In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss the pilot episode of Mismatched, a screen adaptation of Sandhya Menon's young adult romance novel, When Dimple Met Rishi. We all loved this book and enjoyed doing it as a buddy read on Instagram. This adaptation is a perfect fit for our Unabridged Reading Challenge bonus category, watching an adaptation of a YA lit book! This series has six parts and can be found on Netflix.
Bookish Check-in
Ashley - Sarah Morganthaler’s The Tourist Attraction
Jen - Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe
Sara - T. E. Kinsey’s A Quiet Life in the Country
Mentioned in Episode
Sandhya Menon's When Dimple Met Rishi
Mismatched adaptation - six episodes on Netflix
Give Me One - Song that You Couldn’t Get Out of Your Head in 2020
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Bookish Check-In
Sara said, "I am reading T.E. Kinsey's A Quiet Life in the Country. It is a Lady Hardcastle mystery, so this is a series. This is the first one in the series. This is my first time reading T.E. Kinsey, and I would really categorize this as the coziest of mysteries. It is set in the early 1900s. The main character is, of course, Lady Hardcastle, and then her lady's maid whose name is Flo, and it is phenomenal on audio. The narrator is absolutely fabulous. It's a cozy mystery, but it is witty, and the women are just remarkable characters, especially Lady Hardcastle and Flo. They have this really awesome relationship and friendship, and they have had all these magnificent adventures together. There's an air of mystery about what they've done in their past and what exactly the adventures are. It's just a great story. There is a murder, but it's not gruesome, and it's just really like a straightforward mystery. They kind of nudge themselves in with the local police and try to help solve the murders that have happened. It reminds me a little bit of Louise Penny, but I think that the setting of England and just the relationships between the women makes it even a bit more charming to me than Three Pines—which I love Louise Penny and her series. I am so enjoying this book, and I will definitely be reading more in this series because it's just it's just like a warm hug with a little bit of murder on the side."
Jen shared, "So, I am reading Darcy Little Badgers Elatsoe. I just am loving it so much. So Elatsoe, who's called Ellie, is part of the Lipan Apache tribe. It is a contemporary book. On page one, she is at her house and she's playing with her ghost dog, Kirby. So it is one of those books that it feels just like our world, but then the deeper I read into it, there's all of this magic happening. So there's her best friend's sister is dating a vampire. And there are all of these legends that her family has told her about that come to life just in the course of a day. It's just this amazing magical mythological story. Ellie's cousin Trevor was killed in a horrible car accident, and the night that he dies, she dreams about him. He tells her that he was murdered, so because she has this talent of speaking to the dead and bringing ghosts back, she is convinced that this was Trevor's ghost visiting her so that she could figure out what actually happened to him. That's the part that I'm in the midst of now.
"She's traveled to her cousin's home—he was a teacher. He has a wife and a baby, and Ellie is just brokenhearted about her cousin's death and really wants to make sure that nothing else bad happens to her family. The writing is super strong. It is really well written, and again, the world building: I don't even know if I could describe how much I love it. I just kind of want to giggle when I'm reading some of those parts, because—it's just—it's these little surprise moments. Oh, and the other really fun part. The woman in her family who was the strongest—they call her Six Greats. It's her great, great, great, you know, six greats grandmother. So constantly her family, her dad will tell her a story about Six Greats, like they'll be driving a car and have a lesson about driving related to Six Greats and some monster that she fought. So, it's just a part of her everyday existence that these people these ancestors are right there with her. So, I just, I really really love it."
