Knowing her strict mother would not approve of her 1) dating, and 2) dating this kind of guy, Rani sees him on the sly, with the frequent connivance of her best friend Kate, a white girl Rani’s mother likes so much she calls her betiya (daughter). She is modest about her photos, while he is intense about making art (painting, collage and installation). Rani, a high-school senior in Evanston, Illinois, dutifully follows the study-hard, get-into-medical-school trajectory her Indian parents sanction, until her encounter with Oliver, a tattooed white classmate, at a gallery opening of her photos. Stir in hormones and a love both first and forbidden, and that journey of self-definition becomes an urgent one. Rajurkar’s “American Betiya” is a 21st-century variant of an archetypal tale: the first-generation American navigating between her parents’ old-country values and the exciting world around her as she figures out who she is. This did not affect my opinions.Anuradha D. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book for an honest review. At some points, I found myself skimming over pages, as there was no glue to hold me. However, I found it less gripping at some points. The book is sex-positive and the family drama is amusing to read. I loved Rani’s bond with her grandparents and her adorable relationship with her best friend, Kate. The theme of the book comes out really well. The representation of Indian culture is beautiful, and I loved reading about the pujas and the Indian events. Art lovers will love those parts of the book. Oliver is a painter and as their relationship blooms, so does their art. Rani’s photographs are being exhibited at an event, and that’s where she meets Oliver. Rani loves photography, but her parents take this passion of her only as a hobby, and hence plans on becoming a pediatrician, and her parents desire the same. Her parents keep reminding her of the struggles they’ve faced as people of colour in a foreign land.
They want her to focus on her studies and her education with no distractions. Like most of the Indian parents, hers are also very strict & orthodox.
American Betiya is the story of Rani, an Indian-American teenager who meets an American boy, Oliver, and they both develop a relationship and start dating secretly.
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