Review: Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1) by Sonali Dev

Award-winning author Sonali Dev launches a new series about the Rajes, an immigrant Indian family descended from royalty, who have built their lives in San Francisco...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that only in an overachieving Indian American family can a genius daughter be considered a black sheep.

Dr. Trisha Raje is San Francisco’s most acclaimed neurosurgeon. But that’s not enough for the Rajes, her influential immigrant family who’s achieved power by making its own non-negotiable rules:

·       Never trust an outsider
·       Never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations
·       And never, ever, defy your family
Trisha is guilty of breaking all three rules. But now she has a chance to redeem herself. So long as she doesn’t repeat old mistakes.

Up-and-coming chef DJ Caine has known people like Trisha before, people who judge him by his rough beginnings and place pedigree above character. He needs the lucrative job the Rajes offer, but he values his pride too much to indulge Trisha’s arrogance. And then he discovers that she’s the only surgeon who can save his sister’s life.

As the two clash, their assumptions crumble like the spun sugar on one of DJ’s stunning desserts. But before a future can be savored there’s a past to be reckoned with...

A family trying to build home in a new land.

A man who has never felt at home anywhere.

And a choice to be made between the two. ~ Goodreads

Source: Borrowed

Review: Confession – I have not read P&P. I have seen many of the movies and read several re-tellings and as far as I can tell – Dev hit all the basics with this tale while making it her own.

This gender swapped version has Dr. Trisha Raje as an acclaimed neurosurgeon, descended from Indian royalty, at the top of her game, having just developed technology that can cut out a brain tumor without destroying the surrounding delicate tissue or killing the patient. . One of her patients is Emma, an artist with a brain tumor. Trisha is sure that she can operate and save Emma’s life but Emma will lose her sight. Something the artist can’t live with and chooses not to have the surgery.

DJ is Emma’s brother, and a chef, catering several events for the wealthy Raje family. He is in desperate need of money, having  given up his rising star chef life to move to be by Emma’s side and pay her mounting medical bills.

Trisha and DJ get off to a rough start when he overhears her referring to him as the hired help and looks down on his career as a chef. She LOVES his food but considers him “just a cook” as compared to her career of saving lives.

In great romance tradition, they meet again at the hospital, thanks to Emma, and realize they have to work together to help Emma realize that life is worth living even without her sight. (I understood where they were coming but I wish they'd respected her wishes a bit more)

I really liked this romance. Hate to love is one of my favorite tropes and these two dislike each other a whole lot. Trisha is not (quite) as snobby as she comes off as but is very pragmatic and to the point and doesn’t read social cues very well. She’s also rather defensive and protective of her heart after her large family keeps her on the outside after blaming her for something that happened to her brother years earlier.

She has no idea how condescending she sounds to DJ. She comes from a place of enormous privilege and sometimes callously puts DJ in situations that range from hurtful to downright dangerous. I do like how Dev challenged this though. Showing DJ standing up for himself and Trisha having that aha moment - and in turn does better going forward.

Then there's the Wickham character – portrayed here by Julia. Julia was involved with the Raje family years earlier and pops back up now just as Trisha’s brother Yash is about to run for California Governor.

Julia, a filmmaker, convinces Emma to talk on camera about her feelings about her cancer and the surgery, telling her she can make a lot of money with a GoFundMe to help with her medical bills.

Emma agrees knowing how badly DJ is struggling with finances and not wanting to leave him with enormous debt. Julia has ulterior motives and if that’s all she had to do with this story that would be great. It’s a really smart & relevant way to update that character.

But Dev also writes Julia as someone from Yash’s past who can hurt his political future and as someone who has affected Tasha’s life for over a decade. I’m going to put it under a spoiler tag without trying to be toooo spoilery about the actual plot or outcome (CW: rape, #MeToo):

SPOILER: Julia, underage at the time, used her friendship with Tasha to hack her computer and befriend Yash. Then drugged (the older) Yash and filmed herself raping him. Yes, I consider it rape. She then used the tape to blackmail him because he was in a relationship and she was underage. He had a bright future and the family covered it up and had her sign a NDA. They had held this against Tasha for YEARS which pissed me off to no end. 

But more importantly, the way the author explains away what happened or why Yash can’t talk about it or press charges was rage inducing to me. Tasha theorizes that Yash bringing it up publicly would hurt the #MeToo movement. Um….why? I can only imagine she means one of two things – Yash wants women to be heard and thinks a guy saying something about their experiences would be talking over them or something? Or – accusing a woman of rape would hurt women’s stories? I don’t know what she meant and I can’t get on board either way. #MeToo might predominantly impact woman but it’s about being believed as a sexual assault victim. If a victim is male then they deserve justice. 

This whole thing is framed much more as reputation/career destroyer and a betrayal rather than the rape that it was. Yash deserves justice and I kind of hope he gets his own book but don’t really trust that it will be handled correctly. END SPOILER

If I take out that subplot with Tasha’s brother and the outrageous way her family reacts to Tasha & just base this on Tasha and DJ – this book would get 4+ stars. I loved the food descriptions, how they fought yet opened each others worldview and how slow and sweet the romance was. I like how it stuck so closely to P&P yet updated it in a way that was so relevant.

Whether you can ignore that subplot or not though will be up to the individual reader I guess.