For the first half of this book, I was so charmed I was a hair-trigger away from giving this novella five stars. It lessened in its charm in the second half, but overall I still really liked it.
The set-up here is really fun, and the tone of it reflects that fun. Pinky works at her parent’s Indian restaurant, and she has been enjoying lusting from afar one of her customers, Trucker, who is unfortunately part of a biker gang. Trucker is also lusting after her, but like in a cute way where he also is very enthusiastic about mango lassi and Indian pastry, and is polite but confident in his attraction, and I don’t quite know how to explain it. Anyway, Pinky’s into it, and one day after an unexpected encounter in a Walmart involving Trucker wearing a Captain America shirt and letting his nerd flag fly, they have a steamy hook-up in his truck while it’s still sitting in the parking lot of the Walmart, and I was just like THIS IS SO FUN.
Some of the plot after that took away my sense of glee and the joy the characters had been giving off until then. I wasn’t super into the Trucker being a secret ATF agent undercover thing. It felt like a bit of a bummer to me in the midst of me having so much fun, but it was a central part of the book, so I’m not sure what to do with that. I loved Trucker and his small town big buff guy image but how secretly underneath he’s just a big nerd who SPOILERS chooses his new name inspired by James Buchanan Barnes END SPOILERS and also he’s human pillow but with sexy moves. The sex wasn’t always to my taste, but I liked the way that Snyder only described bits of it and backed away at certain moments, only to zoom in and get descriptive strategically. The parking lot hookup was the high point, though, unfortunately, and the later sex scenes just weren’t as satisfying narratively.
It was refreshing to read about a desi heroine, and Trucker being so unapologetically into her right away was delightful. The descriptions of the Indian food made me salivate. I wish I could eat more Indian food but my intestines really don’t like it because of the dairy and the gluten and the spices and now I am sad 🙁