's relationship with Karsh, which I found was beautifully written. Here is a couple I could really find myself rooting for. It was a little cliche at times (especially Karsh seeming to like Dimple so much so quickly), but I felt the connection between Dimple and Karsh was well done, and I loved the subtle touches of Karsh showing his interest/affection toward Dimple. Like how he pretended that there was no sheet music so Dimple wouldn't have to play the piano, or how he left his shoes for Dimple after they heard the story of Ramayana.I also will say, I basically loved how every character was portrayed and how well all the relationships between the characters was done so realistically and I really freaking adore how Hidier was able to tie in Dimple's Indian culture into her American way of life and into her relationship with everyone important to her (and major kudos for spinning in the more Western life shaping her relationship with her cousin Kavita). And yeah, I really liked Kavita.If this ever gets a film adaptation, I wouldn't want the author's message or Dimple's world to be changed so much that it no longer is the ABCD story it's meant to be.I felt like I rambled a lot, so to shorten it, I really love this book. I really do. The characters are well thought out and the relationships between all the characters was very well done.PS. When Dimple gets high for the first time, I was cracking up so hard! If you can't stomach anything else in the book, at least read where she gets high, especially when she's with her parents.
What do You think about Born Confused (2003)?
I loved the idea of this book, but I really disliked the execution. Dimple Lala is an American born South Asian who can't decide where she fits in. She doesn't embrace her Indian culture, but she also can't fit in mainstream American culture. The main idea of this book is supposed to be Dimple's journey to self-discovery and understanding of her culture. A great idea, but it goes horribly wrong.My first problem is that Dimple seems to ignore the best parts of her culture and embrace the worst parts of American culture. She gets drunk, smokes weed, lies to her parents--feeling guilty, but never having the backbone to do what she knows is right. She scorns the culture her parents present to her and only recognizes its value when her best friend Gwyn tries to 'become' South Asian herself. Gwyn is a hateful and selfish character. There is room to pity her, but she destroys any pity through insensitive actions.My other disappointment is that all the descriptions of South Asian culture focus on the fringe aspects. There is one point when Dimple is reading about Indian history and religion, but none of that detail is shared. In contrast, there is much more detail about lesbianism and transvestites--not confined to that culture and certainly not a majority.My final complaint is more technical. Rather than use quotation marks, Hidier shows dialogues with dashes. It may have been my advanced reader copy, but it was very distracting and often made it difficult to tell who was speaking. It made the characters seem stilted and kept the writing from flowing. Overall, I would love this plot idea done in an entirely different way.
—Libby Ames
It's only been a few years since I bought this book, and my copy's already been reread about four times. Let me put this in perspective: I rarely reread books. Once every three years is the maximum. But I cannot get enough of this book. The characters are realistic and compelling, with their own loves, histories and compulsions. Love is never simple in books, but Tanuja Desai Hidier reaches into your soul and makes you feel every emotion acutely.2nd Review (5/29/09):I just reread "Born Confused" again. Summer tends to put me in the mood for this book. First of all, it remains as good as when I first picked it up. Now that I'm older, I think I can say that this book informed my high school years as Gary Paulsen's "The Island" informed my elementary school ones. Dimple's voice is that of someone who feels like an outsider, yet always looks at the world with awe - something I've always aspired to do. The search for identity and belonging, the need to grow, confusion about love and friendship... it's all here. And though I no longer feel lost or confused, this book still reminds me of who I wanted - and still want - to be.
—Ashley
tThis was an interestingly nuanced ya coming-of-age novel featuring a heroine whose parents are Indian immigrants. Dimple Lala (great name!) hadn’t thought much about about her heritage when she was younger, but she has just turned 17 and suddenly things are more complicated: her parents are introducing her to a suitable boy and urging her to be more Indian, while Dimple wants to be a photographer and maybe date a cool college guy. This isn’t just a typical teenage angst book, though, since things are turned upside down when Dimple’s best friend, a gorgeous blonde, becomes interested in the suitable boy and starts reinventing herself as a suitable girl. The plot takes its time, so the reader has plenty of time to sympathize with Dimple, and the ending – I won’t give it away, but she does find out that her parents aren’t as clueless as she thought, so the ending is very satisfying.
—Julie
