While You Were Dreaming
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Average rating3
In this debut contemporary YA romance by bestselling author Alisha Rai, a girl with undocumented family members goes viral after saving her crush’s life in disguise. A must read for fans of Sandhya Menon and Nicola Yoon. A Phenomenal Book Club Pick! It’s a classic story: girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, boy finally notices girl when he sees her in a homemade costume. At least, that’s what Sonia Patil is hoping for when she plans to meet her crush at the local comic-con in cosplay. But instead of winning her crush over, Sonia rescues him after he faints into a canal and, suddenly, everything changes. Since she was in disguise, no one knows who the masked do-gooder was . . .but everyone is trying to find out. Sonia can’t let that happen—her sister is undocumented, and the girls have been flying under the radar since their mother was deported back to Mumbai. Sonia finds herself hiding from social media detectives and trying to connect with her crush and his family. But juggling crushes and a secret identity might just take superpowers. Can Sonia hide in plain sight forever?
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3.25 stars, although some aspects of Alisha Rai's first YA novel deserved a high rating.
4 stars for the overarching plot about Sonia Patil's vulnerable family situation. Her mother was recently deported back to India, and her older sister Kareena is undocumented, so Sonia is always hyper-aware that she needs to remain under the radar to avoid bringing attention to their status. 4 stars for the give-no-fucks attitude of Sonia's co-worker Hana, and for the complex dynamics between Sonia and her former bestie who ghosted her to hang with the school's Mean Girl.
*3 stars for the unconvincing romance that features a love triangle with two brothers. Much like the movie While You Were Sleeping, Sonia rescues one but becomes more interested in the other. But the rescued brother's behavior is weirdly inconsistent, and the other brother glowers and scowls too much for my tastes. Plus the love story felt unnecessary amidst the more substantial plots about Sonia's family and friends, and the ever-looming threat of deportation.
I would be interested in reading a sequel that tells the story from Kareena's POV. She was thrust into the roles of breadwinner and parental figure at age 19, and she is queer in a culture that doesn't always welcome deviation from the norm. She deserves her own HEA or at least a HFN.
