Not so Confused
December 14, 2007
By: Beverly Jenkins <bjenkins@hilite.org>
Multi-award winning book Born Confused, from first-time author Tanuja Desai Hidier, is a book that deals with sensitive issues including racial, sexual and religious identity in the most elegant way.
The novel, published in 2002, has already won several awards including the 2002 American Library Association (ALA) Best Book for Young Adults and the 2002 Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (BCCB) blue ribbon.
The book title is taken from the South Asian slang alphabet, ABCD (American Born Confused Desi). The alphabet is used to help first generation South Asians identify with one another. For example, Desi is another word for an Indian countryman.
The story opens with Dimple Lala’s 17th birthday, which also happens to be the last day of her junior year in high school. So begins Dimple’s multifaceted, not quite mid-life identity crisis.
The author makes it clear that Dimple feels like she is “not exactly American, but not exactly Indian either.” She also believes that she is unable to coexist with her parents and is incapable of measuring up to those around her. These are issues that many teens from different backgrounds face. For these reasons, New Jersey teen Lala will seem like an old friend to readers, or perhaps even a side of readers themselves.
Like most teens, she experiences growing pains, rebellion, peer pressure, and first love. What Dimple doesn’t realize is that she is not alone in this teen angst, and this reason alone makes her relatable to readers.
But while Dimple awkwardly stumbles through adolescence like the rest of her high school peers, some of her concerns are uniquely cultural.
The author seamlessly integrates the Indian culture and Hindu religion, usually coupled with Dimple’s sarcastic remarks. The reader will be inspired from the author’s wise, however straight-spoken, observations and a bit more knowledgeable in the realm of Indian culture and Hindu religion.
The story also takes on a few subplots, such as Dimple’s best friend Gwyn’s infatuation with Karsh Kapoor, the boy who is supposed to be Dimple’s “suitable boy,” personally picked by Dimple’s parents; the growing relationship between Dimple and her lesbian cousin, Kavita; Dimple’s arrival into the Bollywood-inspired club scene in New York; and Dimple’s passion for photography, which she feels is her third eye.
While the novel is lengthy (well over 400 pages) Hidier easily keeps readers engaged by sprinkling subtle humor and romance throughout the story, not to mention that Hidier has a natural gift for the written language. She easily captures the candid speech and thought processes of every character so it is both believable and relatable, but Hidier’s ability to turn ordinary words into poetic ones is what will really keep readers’ eyes glued to the book from cover to cover.
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