About this item
Almost seventeen, Rani Patel appears to be a kick-ass Indian girl breaking cultural norms as a hip-hop performer in full effect. But in truth, she's a nerdy flat-chested nobody who lives with her Gujarati immigrant parents on the remote Hawaiian island of Moloka'i, isolated from her high school peers by the unsettling norms of Indian culture where "husband is God." Her parents' traditionally arranged marriage is a sham. Her dad turns to her for all his needs - even the intimate ones. When Rani catches him two-timing with a woman barely older than herself, she feels like a widow and, like widows in India are often made to do, she shaves off her hair. Her sexy bald head and hard-driving rhyming skills attract the attention of Mark, the hot older customer who frequents her parents' store and is closer in age to her dad than to her. Mark makes the moves on her and Rani goes with it. He leads Rani into 4eva Flowin', an underground hip hop crew - and into other things she's never done. Rani ignores the red flags. Her naive choices look like they will undo her but ultimately give her the chance to discover her strengths and restore the things she thought she'd lost, including her mother.Sonia Patel is a psychiatrist who works with children and adults. She was trained at Stanford University and the University of Hawaii. She lives and practices in Hawaii. Rani Patel In Full Effect is her first young adult novel.
About the Author
Sonia Patel is a first-generation Indian American born in New York and raised in Hawai'i. Her break-out novel, RANI PATEL IN FULL EFFECT, was a finalist for the William C. Morris Debut Award, a YALSA and Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book, and received four-starred reviews. Her subsequent YA novels JAYA AND RASA: A LOVE STORY and BLOODY SEOUL both received the In the Margins Book Award. She contributed a short story - NOTHING FEELS NO PAIN - to the YA anthology AB(SOLUTELY) NORMAL: SHORT STORIES THAT SMASH MENTAL HEALTH STEREOTYPES. Her fourth YA novel, GITA DESAI IS NOT HERE TO SHUT UP, will be published Summer 2024. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist trained at Stanford University and the University of Hawaii, Patel has spent over twenty years providing psychotherapy to youth and their families. She lives in Honolulu with her husband and teenage son, and misses her daughter who's away at college.
