Payal Mehta’s Romance Revenge Plot by Preeti Chhiber

RomanceContemporary

Feb 25

Written By taylor shepeard

Title: Payal Mehta’s Romance Revenge Plot

Author: Preeti Chhiber

Publication Date: September 23, 2024

Audience: Young Adult

Genre: Romance

Sub-Genre: Contemporary

POV: Single

Series: Standalone

Format: Audiobook

—Narrator(s): Mayuri Bhandari

3.75 ⭐

Pros:
✨Identity Exploration
✨Depiction of 1st Love
✨Cultures and Diversity

Cons:
✨Contrived Sub-Plot

Synopsis

Payal Mehta has had a crush on popular, athletic, all-around perfect Jonathan Slate ever since he smiled at her in freshman–year Spanish class. At a party …

… during spring break of her junior year, Payal finally works up the courage to ask Jon to hang out. However, her romantic plans are derailed when he vomits on her Keds. Twice. But when Jon offers to take her out to lunch as an apology, Payal is convinced this is the start of their love story.
Over chalupas and burritos at Taco Bell, Payal's best jokes are landing as planned. Jon is basically choking on his Coke—and then it happens. "Do you have a boyfriend?" Payal is (finally) about to get the guy. And then he tries to set her up with his Indian friend. Payal's best friends, Neil Patel and Divya Bhatt, are just as mad about the microagression as Payal is, but they think she’s a little too hung up on him.
Determined to teach Jon a lesson by making him fall for her, Payal ropes in her archnemesis, Philip Kim, to help. It’s the perfect plan. Minus Philip’s snarky, annoying quips and lack of faith in its success. But as Payal lies to the people she loves, hides the too-Indian parts of herself in front of her crush, and learns that maybe Philip isn't the worst, she starts to wonder if what she's been looking for has been scowling at her all along...

*Blurb taken from the StoryGraph

Review

This review may contain spoilers.

A striking YA romance, this novel follows Payal Mehta as she sets out to teach her crush about his “baby racisms” (microaggressions), and in turn must analyze her own identity as having Indian heritage, but being 1st generation American. This is definitely a young adult novel, meaning anyone not in high school who picks this up will probably be exasperated by the drama in the sub plots. However, they way this novel approaches themes of prejudice, identity, friendship, culture clash, and first loves, is handled beautifully. Payal is a protagonist any 1st generation American can identify with, and the plot provides an opportunity for multi-generation Americans to learn from.

The way Jon (the white-boy crush) comes across as naive more than outright cruel in his “baby racisms” makes this novel approachable in a teen setting and provides a multitude of teaching moments. My one big beef with the book is the conflict between Neil and Payal. It’s SO contrived, and felt wholly unnecessary. I honest to goodness did not like Neil and, even by the end, didn’t understand his perspective. Maybe if Payal had made no attempt to reach out to him or contact him? But she did everything she could to see her friend, short of showing up at his house and banging on his door. I have no idea what this conflict was meant to add. It was pointless and wasn’t believable, and because it took up such a large chunk of the plot, it did have an impact on my rating.