ouch... (a.k.a the smh review)

i don't know when this appeared in the sydney morning herald or who wrote it, but here it is... ah well, you can't win 'em all.
(though i must admit i think the first sentence is brilliant - cracks me up every time!)
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Shalini Akhil's debut asks little of the reader and gives enough in return to make the exchange worthwhile. It is a pleasant tale of life between two cultures , one that has been told often enough in Australian writing, though not in saris. The novel is part of the long overdue seepage of the experience of Pacific communities into our literature, a slow movement which has been helped in no small measure by the work of Celestine Hitiura Vaite.

Kesh and Rupa are cousins of Fijian-Indian ethnicity. As a youngster, Kesh's family was known to return from Melbourne for Christmas in Fiji. Now they are older and Rupa is moving to Melbourne, where she wants to study, living in Kesh's small flat as she does so. Naturally, the glamorous Rupa will have to learn how to live in jeans and T-shirts and adapt to the fact that her cousin is a smoker and a drinker. By the time Rupa's parents arrive six months later, it appears that Rupa has changed in only superficial ways.
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