New Romantics: Cultural Diversity in YA Fiction

As a young teen I devoured YA fiction romances like they were my favourite cannolis from that cute bakery down the road from my house – if you don’t know what cannolis are you truly haven’t lived my friend! BUT enough of that sweet tangent. Back to the point at hand!

I lived for YA / teen fiction romances because they were so cute and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! I basically read every teen fiction book that was available at my high school library. Some included: Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Bras and Broomsticks, Twilight, Princess Diaries (a lot of Meg Cabot actually!), Anna and the French Kiss, The Candy Apple series etc … you get the idea! But after that … I just stopped? The books just weren’t interesting anymore maybe it was because I had changed but eventually they all just seemed to merge into one another.

The evolvement of diversity in YA fiction, specifically the subgenre of romance finally encouraged me to delve back into these books. I was excited to see diversity as it allowed for these books to reflect how the real world looks (inclusive of all ethnicities and cultures).

Thus allowing more readers to see themselves within the characters and relate to the issues being portrayed. A massive shout out to authors actively including diversity within their texts! The two authors (and their respective series) I will be highlighting today are Sandhya Menon and Jenny Han. These authors beautifully weaved their cultures and personal experiences into their books breathing life into them. These cultures are a large part of our world but are so rarely represented in such an honest and poignant way in mainstream media.

Without further ado lets dive right in!

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When Dimple Met Rishi

Sandhya Menon is the amazing author behind the New York Times Bestseller, ‘When Dimple Met Rishi’.

When I expressed my love for Sandhya’s book and all that it encapsulated, I was lucky enough to get a response from her. She was also kind enough to give me an exclusive quote for my blog when I told her about this post and how it was about diversity in YA fiction romance. When I asked her what this book meant to her and why she wrote this book, she said:

I wrote, ‘When Dimple Met Rishi’ because I was really tired of the message that brown people’s stories have to be about pain to get published. We can have happy endings, too! 🙂

Sandhya Menon (@smenonbooks – via twitter direct messages)

When Dimple Met Rishi Synopsis (Goodreads)

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

My Thoughts

I loved this book because I had never read anything like it – in terms of the writing style, the characters personality and the unique storyline. This book highlights Indian culture through a modern American lens, it provides a fresh perspective that we have never seen before. One of the big things it tackles is the preconceived notion of ‘arranged marriages’ in the indian culture. Gone are the stigmas regarding Indian traditions. This is replaced by the view of American Indians born to traditional indian parents. This book follows both Dimple and Rishi’s perspectives as they attend a summer program for aspiring web developers. To the reader, this situation is quite funny as we know information that the characters don’t, we know their respective motives and exactly why they are there – Dimple for her future career and Rishi … for well Dimple even though she doesn’t know it! Menon does a beautiful job of juxtaposing her two main characters (Dimple & Rishi) that are essentially the same yet so different (as you can see from the synopsis above). It follows the trope of hate slowly morphing into love without (one of) the protagonists meaning to. You see them slowly falling in love with one another in a natural and realistic way as they battle their own demons and expectations. It definitely pays homage to the great romantic comedies of the 2000s! Dimple and Rishi wholeheartedly embrace and love their cultures while simultaneously struggling under the weight of certain aspects – this is a raw and honest depiction of people all around the world. The enticing thing about this book is that Dimple and Rishi’s beautiful culture is seamlessly weaved into the story through subtle aspects so that you definitely know that you’re exploring Indian culture against an modern America backdrop through their perspective but it’s not overtly stuffed into your face through caricature symbols that are often used in mainstream media. Menon uses both intangible and tangible evidence of indian culture – without giving too much away, we see some Bollywood dances, Dimple’s clothing, food but we also get to see the internal battles, stigmas and expectations that these kids face due to their backgrounds.

If you love a light hearted romantic comedy with a strong female lead thats peppered with a slow burn romance, witty humour and a beautiful writing style then this is definitely the book for you!

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To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (Series)

Jenny Han is the mastermind behind the phenomenon that is ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’.

It is now a major Netflix feature film – check it out!

TATBILB was definitely one of the books that revived my love for this genre – it breathed life back into teen fiction romance because it reminded me of a classic romcom movie! It’s very fun and fresh ❤

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before Synopsis (Goodreads)

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

My Thoughts

This book highlight’s Lara Jean’s Korean culture as well as exploring her perspective as as biracial teenager. Lara Jean is so proud of her Korean heritage as it is one of things that helps her feel connected to her mum. The book incorporates aspects of her Korean culture into the overarching story (including her relationship with her sisters and father). She loves sharing her culture with the people she’s closest to whether it be her neighbour Josh or her ‘boyfriend’ Peter. This is one of the first books that I have seen explore Korean culture so it was nice to see and be exposed to new things. It also delves into problems faced by Korean Americans alongside Asian Americans (e.g. Lara Jean’s halloween dilemma). Some aspects of Korean culture that are explored during the whole series are food (plus Yakult – if you’ve read the book then you know the significance of this!), clothing, current trends (fashion, beauty – face masks) and family gatherings for special occasions. This book is super cute as you definitely get to see the abrupt beginning of Lara and Peter’s relationship which is an unconventional one to say the least morph into a first love. We follow Lara Jean and her inner turmoil as she faces the tumultuous turns of their relationship making it that much more real, making you root for them. This series definitely tugs on the heartstrings, makes you sob ugly tears but also makes you burst out laughing as you follow Lara Jean on her journey to adulthood as she navigates the mess that is high school and love!

If you love a fun romantic comedy with the ‘perfect’ cute boyfriend then this is the book for you!

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I hope you guys enjoyed this post – this post is meant to be a light hearted one to celebrate love, valentine’s day and also to highlight some great books in the YA / teen fiction romance genre that have POC protagonists and include diversity.

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Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