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  3. Tell Me How to Be: A beautifully moving story of family and first love
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Tell Me How to Be: A beautifully moving story of family and first love

Neel Patel

8 Reviews

Rated 0

Of specific Gay & Lesbian interest, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Adult & contemporary romance, Gay & Lesbian studies, Ethnic studies, Coping with drug & alcohol abuse

A darkly funny and stereotype-upending novel about an Indian-American family confronting the secrets that lie between them.

26-year-old Akash Amin has everything he ever wanted, but as he tries to kickstart his songwriting career and commit to his boyfriend, he is haunted by the painful memories of the first boy he ever loved. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash returns to Illinois, hoping to finally move on.

Renu Amin always seemed perfect: doting husband, beautiful house, healthy sons. But as the one-year anniversary of her husband's death approaches, Renu can't stop wondering if she chose the wrong life thirty-five years ago .

Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. When their pasts catch up to them, Renu and Akash must decide between the lives they left behind and the ones they've since created.

By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of '90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.

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Praise for Tell Me How to Be: A beautifully moving story of family and first love

  • Refreshing...Defiant...Consistently surprising - The New York Times Book Review

  • Neel Patel writes with the wisdom and compassion of an old soul - Celeste Ng, bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

  • Surprising, funny...Brave - NPR

  • Patel turns his lens on Indian-Americans, addressing with depth and care subjects that are often overlooked or made into caricature: helicopter parents, conflicts between spouses, sibling rivalry, racism, sexual orientation, and identity - Vanity Fair

  • Perfect - Guardian

  • At turns heartbreaking and uplifting...Neel Patel upends stereotypes, especially Indian-American masculinity. He's at his most remarkable when illuminating the experience of queer men making sense of their sexuality, and allowing themselves to hope for a happy ending with the men they love - Buzzfeed

  • Patel's deep sense of empathy - and infuriatingly relatable characters - shines throughout. A melancholic pleasure with a sense of humour - Kirkus

  • A wonderful read: necessary, aching, and alive - Library Journal

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