What a Desi Girl Wants
Sabina Khan
Scholastic
July 18, 2023
Age 12+

Induced by curiosity, guilt, and a very persuasive Dadi, Mehar flies from her boring home in Kansas to her family’s nawabi palace in Agra, India, for her father’s lavish wedding festivities. In a South Asian and LGBTQ twist on What a Girl Wants (Warner Bros., 2003), which is itself an adaptation of the 1955 play The Reluctant Debutante by William Douglas-Home, Mehar attempts to reconnect with a distant father, undermine her social-climbing future step-mother and step-sister, and foster a blossoming relationship with her Dadi’s lovely and shy personal assistant, Sufiya. As she bonds with her father, gets to know Naz and Aleena (the future steps), and grows closer to Sufiya, her original motivations come into question and she discovers both stronger relationships and humility through the journey.

Complex family dynamics drive the plot of this emotionally charged YA dramady. Mehar doesn’t fully understand her parents’ relationship and the reasons they split. She makes assumptions about the way Naz and Aleena are using her father. And she underestimates the family obligations and social restrictions that drive Sufiya’s reluctance to out herself. Khan writes Mehar as confident and clueless in turn, ruled by her desires and goals in a way that conflicts with Indian cultural expectations. She is a flawed, yet likable protagonist that stands out against the less developed secondary characters. The juxtaposition of her t-shirts and jeans against the lavish palace, wedding finery, and luscious foods adds to the sense of her straddling cultures with varying degrees of success. As Mehar settles in and struggles less, she grows in maturity, owning up to her mistakes and mending fences to get what she really wants—connection.