82. That Thing About Bollywood

That Thing About Bollywood. Supriya Kelkar. 2021. [May] 352 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: You know how in Bollywood movies, people sing and dance on mountaintops when they're in love? I wonder if they do the same when they're splitting up?

Premise/plot: Sonali, our heroine, loves, loves, loves watching Bollywood--something she especially treasured doing with her grandfather (before he died). Every Sunday the family gathers together and watches vintage Bollywood--on VHS tape. But things at home are far from ideal. Her parents fight and argue all the time--over matters big and small and everything in between. She hates it. She hates it that she's not allowed to be honest about anything going on at home and in the family--even with her friends. But her dad has a strict rule that NO ONE should know the family's private business. So no matter what she's feeling--and how intense she's feeling it--she has to keep the mask on that everything is just fine....

But one day that all changes...one day she finds that suddenly EVERYONE has a soundtrack and can burst out into SONG and DANCE expressing everything they're feeling. These big musical numbers come straight from Bollywood--and include a few makeovers. (Like her room is suddenly painted YELLOW and has tons of posters of herself on the walls. Like the cars her parents drive.)

Sonali's solos can't be contained--and she hates it, fights it. Yet glimpses of how she is really truly feeling keep coming...showing her true self to her teachers, classmates, family, friends, and strangers. To the world everything is 100% normal--the way it's ALWAYS been. Only Sonali remembers what life was like before...

Can Sonali find a way to return the world to normal?

My thoughts: I definitely liked this one. I liked the focus on family and friends. She's struggling with both. I believe she's in sixth grade? possibly seventh grade? And she's struggling with her relationship with her best friend. Everything keeps changing too fast and she's worried about losing her best friend. I think this is so relatable. And she's also, of course, struggling with her home life. Her parents are separating and she has so many mixed feelings. On the one hand, she wants a divorce and not a separation--and on the other hand she wants her family to be happy together. But she knows that her parents just don't know how to live with each other and get along. She hates that each parent seems to want her to pick a side. (I think they do this by accident without realizing it).

There are some humorous scenes--like when she disrupts a math class before a test--by singing a huge solo number. But there are plenty of scenes with DEPTH and substance.

Quotes:

Mom patted my shoulder. "I hope to get to hear you sing more. It reminded me of the gold old days."
"When I sang about grape popsicles and thermal underwear," I muttered.
Mom laughed. "They were silly, nonsensical songs, but they were an expression of who you were. That's important. Expressing yourself." She gave me a knowing look.

Why was I feeling so angry? It felt like a bubble of crabbiness was starting to grow bigger and bigger and rise to the surface. Was this the Bollywooditis? Or was this the real me, and the magic was tearing away at the mask I always put on?

"Divorce is like spinach stuck in someone's teeth," I said. "It makes you uncomfortable, but you ignore it and eventually you forget about it and no one is bothered."
Ronak just looked at me.
"What? You're kidding right?" he asked.
"About spinach?"
"You don't ignore it. You bring it up. You talk about it. It doesn't make you weak to express yourself. It's as brave as it gets, like Mom always says. I mean, what kind of person wouldn't tell a friend they have food stuck in their teeth?"

If the whole world, including me, got taken over by filmi magic, I'd lose all those moments--the bad, but also the good. Despite all the Bollywood tremors I'd been experiencing, I definitely wasn't prepared for that.

© 2021 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews