Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood by Varsha Bajaj (review)

Twelve-year old Abby Spencer is curious about the father she never met. She knows her mother knew him in college, when he came to the U.S. from India to study, and she’s been happy enough without him, living with her mom in Houston and spending plenty of time with her maternal grandparents. She is slightly hurt at her father’s rejection, however, and when a previously undetected coconut allergy nearly kills her, she begins to wonder what other genetic conditions she may have inherited. Together, Abby and her mother track down her father and find that he’s now a huge Bollywood star. While he never knew of Abby’s existence (his own father had intercepted the letter her mother sent informing him of her pregnancy), he is eager to make up for lost time, and invites her to India. Soon Abby finds herself on the set of a Bollywood film, staying in a mansion, and getting to know both her father and paternal grandmother, all while having to disguise their true relationship to the press. Even the Bollywood echoes aren’t enough to get the story off the hook for its continued implausibility; it’s an exhausting venture, as is following the jerky, jumpy prose plaguing this novel. While funny at times, Abby’s voice is often forced and scattered, jarring the reader with conspicuous slang and confusing with plentiful near non sequiturs. There’s some fun in Abby’s first-class travel, budding romance, and dream-come-true scenario of one’s unknown parent turning out to be a celebrity, but getting there takes more work than such an escapist read can fairly expect, and readers will be better off with Krishnaswami’s The Grand Plan to Fix Everything (BCCB 9/11).