CBR16Bingo: Fiasco
We start in L.A. where Mira gets dumped by her boyfriend of six months. They were set up and started dating after their matchmaker, Hema Auntie, agreed to continue to work with Mira even though Mira had rejected the last twelve matches.
Afterward, Mira is sitting in her car and attempting to breathe through yet another disappointment when she receives a call from an attorney’s office. This starts a series of events that has her reconnecting with one of her first matches, Naveen, a.k.a “the one who got away.” He is also the one she regrets the most as Mira was the one to end things, mistakenly believing she could never be the partner he deserved.
After meeting with Naveen, who is the attorney responsible for executing Mira’s aunt’s will, they both get sucked into a hunt for stolen jewelry, they are kidnapped, and they end up back in Mira’s hometown of Las Vegas. The closer they get to the diamonds, the closer they get to one another. However, Mira is stubbornly independent and believes she needs to protect Naveen despite all evidence that he wants to help her.
This book bored me until about the 70% point. I almost DNF’d after the halfway point. The characters and the dialogue were very good, which is why I was so surprised by how much I struggled to keep going.
I’m glad I stuck with it though. There were some twists that nearly made up for the slow middle. I plowed through the final hundred pages, delighted that this seemingly paint-by-numbers missing diamonds and kidnapping story became so, so much better. For example, the main characters, with the exception of Naveen, are women. They are flawed, duplicitous, cruel, messy, loving, and kind. Naveen is the charming, sweet, and supportive ex-boyfriend. There is never any doubt that the story revolves around Mira.
The final thing that pushed this out of the two-and-a-half star range and into a three-star book is the following quote.
“Do you know how the blockchain works?” “Not really. Explain it to us.” Emi swiveled around. “Refreshing, explaining crypto to a man for once.”
― Alisha Rai, Partners in Crime
For this year’s CBR16 Book Bingo Reading Challenge I’m choosing albums from the 1970s that helped raise me. When I think of Fiasco, and about ruminating on mistakes and regrets from past relationships, I think of If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot (1970).
