This book read like a Korean drama (it's the best description I can think of, as those who are familiar with Kdrama will know exactly what I mean) and I never ever thought I would be even reading something with a title like The Bollywood Bride but wow. I cried. Maybe it's because I rarely read romances so I'm overestimating how good it was since I'm used to romance being the side plot of urban fantasy/scifi/etc. but I don't think so. 
 I mean sure, some parts I found to be very stereotypically romance book plot and writing, particularly the beginning when Ria meets Vikram again for the first time in years. But the rest of it was startlingly more complex and touching than I ever would have guessed. 
 I didn't read this book as part of a book group but I also really enjoyed reading the questions provided at the end of my copy for book group discussion. Even though I had already considered many of the questions, I feel like the fact that those questions can be asked and discussed exemplify what raises this book above other typical romances. There is a surprising depth to the issues that are explored, from mental illness to cultural rites and rituals. I actually loved reading this as a ebook because I was constantly looking up the italicized Indian words, so I could read about all sorts of interesting dishes (tamarind soup?) and also visualize exactly what was being described. I'm no newbie to Indian culture but I feel like Dev handles it so well, it's inviting to everyone regardless of how much you know about Indian culture. She never ends up sounding like an infodump and she never makes it start to feel like the Indian cultural aspects that are written in are done so for added exoticness or something. You can feel the author's real love of and connection with her culture. 
 Perhaps most impressively, at several points Ms. Dev actually takes romantic cliches and both uses them BUT ALSO turns them on its head. The entire "Ice Princess" moniker had be rolling my eyes, but yet I found that she managed to both use it sincerely and also exhibit a certain amount of self-awareness of how ridiculous it is. There is social commentary at unexpected points that emphasizes how little we really know about people - for example, a bad guy turns out to have a past that doesn't make him good, but does show how multifaceted everyone is, despite how we see them as only in aspects that brush on our own lives. Similarly, celebrity culture definitely plays a role in the book but not the one that you would typically expect; if anything the way it's depicted is a critique of it, rather than what I first expected from the book blurb.