Choose a Bollywood Movie, Get a Book Rec By Savannah Kennelly </p> <section> <h2> <h2><strong>Choose a Bollywood Movie, Get a Book Rec</strong></h2> </h2> <p><p>If there is one thing, we love here at team NOVL it’s a good book. But that’s not all we love— give us a good movie any day and we’ll rejoice. We love all kinds of movies: happy, sad, the good, the bad, the terrible, the phenomenal. And give us a musical any day! If a movie has drama, music, dancing, love— sign us all up. So, we have paired two of our favorite things: movies and books. Pick a Bollywood movie and will give you a book to read.</p> </p> </section> <section> <h2> <h2> <p><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/amatchmadeinmehendi">A MATCH MADE IN MEHENDI </a>BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/nandinibajpai">NANDINI BAJPAI</a></strong></p> </h2> </h2> <p><p>Fifteen-year-old Simran “Simi” Sangha comes from a long line of Indian vichole-matchmakers-with a rich history for helping parents find good matches for their grown children. When Simi accidentally sets up her cousin and a soon-to-be lawyer, her family is thrilled that she has the “gift.”</p> <p>But Simi is an artist, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with relationships, helicopter parents, and family drama. That is, until she realizes this might be just the thing to improve her and her best friend Noah’s social status. Armed with her family’s ancient guide to finding love, Simi starts a matchmaking service-via an app, of course.</p> <p>But when she helps connect a wallflower of a girl with the star of the boys’ soccer team, she turns the high school hierarchy topsy-turvy, soon making herself public enemy number one.</p> </p> </section> <section> <h3> <h2> <p><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/theothersideofperfect">THE OTHER SIDE OF PERFECT</a> BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/marikoturk">MARIKO TURK</a></strong></p> </h2> </h3> <p><p>Alina Keeler was destined to dance, but one terrifying fall shatters her leg — and her dreams of a professional ballet career along with it.</p> <p>After a summer healing (translation: eating vast amounts of Cool Ranch Doritos and binging ballet videos on YouTube), she is forced to trade her pre-professional dance classes for normal high school, where she reluctantly joins the school musical. However, rehearsals offer more than she expected — namely Jude, her annoyingly attractive cast mate she just might be falling for.</p> <p>But to move forward, Alina must make peace with her past and face the racism she had grown to accept in the dance industry. She wonders what it means to yearn for ballet — something so beautiful, yet so broken. And as broken as she feels, can she ever open her heart to someone else?</p> <p>Touching, romantic, and peppered with humor, this debut novel explores the tenuousness of perfectionism, the possibilities of change, and the importance of raising your voice.</p> </p> </section> <section> <h3> <h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/girlsofpaperandfire">GIRLS OF PAPER AND FIRE </a>BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/natashangan">NATASHA NGAN</a></strong></h2> </h3> <p><p>In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it’s Lei they’re after — the girl with the golden eyes whose rumored beauty has piqued the king’s interest.</p> <p>Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king’s consort. There, she does the unthinkable: she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world’s entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she’s willing to go for justice and revenge.</p> </p> </section> <section> <h3> <h2> <p><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/sisterofthebollywoodbride">SISTER OF THE BOLLYWOOD BRIDE</a> BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/nandinibajpai">NANDINI BAJPAI</a></strong></p> </h2> </h3> <p><p>Mini’s big sister, Vinnie, is getting married. Their mom passed away seven years ago and between Dad’s new start-up and Vinnie’s medical residency, there’s no one but Mini to plan the wedding. Dad raised her to know more about computers, calculus, and cars than desi weddings but from the moment Mini held the jewelry Mom left them, she wanted her sister to have the wedding Mom would’ve planned.</p> <p>Now Mini has only two months to get it done and she’s not going to let anything distract her, not even the persistent, mysterious, and smoking-hot Vir Mirchandani. Flower garlands, decorations, music, even a white wedding horse — everything is in place.</p> <p>That is, until a monster hurricane heads for Boston that could ruin everything. Will Mini come through as sister of the bride and save the day?</p> </p> </section> <section> <h3> <h2> <p><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/astonishingcolorofafter">THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER</a> BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/emilyxrpan">EMILY X.R. PAN</a></strong></p> </h2> </h3> <p><p>Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.</p> <p>Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.</p> <p>Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a stunning and heartbreaking novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.</p> <p> </p> </p> </section> <section> <h3> <h2> <p><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/morethanjustaprettyface">MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE</a> BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/syedmmasood">SYED M. MASOOD</a></strong></p> </h2> </h3> <p><p>Danyal Jilani has no lack of confidence. He may not be the smartest guy in the room, but he’s funny, gorgeous, and going to make a great chef one day. His father doesn’t approve of his career choice, but that hardly matters. What does matter is the opinion of Danyal’s longtime crush, the perfect-in-all-ways Kaval, and her family, who consider him a less than ideal arranged-marriage prospect.</p> <p>Then Danyal gets selected for the Renaissance Man, a school-wide academic championship and the perfect opportunity to show everyone he’s smarter than they think. He recruits the brilliant, totally-uninterested-in-him Bisma to help with the competition, but the more time Danyal spends with her…the more he learns from her…the more he cooks for her…the more he realizes that happiness may be staring him right in his pretty face.</p> </p> </section> <section> <h3> <h2> <p><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/scavengethestars">SCAVENGE THE STARS</a> BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/tarasim">TARA SIM</a></strong></p> </h2> </h3> <p><p>When Amaya rescues a mysterious stranger from drowning, she fears her rash actions have earned her a longer sentence on the debtor ship where she’s been held captive for years. Instead, the man she saved offers her unimaginable riches and a new identity, setting Amaya on a perilous course through the coastal city-state of Moray, where old-world opulence and desperate gamblers collide.</p> <p>Amaya wants one thing: revenge against the man who ruined her family and stole the life she once had. But the more entangled she becomes in this game of deception-and as her path intertwines with the son of the man she’s plotting to bring down-the more she uncovers about the truth of her past. And the more she realizes she must trust no one?</p> </p> </section> <section> <h3> <h2><strong><a href="https://www.thenovl.com/theinbetween">THE IN BETWEEN</a> BY <a href="https://www.thenovl.com/marcklein">MARC KLEIN</a></strong></h2> </h3> <p><p>After bouncing around in foster homes for most of her childhood, seventeen-year-old Tessa Jacobs doesn’t believe she deserves love — not from her adoptive parents, and certainly not from anyone at school.</p> <p>But everything changes when she has a chance encounter at the local movie theater with Skylar, a senior from a neighboring town who’s a true romantic. Their budding relationship quickly leads to the kind of passionate love you only see in the movies. And Tessa starts to believe she might be deserving of a happy ending after all.</p> <p>When tragedy strikes, Tessa wakes up alone in the hospital with no memory of how she got there. And Skylar has passed away. As Tessa begins her relentless search for answers, Skylar’s spirit reaches out to her from the other side. Desperate to see him one last time, Tessa must unravel the pieces of their relationship — and the truth might even lead her into the afterlife itself.</p> </p> </section> <section> <h2> <h2><strong>Choose a Bollywood film!</strong></h2> </h2> </section> <p>
