Mini Review | From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon

From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon
Published On: May 22, 2018
Published By: Hodder & Stoughton
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Pages: 384
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Rating: ★★

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Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories to tell and universes to explore - if only the world would listen. So when nerdy classmate and fellow film-obsessive Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a film for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle can't wait. 
The chance to showcase her artistic voice? Dream come true. 
The opportunity to get closer to longtime crush, Neil Roy-aka Sahil's twin brother? Dream come even truer. 
When Twinkle receives an email from a secret admirer - the mysterious 'N' - she is sure it's Neil, finally ready for their happy ending. The only problem is that, in the course of their movie-making, she has found herself falling for Sahil - the wrong brother. Twinkle soon realises that resistance is futile. 
The romance she's got isn't the one she scripted... But will it be enough?

*A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

It's time to accept that Sandhya Menon is not for me.

I wanted to love When Dimple Met Rishi and was disappointed. However, I was determined, for whatever reason, that I would love the next book she published. Sadly, I really did not like From Twinkle, With Love. Therefore, I think I have to accept that she is not an author whose books I fall in love with.

Everything about this book annoyed me.

I want to say nice things about this book but I was just constantly annoyed the whole time I was reading. Whether that was down to the characters and their actions or whatever was happening in the plot, something always got to me. 

The characters were frustrating.

To me, the characters all seemed much younger than they were. They were all very immature and often their actions did not seem like those of young people their age. Twinkle, especially, seemed like a young 14-year-old in the way she was behaving and I found her incredibly annoying. There was also a lot of unnecessary drama and girl-hate, which added to the younger feel. I found the majority of the characters annoying, and those that didn't annoy me were not particularly well developed.

Film-making was supposed to be a more integral part of the story.

As with the coding aspect of When Dimple Met Rishi, Twinkle's passion for film-making was much less prominent in the story than I would have liked. It was used as a way of introducing characters and to facilitate some of the drama but it seemed to blend into the background as all of the boy and friend drama became the main focus of the story. It was such an important part of Twinkle's life and, for the majority of the book, it became simply a way to get the boy and reconnect with her friend.

I still don't understand what a 'groundling' is.

Twinkle was obsessed with the idea that no one liked her because she was a 'groundling' and everyone else was rich and had big houses. For me, this was probably the most annoying part of the whole book. She lost her best friend because she wasn't rich and had a small house, yet to me it just seemed like she was jealous that her 'best friend' had dared to make other friends so pushed her away. Also, all of the spoilt rich kids were terrible and she wasn't one of those terrible people, but neither was Sahil who was rich and lived in a huge house. It just doesn't make sense to me and didn't seem essential to the story.

Did we really need a love square?

Speaking of things that weren't essential to the story; a love triangle just wasn't enough. I was already not loving the love triangle with Twinkle and the two brothers and then this random email admirer, N, was introduced and I wanted to scream. I found this strange as it didn't even last long enough to be properly developed. It didn't become a major part of the story as they were arranging a meeting only a few pages after the first email was mentioned. For me, it needed to either be a love triangle involving a more developed email admirer and Sahil, or no email admirer at all.

It didn't need to be written in letter/diary format.

A book written in the form of letters, if only that had been done before! The idea of Twinkle writing letters in her diary to inspirational female film-makers is nice. It's a nice idea, but it didn't work. It added nothing to have the book written this way and it read no differently to a book written normally. 

Overall, I was extremely disappointed as I had really hoped to enjoy this book. Sandhya Menon seems to be a much loved new author but her books are not for me. I found most of this book annoying and much of the content felt unnecessary. I would definitely recommend When Dimple Met Rishi over this book but I  doubt I will be reading more from this author in the future.