[Book Review] From Twinkle, with Love

Title: From Twinkle, with Love
Author: Sandhya Menon
Pages: 328
Genre: Young Adult, Slice of Life, Drama
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A teenage novel about a prospective movie director named Twinkle Mehra. She has longed to make movies and is finally given the chance when a fellow student named Sahil approaches her with an idea to film a movie for an upcoming festival. Twinkle discovers a lot about her friends and her relationships along this journey. The author wanted this to be a ‘what if‘ type of book and it truly was.

This book is written in a series of journal posts, texts, and blog posts. I loved the mixing up of all three types and being able to read from different peoples perspectives at times. This is a teen book so do be prepared for DRAMA. And lots of it. The main character and her family are Indian-American and it was wonderful reading the family dynamic. I know my usual complaint is the lack of definitions but for this story, it was important to portray the culture and language.

Oh No’s

The back cover consists of a full page advertisement to Sandhya Menon’s first novel, When Dimble Met Rishi. Not any sort of synopsis or more to do with THIS book. Every time I put it down around anyone they thought I was reading that book when I was reading this great novel. It just put me off from reading that book entirely. I just hope publishers would be more mindful of what they put on the back of their books. No one cares about one lines reviews from best sellers or advertisements for other books. We just want a synopsis or more pretty covers.

The love triangle (or almost square in this case). This is my least liked trope in all books and it just didn’t meld well for me. Sahil is right in front of this girl and Twinkle knows it but yet she still holds on to her potential men? It just didn’t make sense to me but then again, this is high school. These girls are run purely on emotion.

I did not like the big climax/fight between both Maddie and Twinkle’s parents. Maddie actually came to a great understanding at the end though but Twinkle’s mom just really disappointed me. Like your child is feeling some type of way and you only explain yourself a couple days later and then don’t even fully support your child in their endeavors later on that same week? That just seemed super selfish to me and I just hated it. Perhaps this is how some parents just are and that’s what the author wanted to show but to me, it was just slightly disappointing.

Yay’s

I loved the creation of the word Groundlings. It is such a unique words for us weirdos that I felt an instant connection with the term. The constant use of it was actually welcoming to me. But the feather hat society or whatever she called the popular kids just didn’t click for me. Something a little more concise would have worked out perfectly.

Sahil is such a great character. I think I even fell for the nerd a little (don’t tell my husband)! He just always had a way of explaining things and honestly put up with ALL of Twinkle’s antics. No matter what, he powered through and even explained things in an understanding way. He was the best part of this book and thus should have been titled “From Sahil, with Love.”

In conclusion, this was a really sweet book about relationships and how things can go wrong. I almost cried twice but it was so worth it. I recommend giving this book a read if you’re in the mood for some drama and happy endings.

Favorite Quote

“…with each interaction with another soul, we begin to change… We take pieces of them, and they take pieces of us. It’s not bad. It’s not good. It’s just is.”

Pg. 297

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-PM