Book review: When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

If you're white, you've probably seen yourself in books your whole life. But as a British Pakistani Muslim, it's rare for me to truly find a character I can point at and say: "That person, I share their experiences."

No more, because Sandhya Menon has written When Dimple Met Rishi, a - if we're searching for a quick pitch - YA arranged marriage rom com.

And reading When Dimple Met Rishi was one of the best, most joyful reading experiences of my life. It starts with the cover (and I know you shouldn't judge), which depicts a brown girl, smiling widely, wearing henna and a kurta, and sipping an iced coffee. It's joyful.

Here's a book about a brown girl, and she's not oppressed, and it's not about terrorism or struggles with religion or culture. Instead, it's a book about a brown girl with slightly overprotective parents, who get on her nerves sometimes. It's a book about a brown girl with big dreams doing everything she can to make them come true. It's a book about a brown girl navigating friendships. And it's a book about a brown girl falling in love with a guy she never expected to like.

Book review: Alice and the Fly by James Rice

I'm terrified of spiders, but my fear doesn't control my life or my actions or my mind, like it does for Greg, the protagonist in James Rice's devastating debut Alice and the Fly.

Teenager Greg has severe arachnophobia, rich parents, no friends, and a crush on a girl at school, Alice. As his fascination with Alice grows, Greg nurtures his love for her and tries to combat the debililitating fear he has of spiders.

Alice and the Fly is beautifully told, especially so given its serious and sometimes dark subject matters. Rice somehow manages to make the book uplifting in parts, despite the tragic events that unfold.

But it's Rice's intimate examination of mental illness that deserves the most praise and attention. Told by Greg, Alice and the Fly both offers an insight into the mind of a teenager suffering from mental illness, while simultaneously making the reader realise just how difficult it is to ever understand what someone suffering from arachnophobia is going through. That doesn't mean, however, that you shouldn't try to understand, something Rice conveys through Greg's parents, who clearly love their child but don't know how to help him, and in some ways have given up.