Thursday, February 7, 2019

Sonia Singh - Goddess for Hire

A hip chick from Newport Beach, California, who's just turned thirty, discovered she's the incarnation of the Hindu goddess Kali,and happens to be unemployed and still living with her parents. Saving the world, though,may prove to be a curry-scented breeze compared to dealing with her extended Indian family. In their eyes she isn't just the black sheep -- she's low-grade mutton.
To make matters worse, despite frequent and therapeutic bouts of shopping and Starbucks,and the mentoring of a Taco Bell-loving,Coca Cola-guzzling swami, Maya has trouble just surviving, thanks to the attentions of a Kali-hating fanatic and a matchmaking aunt hell-bent on finding her a nice Indian boy. Maya has no interest in boys. She wants a man and she may have found one.
He's tall, dark, and gorgeous ... and completely uninterested in her.
In the name of all that's holy and fashionable ...what on Earth is a goddess to do?


Comment: I got this book back in 2010. At the time, I was considering doing a reading challenge and one of the themes would be to read a book by an author with the same name as the reader's. I had no books in my TBR by authors whose name would be Sonia, like I am. Therefore, I looked at some lists and stumbled on this author. 
I was even more interested in the fact it would apparently portray a light, funny scenario regarding a heroine with Indian origins but who loves America, where she has always lived. I was looking for to read about this, and it had a little PNR element, which I also devoured at the time. 
After all, I decided not to do the challenge but I already had the book, and so it has languished in the shelf until a few days ago, when I finally grabbed it. Sadly, not much was worth the long wait...

In this book we follow Maya, a young woman turning 30 who lives in California with her parents and whose aim in life seems to find as less to do as possible. However, Mays comes from an Indian family, rooted in many traditions, one of which marrying a good Indian man, something her aunts and mother feverishly hope she will do. In order for this to happen, one of the aunts convinced some known acquittance back in India to send her son, so that he and Maya could meet and perhaps like each other and become a couple. But Maya doesn't want to let go of her independence and it seems the guy, Tahir, feels the same. 
The fact they are often close to one another due to family obligations and the even more surprising fact Maya, by turning 30, has become the reincarnation of the goddess Kali aren't enough deterrents for Maya to change her mind about marriage, are they?

There are a few things about this novel I disliked and that is reflected on the established fact this is my first negative grade of the year. But before going into it, I'll just leave a (small) list of what made it bearable:
a) the font wasn't too small, so the 304 pages of my edition weren't that difficult to go through;
b) the light tone did allow for the story to be easier to read;
c) there are some interesting cultural elements mentioned.

Now, for the disappointing details, which also means spoilers!!

Again, a list which is easier than explaining something I really don't care much about to go into:

- Maya is the narrator in first person of this story. She is 30 and has apparently no goals in life. Becoming a goddess seems to be the solution for this problem.  The reason why she never accomplished anything in a very successful family is so silly that it's not even a reason. Mays is simply vain and lazy and used to her bad habits. I struggled to understand her and I don't think the author did a good job in making her likable.
Her lack of goals could have been the main subject for instance, her personal development could have been a great story but the author chose to go light and chick lit and that is ultimately a pity.

- The goddess issue is so silly too. It's just an excuse for Maya to have something to do and she doesn't even have the "right" reasons to be or act like one. She doesn't think about the goodness of using her powers. This detail made the story even sillier, considering the situations Maya sees herself in.

- The secondary characters were all clichés. All of them. There isn't one single character, including Maya, that isn't there to play a cliché role in this supposedly comedy but which for me only worked as a way to reduce to ridiculousness what could certainly be an interesting comparison between Indian and American values/expectations/ways of life/etc. Are all Indians only wanting to become doctors? Are all Indian aunts only thinking about matchmaking? The author picked her roots and turned them into a silly cliché. This story isn't funny and the whole thing feels a missed opportunity.

- The romance is the most idiotic I've read. They meet and declare they don't want marriage and don't like one another. They barely talk to one another but, despite some physical attraction, suddenly they sleep together, are found by his mother and admit they love each other, not before a well placed conflict row on whether Maya can be the "perfect" Indian wife....

I won't go on. I don't feel like wasting more time with this. Let it just be said this was a terrible story, the content was ridiculous... I don't understand how this was published, not even as light chick lit. The author probably didn't have much experience but honestly, this is a badly written novel (and romance) and I cannot understand the positive reviews. Oh well, everyone has different tastes, thankfully.
Grade: 3/10

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