Lillie Vale

In this witty and heartfelt rom-com debut for fans of Jasmine Guillory, Emily Henry, and Tessa Bailey, an Indian-American woman signs herself and her boyfriend up for a matchmaking site to prove they're a perfect match, only to be paired with her ex instead. High school sweethearts Rita Chitniss and Milan Rao were the golden couple, until the day he broke her heart. Now, six years later, Rita has turned her passion for furniture restoration into a career and has an almost-perfect boyfriend, Neil. The last thing she needs is for Milan to re-enter her life, but that's exactly what happens when her mother, an unfailing believer in second chances, sets them up. Milan is just as charming, cocky, and confident as he was back in school. Only this time, he actually needs her business expertise, not her heart, to flip a hard-to-sell house for his realty agency. While Rita begrudgingly agrees to help, she's not taking any risks. To prove she's definitely over him, she signs herself and Neil up on MyShaadi.com, a Desi matchmaking site famous for its success stories and trustworthy enough to convince everyone that she and Neil are the new and improved couple. Instead, she's shocked when MyShaadi's perfect match for her isn't Neil...it's Milan. Ignoring the website and her mother is one thing, but ignoring Milan proves much more difficult, especially when she promises to help him renovate the beach house of her dreams. And as the two of them dive deeper into work--and their pasts--Rita begins to wonder if maybe her match wasn't so wrong after all....

The Shaadi Set-Up

Keira 💫

In this witty and heartfelt rom-com debut for fans of Jasmine Guillory, Emily Henry, and Tessa Bailey, an Indian American woman signs herself and her boyfriend up for a matchmaking site to prove they're a perfect match, only to be paired with her ex instead. High school sweethearts Rita Chitniss and Milan Rao were the golden couple, until the day he broke her heart. Now, six years later, Rita has turned her passion for furniture restoration into a career and has an almost-perfect boyfriend, Neil. The last thing she needs is for Milan to re-enter her life, but that's exactly what happens when her mother, an unfailing believer in second chances, sets them up. Milan is just as charming, cocky, and confident as he was back in school. Only this time, he actually needs her business expertise, not her heart, to flip a hard-to-sell house for his realty agency. While Rita begrudgingly agrees to help, she's not taking any risks. To prove she's definitely over him, she signs herself and Neil up on MyShaadi.com, a Desi matchmaking site famous for its success stories and trustworthy enough to convince everyone that she and Neil are the new and improved couple. Instead, she's shocked when MyShaadi's perfect match for her isn't Neil...it's Milan. Ignoring the website and her mother is one thing, but ignoring Milan proves much more difficult, especially when she promises to help him renovate the beach house of her dreams. And as the two of them dive deeper into work—and their pasts—Rita begins to wonder if maybe her match wasn't so wrong after all....

Mackenzie Shah

Kayla 

I had pretty high hopes for this one and sadly it didn’t meet expectations for me. It’s a second chance romance, which I usually love, but I absolutely cannot stand when the reason a couple originally broke up was due to a HUGE miscommunication.

skip forward to present day and they main characters are still incapable of communicating???? I have never felt so frustrated with a book character as much as I was with Rita. she was extremely immature and her internal monologue was irritating.

the main love interest, Milan, is also super plain. I didn’t find anything about his character interesting. the main thing I wanted to find out about was the cause for their original break up, that by the time they sorted out their issues, I really didn’t care anymore about what happened.

Raj, Rita’s best friend, was described as gender fluid and queer and used she/he/they pronouns, but the entire book was only ever referred to with she pronouns. this really bothered me, because it felt as though her being gender fluid was only added to tick a criteria checkbox 🙃

the beginning of the book had a lot of potential, but it fell flat for me. All the characters seemed to be immature and ultimately it had more of a young adult feel. the only thing I really enjoyed in this and was the reason I gave it 2 stars, was the home renovations that were happening - cos I love the idea of up cycling furniture and renovating a house.

Larissa Kirchberger

BOOK REVIEW

The Shaadi Set-Up / Lillie Vale

Rating ⭐️⭐️

I had pretty high hopes for this one and sadly it didn’t meet expectations for me. It’s a second chance romance, which I usually love, but I absolutely cannot stand when the reason a couple originally broke up was due to a HUGE miscommunication.

skip forward to present day and they main characters are still incapable of communicating???? I have never felt so frustrated with a book character as much as I was with Rita. she was extremely immature and her internal monologue was irritating.

the main love interest, Milan, is also super plain. I didn’t find anything about his character interesting. the main thing I wanted to find out about was the cause for their original break up, that by the time they sorted out their issues, I really didn’t care anymore about what happened.

Raj, Rita’s best friend, was described as gender fluid and queer and used she/he/they pronouns, but the entire book was only ever referred to with she pronouns. this really bothered me, because it felt as though her being gender fluid was only added to tick a criteria checkbox 🙃

ALSO, poor Neil.

the beginning of the book had a lot of potential, but it fell flat for me. All the characters seemed to be immature and ultimately it had more of a young adult feel. the only thing I really enjoyed in this and was the reason I gave it 2 stars, was the home renovations that were happening - cos I love the idea of up cycling furniture and renovating a house.