Ashley said, "The one that I've started is Sarah Morgenthaler's The Tourist Attraction. Jen shared about this one on the podcast, and I've seen a lot of great things on Instagram about it as well. I think what really intrigued me about it is, for one thing, I was looking for something that would be light and fun to read, but the part that really sold me was that there is this moose in the town. I don't think should be a reason to read a book, but let me tell you, friends, that I got on to our library website, in the midst of trying to convince myself not to read more books, and the next thing I knew I was searching for this book, and then I had to put a hold on it. When it became available . . . when your hold is available. . . you have to read the book. But anyway, I think what I'm loving about it is that first of all, Ulysses, the moose appears in the opening scene. So right away, it was checking off that box that I really wanted to see the moose, and there he was, and he's hilarious. So I loved all of that. Also I'm loving this setting. It's an Alaskan small town, and so I really like the community part of the book. I think that's really interesting, and then the main character, one of the main characters, Graham, is a curmudgeonly guy. I mean, he's very cranky. I don't know why normally I find that off putting, but he is quite charming in his crankiness. He's a local, and he really hates tourists, and I think I can relate to all of that, both the dynamic of a tourist place that relies on tourism, and also the repulsion of being around people who are constantly tourists. I think about that a lot when I travel because you are, no matter how much you travel, to a certain extent, you are a tourist when you're traveling. So I love that exploration of how he is a local and he's really connected to the local community, but he feels this real tension and some disgust, which again, it comes out as being quite hilarious in the story, but his diner is successful because of the tourists.
"So, it's called The Tourist Trap. He does what he wants, when he wants. He kicks people out. He makes some cleanup after themselves. All of that is really funny and enjoyable. Then he has this repulsion toward tourists, but despite that, there is an appearance of Zoey, who is a friend of somebody who's a tourist but also visits often and is well connected to Graham, and she is clearly a bookworm. She's reading in the diner while everyone else is drinking and having fun. He just is charmed by her, and so I'm liking that as well. It's an unlikely development of two people who are very different from each other. Again, that trope of a person does not fit the type of person that he thinks he would like, yet he's really drawn to her. So all of that's really great. I felt like that was a really long explanation to say that I am happy I started that one. It's been a great book to fight against the winter blues. And it's Sarah Morgenthaler's The Tourist Attraction."
Main Discussion: Mismatched (Adaptation of When Dimple Met Rishi)
Ashley, Jen, and Sara discussed Mismatched, the adaptation of Sandhya Menon's When Dimple Met Rishi. They discussed what they hoped would appear in the series that they loved from the book.
Jen said, "One thing that I absolutely love about the book When Dimple Met Rishi is that both characters face all these micro aggressions, some because of ethnicity. For example, a lot of times it's because she doesn't care about conventional notions of beauty, that she really wants people to focus on her intelligence and so she is bullied because of that—sometimes out and out bullied and sometimes they are microaggressions. Both of the characters have these moments where they advocate for the other person. Sometimes they're not so great about advocating for themselves, but both of them have a moment where—at least one—where they stand up for the other person, where they directly address someone else's horrible statement or just marginally bad statement. They just address it and put it out in the open, and then it sort of deflates the other person, and I just really liked that because I thought their relationship had all of these great nuances. I thought that was one, that even at times, that they couldn't stand up for themselves, they could stand up for the other person. So that was something I really hope happens in the series."
Sara shared, "I really appreciated the representation of girls and coding and technology, especially for young adults who I don't think there's a ton of representation. It's getting better. But I think for a long time, it was more male focused, and I really liked that female focus, and that Dimple is as good as everyone else. And even better. I just liked that representation. She's very focused on what she wants to do in her career and that he's willing to fight for it. I just loved all of that."
Ashley said, "So something I really loved right at the start of the book was the the way that Menon was able to show, with equal footing, both Rishi's desire to have an arranged marriage and acceptance of it, and Dimple's revulsion by it and how she does not want to have this laid out pathway for her life. I loved the way that she was able to share that because I think that often when something is a cultural norm and is being explored, it's hard to show both sides of it, I think, and I just feel like that happens really well in the book. I think that we really understand Rishi's desire for stability and his acceptance of the fact that that can bring about a happy adulthood and his peace with that. Also Dimple's desire to marry for love and to not have to think about marriage. Back to what you were saying, Sara, she wants to pursue her career, she's passionate about her development of technology, and she doesn't want to have to think about marriage at all. I think that's hard for an author to do. I felt like it was done so well in the book, and so I really wanted to see that and see that tension. Just the idea that that both things could be good. It could be good to have an arranged marriage, and it could be good to marry for love or not feel that you have to marry. So I wanted to see that exploration and that in the series as well."
Be sure to listen to the episode to find out Ashley, Jen, and Sara's other thoughts on this adaptation.
Give Me One - Song that You Couldn’t Get Out of Your Head in 2020
Listen in to hear the songs that have been stuck in our heads lately!
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