Reviewed by Chris

TITLE:  Tulsi Vivah

SERIES:  Warmest Wishes – 2018 Advent Calendar

AUTHOR:  Anna Kaling

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  62 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 1, 2018

BLURB:  

The festival of Tulsi Vivah ushers in the Hindu wedding season and tears away the love of Kristopher’s life. Three years of passion and tenderness are reduced to a shameful skeleton in the closet as Arjuna submits to the marriage his parents have arranged for him. His family has never even heard Kristopher’s name.

The festival, a ritualistic wedding between the holy basil plant, Tulsi, and her eternal lover, Vishnu, is as much of a play-act as Arjuna’s upcoming nuptials, but he believes the wedding will honor his parents and please Vishnu. So why is his Tulsi plant—whose leaves heal and bless the devout, who is Vishnu’s representative on earth—dying? Arjuna tends to her with all the care of a concerned parent, but it might take more than his devotion to save her. She might need Kris, with his clever green-fingers—and maybe a revived Tulsi can heal two hearts.

REVIEW:  

When Arjuna agrees to an arranged marriage to help make his cancer-stricken mother happy, she might be the only one who actually feels joy. Arjuna’s boyfriend, Kris, sure isn’t thrilled. And despite agreeing to the whole thing, Arjuna’s fiance probably isn’t ready to spend the rest of her life tied to a man who is pinning for another. But with the wedding date swiftly approaching there might not be enough time to head things off. It could all come down to Arjuna’s regrets, Kris’ determination, and a little plant-based luck.

I’m rather conflicted about this story. There were parts that I liked–the bits about Hindu culture/customs that take place during the holidays were things I’ve not read about before so it was really interesting–but some of the things that the characters do are rather too off-putting for me.

The big one is of course Arjuna just deciding, out of the blue, to tell Kris that he has agreed to go thru with the arranged marriage that his parents set up for him. Now, as I’ve stated previously, I have zero problems with arranged marriages (with the normal caveat that all parties are happy with the arrangement). I do have a big issue with A) not being fully honest about how you feel about said marriage to your intended partner and B) not bothering to tell your boyfriend about said decision to marry someone else till almost the last second. That was a huge dick move on several levels, and I didn’t feel like the story did a great job showing Arjuna make up for this dumb ass decision to everyone else involved.

I also wasn’t too happy about how the story kept framing Kris as the guilty party for not going with the flow and just accepting Arjuna’s religious and cultural beliefs. Which, aside from one stupid move after the breakup (in a fit of anger he steals Arjuna’s Tulsi plant, which, yeah…that was not cool), I never really saw at all. Sure, he wasn’t pleased about the marriage, but it had nothing to do with culture or beliefs, but everything to do with Arjuna dropping the whole fiasco on Kris out of the blue and with absolutely no warning. Agreeing to keep their relationship in the closet is not the same thing as agreeing to have zero say in said relationship.

On a more technical note, I also found the ending a bit rushed. Which did not help me get over the relationship issues created in this story. It left me feeling that they worked shit out because that was the ending required, not a natural progression of the story. I think I needed quite a bit more than just a quick apology to really bring the story to a more cohesive end.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon