The Indian government has a family-planning slogan: \u201cHum do hamare do\u201d\u2014literally \u201ctwo of us, two of ours,\u201d or \u201c[Mom + Dad] + [Kid 1 + Kid 2].\u201d So why does 12-year-old Chandni\u2019s household number five, with Diya Masi, her maternal aunt, living under the same roof? Neither Chandni nor her older brother, Suraj, ever asks; the subject seems to be off-limits. As this novel in verse unfolds, the answer to that question confirms the troubling suspicion Chandni has long held\u2014one that soon becomes too heavy to bear. She was an A+, prize-winning student; now her grades slip, her focus wavers, her health suffers, and even her friendship with bestie Ramya becomes strained under the weight of all she\u2019s holding inside. Stirring further emotions is Rohan, the boy Chandni longs for; due to cultural expectations and school rules, she must keep this secret too. Her inner turmoil threatens the prestigious boarding school opportunity she both craves and fears. Are her family\u2019s bonds strong enough to endure the forces tearing at them? In Patel\u2019s debut, Chandni is a resilient and realistic tween character, who\u2019s drawn with authenticity\u2014caught between determination and desperation and tormented by what she knows. While the work doesn\u2019t exhibit the most effective use of verse, the format still adds moments of heightened tension and drama. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Indian government has a family-planning slogan: \u201cHum do hamare do\u201d\u2014literally \u201ctwo of us, two of ours,\u201d or \u201c[Mom + Dad] + [Kid 1 + Kid 2].\u201d So why does 12-year-old Chandni\u2019s household number five, with Diya Masi, her maternal aunt, living under the same roof? Neither Chandni nor her older brother, Suraj, ever asks; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}