Aditi

I'm such a sucker for second chance romance and that part of this book was really good. The tension between the two characters was well done and carried throughout the book. The main character, Rita was a little annoying with her “quirks” but not anything I couldn't look past. 

The best friend, Rajvee is non binary but Rita only ever uses she/her pronouns for them so that kind of feels like, diversity win! 

Overall, not bad and I got all my second chance romance feels from this but not something I'll be rereading

Randi Sera

I feel torn. I liked the authors writing well enough and might pick up another by her before I make a judgement but I think this just wasn’t for me. I found it hard to buy that the MC is trying so hard to force this online match with Neil when she obviously barely can stand his existence. 

The main romance was cute enough, but again I’m not sure that second chance romances are really my thing. 

Also, the best friend is clearly explained to be gender fluid and uses she/he/they pronouns and switching between the femme Rajvee and masc Raj, while the author switches the name back and forth they only use she pronouns which just struck me as a bit bizarre. Like she spends time explaining to us, the reader, how to refer to this character and then proceeds to not do it? Idk rubbed me weird lol

Lauren Sullivan

The adorableness of this cover! This is a tropey and cute book, full of second chance high school sweethearts and a bit of forced proximity, though not everything worked out for me.

“There’s something about old things, right? Comforting favorites. A place in time you want to return to, revisit, like an old friend.”

Rita and Milan have dated since they were fifteen, and now, after Milan’s first year of college, they’re finally getting to see each other again on their much anticipated summer trip to Paris. And then he dumps her via voicemail while she’s waiting in the airport. Six years later, Rita’s over it (or so she says) but it’s still a shock when her mother surprises her by inviting him to a family lunch. Milan’s a hotshot real estate agent who’s having problems selling a very unique house, and her family thinks Rita’s eye for design will help sell it. Unwilling to let him see how much being around him still affects her, she goes all in on decorating the house – and on her current relationship with her boyfriend who won’t even introduce her to his parents. Rita’s bright idea? Her and her boyfriend will register for MyShaadi, the premier Desi dating app, and when they inevitably match, that’ll be Rita’s in with his parents. Except instead of her boyfriend, she matches with Milan.

“It’s a little broken down, sure, but isn’t it worth putting it back together? Giving it another chance? Restoring it to how it used to be?”
I move to the door, putting my hand on the knob. Twist, release. “Maybe,” I admit. “Or maybe it’s better not to pin your hopes on lost causes.”

I’ll get what I didn’t like out of the way first. Rita spends a good chunk of the beginning of the book with another guy. She keeps trying to convince herself that he’s almost perfect, but, yeah, no. And, yes, it’s that relationship that leads them both to register for MyShaadi and for Rita to reconsider her current and past relationships, but she hung in there way too long with that guy. Which, honestly, it sort of Rita’s M.O. at the beginning of the book: she’s treading water with her business, afraid of expanding out, afraid of rocking the boat too much with her boyfriend or with her family.

“I’m scared to be the one who cares more, who cares too much. I might have been a girl who waited, but he can’t know that a part of me is waiting still.”

I thought the romance between Rita and Milan was excellent. It’s very slow-burn, as it takes a while for them to develop any sort of trust between them. While it seems they’d both like to pretend they’re over it, it’s obvious that both of them are stilling hurting. There’s a lot of navel-gazing on Rita’s part about the problems they had the first time around (hello, communication) and her frustration with the fact that Milan seems to just want to pick up where they left off. But that was six years ago and they’re both (hopefully) different people. But there’s still enough history (and attraction) between them for them to give friendship a try, and later a relationship.

The secondary characters are fun as well. I loved Rita’s two dogs and their hilariously different personalities. Rita’s relationship with her family (especially her mom) plays a big part in the book, and I thought it was lovely how all their conflicts were worked out. Plus, Aji was hilarious! Rita’s friend Raj was also amazing.

Overall, while the book has lots of that second-chance tropey goodness, there’s enough uneven parts that I’d give this 3.5 stars. I’ll be keeping an eye to see where this author goes next!

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Content notes: (view spoiler)[depression, fatmisia, alcohol (hide spoiler)]

adeline 

Ahaana Bhargava

Linda Quintanilla

It's hard to forgive someone when they betray you. I know Rita is taking it even harder because Milan was her first and true love. That's why she is determined not to fall for him again because he returns back into town. It does not help when her mother gets involved. Her mother means well. She just wants Rita to be happy in personal and professional life. It does not mean that Rita has to like it. She is in control of her life. She can make any decisions. She just needs to be sure what she wants. No one will be ashamed if she wants to take a second chance with Milan. It's just going to be work if she does. Second chances are rare.

The Shaadi Set-Up

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