“Late Bloomers” - Deepa Varadarajan

📚 This was a charming intergenerational story about a family working its way through some changes that are sought out by some, not so by others. It’s told from the POV of the 4 members of the Raman family: the divorced parents Suresh and Lata, and their adult children Priya and Nikesh. Lata is the most sympathetic character. The rest of the Raman family is less so to varying degrees IMO.

📚 I liked the delayed dreams aspect of Lata’s tale. Will she have the courage to seek out more for herself now that her kids are on their own? She has realized long ago that while Suresh isn’t a bad person (but hooo boy is he annoying), she didn’t like him at all.

📚 While the story definitely took some wild twists and turns, the only part that struck me as unbelievable was that a mom like Denise would leave her child’s first birthday plans entirely up to her boyfriend’s parents with whom she doesn’t communicate. First, it’s her child’s 1st birthday. Second, she’d be ok with being kept totally in the dark?! Not likely. What would’ve been more in keeping with the Denise-Nikesh-Ramans dynamic would be that Denise/Nikesh celebrate the birthday at their home, and then let the Ramans do (or not do) whatever they like at a later date. 

Also, don’t get me started on the repeated installing and uninstalling of rear-facing carseats. Unrealistic. Once it’s safely in, you’d have to do some major convincing to get me to take it out and put it in another car for the ride home. I’m just saying.