Meg's Reviews > Dating Dr. Dil

Kareena Mann has been pegged by her family as a “difficult woman.” What that means in the Desi community of Jersey City is that she’s career oriented and driven and still single at thirty. Perhaps she’s set her standards too high, they tell her. Now she’s torn by an ultimatum - she wants to buy her house from her father before he retires, but the only way she’ll be able to afford the downpayment is upon receiving the money her father has set aside for her upon the occasion of her engagement. Set on a love match, but running short on time, Kareena is determined to do what it takes to buy the house she grew up in.

When she meets Dr. Prem Varma at a bar, they have instant chemistry. Like, make out in the back office chemistry. Until she finds out that he’s also Dr. Dil, a local TV persona who makes claims about how love is actually medically dangerous for the heart. But he needs her as much as she needs him - he needs funding to create a community health center dedicated to serving the needs of the South Asian population in New Jersey, and showing his investors that he’s in a stable relationship should be the winning combination. But even in a fake relationship, can a woman looking for true love find any kind of happiness with a man who says love is harmful?

I saw @angelreadsromance post a review about this one and hightailed it to @netgalley to request it. If there’s a contemporary subgenre I read more of than any other, it’s Desi Romance, and this one did not disappoint! This has shades of Taming of the Shrew/10 Things I Hate About You/Kiss Me Kate, but I wouldn’t explicitly call it a retelling. While I’m often annoyed at the “thirty is the benchmark for getting married” trope and also that of calling a career-driven woman with standards “difficult”, in the setting of the expat South Asian community it works. Kareena and Prem have undeniable chemistry, and there are complex layers of family expectations on top of their fake relationship.

I really enjoyed Dating Dr. Dil and breezed through it in under 24 hours, because I couldn’t put it down. It’s also one of the spicier desi romances I’ve read. And if you read “Dr Phil” at any point instead of Dr. Dil, don’t worry, Sharma lets Kareena lean into that comparison.