Accidentally Engaged

 Accidentally Engaged

By Farah Heron

When it comes to bread, Reena Manji knows exactly what she's doing. She treats her sourdough starters like (somewhat unruly) children. But when it comes to Reena's actual family—and their constant meddling in her life—well, that recipe always ends in disaster.

Now Reena's parents have found her yet another potential Good Muslim Husband. This one has the body of Captain America, a delicious British accent, and lives right across the hall. He's the perfect, mouthwatering temptation . . . and completely ruined by the unwelcome side dish of parental interference.

Reena refuses to marry anyone who works for her father. She won't be attracted to Nadim's sweet charm or gorgeous lopsided smile. That is, until the baking opportunity of a lifetime presents itself: a couples' cooking competition with the prize of her dreams. Reena will do anything to win—even asking Nadim to pretend they're engaged. But when it comes to love, baking your bread doesn't always mean you get to eat it too.

This one wasn't a keeper for me.  It was eh - alright - fine - but I probably won't remember much of it six months from now, and I'm not going back and picking up others in the series. Reena as a heroine is not my cup of tea.  Feeling perpetually harassed by her family and very much the failure she assumes the worst a lot (which, to be fair, is pointed out and addressed in the book) and it's kind of a downer in the book. Instead of celebrating the things she can do well - and I kept thinking she would transition over to a bakery job instead of finance and she just... never even considered it? despite having a food blog and applying for a bread scholarship - she just circles round and round the things she's unhappy about.  It's maybe a more honest approach, but not only is that not really the bread-and-butter of the romance genre, it married very weirdly with some of the more slapstick/cliche aspects of the genre, i.e., the cooking show videos, which seem to exist mainly as a plot device to get Reena and Nadim to realize how cute they are together than have any realism or introduce any real tension or obstacles for our couple.  

And yes, they get married despite knowing each other for all of what, two months (about 95% of which they acknowledged they were lying to each other about significant things)? Some of the belief in a happy ending is the suspension of disbelief about mundane life things, so having a depressed heroine is fine, but trying to pair it with a quickie wedding/elopement that magically solves all problems and it becomes a very hard sell. 

This might just be a personal pet peeve, but I had a very hard time remembering that Nadim had an English accent, even though they mentioned it every other page - they way he's written doesn't sound that English, I guess, which, YMMV, but was an unnecessary distraction. And the way he keeps referring to his being from Africa instead of Tanzania. I don't know any Tanzanians, but that seemed "sus" to me. Yes, I'm trying to pick up the newfangled slang. And the foot fetish! That absolutely did not work for me. Sure, fetishists need love too, but what a thing to introduce. This book takes some weird turns, for sure: foot fancying, orgies (not a joke), green card marriages. 

What did I like about it? Descriptions of food.  There's some recipes in the back that I actually wanted to try, except then I read them and it seemed like more work than I want to do, cooking-wise, at this stage of my life, i.e., I ain't cooking nothing when I got this baby hanging on me. 

I liked that everyone did disclose things (although, geez, what a family of hypocrites) and that even talking about some things that had been very hurtful (Reena telling her sister Saira that Saira's anti-fat screed had kiboshed her own book deal and blog) didn't wind up with people falling into each other's arm - which is also the case in real life when you tell someone you've been holding a grudge against them for months and months. 

Overall, I would have preferred something where the main characters are a little more self-confident, a little more adult, and a little less unnecessarily complicating things for themselves. I did think this quote was both amusing and a perfect summary of that: 

"Anderson, before we film the segment, Nadim and I have a confession. We weren't really engaged when we entered the contest." She explained everything, their parents setting them up, their refusal to be married, and the fake engagement to enter the contest.

Anderson frowned. "So you're not really married?"

"Yeah, we're married now, but we weren't engaged when we made the videos," Nadim said.

"So you weren't a couple back then?"

"No, we were a couple." Reena said. "Just not engaged."

Anderson shrugged. "You guys are making this more complicated than it needs to be. Your parents set you up, you were a couple, and now you're married. Sounds like you were engaged to me. I'd like to start in five minutes. Are you ready?"

18 - A Romance Novel by a BIPOC Author