What spurs Sowmya to exact promises from her future husband before she’s married? Does this surprise you, based on Sowmya’s characterization at the beginning of the book?

“What can we do when someone takes your trust and throws it away?” asks Priya’s mother (p. 39). How does this theme of establishing-and losing-trust thread through the book? How do Priya’s relatives trust and distrust her? In which ways has their attitude infantilized her, and how has it made her stronger and more independent?

“Happiness is such a relative term that it sometimes loses definition,” Malladi writes (p. 56). How does Priya’s definition of happiness evolve as the book unfolds? How would her parents define happiness differently from her?

Priya refers to the “two people inside me” (p. 69). How does Priya seek to reconcile the two halves of her personality? Which aspects of her character derive from her Indian upbringing? Which from her choice to embrace America?

Is Nate indulged more than Priya by their parents? How does he adapt to the strictures of Indian society, and within the family structure in particular? How is he a modern figure, and how does he feel a link to the past?

“Behind the façade… we were strangers to each other,” Priya says of her family (p. 98). Is this statement an accurate representation of her familial relationships? With whom in the family is Priya most herself?

Why does Priya go through with the bride-seeing ceremony? What about her might be attractive to Adarsh? What are the benefits and disadvantages to having an arranged marriage?

How does Priya envision love and marriage? In which ways is this an “American” view, and how is it influenced by her Indian heritage? How does it contrast with the vision of her family in India?

How does Thatha view Priya’s refusal to marry a handpicked Indian beau? Do you believe that their relationship will ever recover? Why were they close in the first place, despite their differences?

“You cannot make mango pickle with tomatoes,” Thatha says to Priya (p. 170). How does this sum up his view of her relationship with Nick? Does it also apply to any other relationships in the book?

“I had to start living my own life on my own terms,” Priya says (p. 142). Is this goal easier to accomplish when Priya is in the United States? Why? Does being in India stifle her sense of self?

How does the theme of sacrifice thread throughout the book? What sacrifices is Priya prepared to make for love? How does her mother hold up her sacrifices to Priya, to force her daughter to accede to her wishes? Ultimately, is this an effective technique?

How does racism, both against Indians and within the Indian culture itself, influence the perceptions that the Indian characters in the novel have of Americans? What else informs their perception of blacks, whites, and “foreigners”? What slights do you think Indians have felt based on the color of their skin?

Malladi deliberately leaves the ending of the novel ambiguous. Why? What do you envision occurring once Priya’s family receives the photograph of Nick?

Amulya Malladi