In 2020, Diksha Basu released her delicious novel Destination Wedding – the story of Tina an American-born Indian and her experience as she travels to India to attend her cousin’s lavish wedding. We review the novel here and give our stand-out thoughts.
Diksha Basu gives a hilarious and discerning narrative about Tina – an American-born Indian – who travels to Delhi for her cousin Shefali’s wedding. Through the novel, Tina navigates both romantic and diasporic confusions – restless in her job and her life back in New York. This is set upon a backdrop of complicated family dramas – Tina’s father has elicited the services of a matchmaker in India and her mother has brought along her boyfriend David. Meanwhile, Tina herself has her own romantic confusions, with an old flame Rocco present at the wedding, alongside Sid, a star whose career she is hoping to break. The book is immensely charming, humorous, complex and filled with lessons both on friendship, love and navigating your place in the world. The cast of characters are well thought through, distinct, creating a kind of Austen novel for the millennial generation, based on a lush backdrop of Indian high society and Basu has captured so well the charm of India, drawing attention away from stereotypes of slums or Bollywood. A delight of a novel.
Pick up a copy of Destination Wedding today here.
