Most of us can relate to the characters in former school-teacher Narinder Dhami's novel Bindi Babes. Just dig back into the past, back to about middle school when life was, well, about as awkward as it could get. That's when we may remember a George Botley, the class pest who torments girls with worms and other slimy things, Mr. Arora, the handsome and kind teacher most girls swoon over and Kim, the girl who gets to hang out with the cool girls -- there was always a gang of cool girls. At Coppergate Secondary School, it's the Dhillon sisters. But Geena, Amber and Jazz aren't just cool. They're "dead cool".
As Dhami puts it, "Our story's got something of everything, just like a Bollywood movie. It's got singing, dancing, action, romance, a baddie and three beautiful heroines."
Life is going along swimmingly for the three sisters. They've managed to convince everyone at school and their dad that they're okay after the death of their mother a year earlier. They are perfect students, polite to all they meet and taking care of themselves just fine. So, the girls are discombobulated when their dad announces out of the blue that their aunt, the one in India who didn't like their mum, is coming to live with them. The Bindi Babes don't need this kind of meddling in their lives and so, they plot to get rid of Auntie, permanently. All they need to do is find someone to marry her so she'll move out. One by one their plans backfire but in the process the girls learn that things aren't always what they seem to be, or as bad.
Dhami packs a lot into Bindi Babes, using humor and a writing style that works well for adult readers as well as the book's intended audience, juvenile readers. The language is not contrived to suit one or the other group, for example. And, although classified as immigrant fiction (or some such category), readers -- girls, mainly -- of any ethnic background can enjoy Bindi Babes. Tthe desi element is there, just as there are students of all backgrounds in school, but the immigrant aspect is not the be-all and end-all of the plot. The pace of the book is almost frenetic, moving from one drama to the next in the sisters' lives, (but isn't that what life is like at that age?). At the same time, Dhami skillfully addresses the grieving process the Dhillon family must go through before reaching that happy Bollywood ending.
The fun doesn't stop with Bindi Babes. Amber, Jazz and Geena's adventures continue in Bollywood Babes and Bhangra Babes. It almost makes one wish adolescence came around more than once in a lifetime. Almost.