Poonam Sharma, Girl Most Likely To

Girl Most Likely To

Poonam Sharma

Red Dress, Mar 2007, $13.95

ISBN: 037389550X

In spite of making a fortune as a Wall St. investment banker living in Manhattan, her dad always compares his offspring to her mom. When her mom was twenty-seven she had a daughter, a dog, a spouse and a medical residency. Vina Chopra has a minimal hour workweek and no daughter (or son), no dog (or cat), no husband (or boyfriend), and no positive future beyond making money for her hard but boring work.

Unable to find love and sick of Fred the ulcer, Vina allows her parents to choose for her a proper boyfriend. However the parade of Indian doctors makes her feel worse as none seem right. At the office her rise up the ladder of success seems in jeopardy as a scandal threatens anyone near its epicenter. Taking a sabbatical from her job, her Great Neck family and from her tedious life, Vina goes on a hunt to find her inner self, not expecting to meet and like Mike.

This is a coming-of-age chick lit romance stars a fast-track Yuppie who finds her banking life inadequate, but has nothing else. The storyline follows Vina as she leaps from one incident to another (perhaps too many to lament over) while becoming increasingly despondent over having nothing that excites her. Poonam Sharma provides a fine character study of an Indian-American female who feels displaced at work, at home, and at life.

Harriet Klausner