Book Review: For the Love of Laxmi

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, then you’re probably thinking about what a book review post is doing on here.  Well, I set my blog goals for 2022 and one of them was to present more South Asian brands and entrepreneurs on my page.  I want to be able to talk more about the amazing things that my South Asian community in America is doing- especially the lesser-known brands and entrepreneurs.  This also includes South Asian authors.

Speaking of authors, I wanted to do a small shoutout to the author of For the Love of Laxmi, Bijal Shah as well as the illustrator, Alexa Carter.  Bijal Shah was born in India and raised in the United States, like me, so I was super excited to collaborate with her on the review of her book.  Alexa Carter has been drawing since she was a little girl and has bought the character Laxmi to life!  The combination of these two has made For the Love of Laxmi the beautiful, illustrated book that it is.

Before I get too detailed about the amazing team behind this illustrated book, check out my book review below.

Brief Summary

For the Love of Laxmi is an illustrated book for adults.  Yes, you read that right- an illustrated book for adults.  Without giving too much away, the character of Laxmi is like every other Indian American girl (like myself)- who is dealing with fitting in both her Indian heritage and her American upbringing.  The book discusses Indian myths and superstitions that have been implied in girls for many generations.  I couldn’t relate to a page of a book more than I related to this book.  Both Bijal and Alexa did a great job of creating the character of Laxmi and helping her resonate with today’s youth culture amongst Indian Americans. 

My reaction

When Bijal’s team reached out to me about this book, I was intrigued when I read the summary.  Immediately, I knew I wanted to work with Bijal on this book launch.  It’s perfect not only for me but for many of the friends that I grew up with.  It also helps show my non-Indian American friends the struggle that people like me had to go through when growing up.  It’s not easy trying to find an identity between two cultures.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to love my Indian roots and American upbringing.  Similarly, the character of Laxmi learns to work with both her Indian roots and American upbringing.

Overall review

I’m not sure if you can tell from the rest of this blog post but I enjoyed the book.  I was impressed that it was an illustrated book for adults.  Although young kids won’t grasp the concept of the book- only teenagers might be able to, so the age range of the book makes sense.

I was also really impressed with how well Bijal’s writing went with the creation of Alexa’s art.  It all flowed so well and you can’t tell that there were two different types of talents behind the book.  The quality of the book is great too.  I like that it’s a hardcover with thick, good quality paper on the inside- Mascot Kids did a good job with publishing the book.

Overall, I highly recommend this book for both those that have South Asian roots and grew up in the United States or those who moved from India to the U.S and are raising kids here.  It creates an awareness and understanding for both of those groups of people. 

And that is the end of my first ever book review on this blog!  I hope you enjoyed the book review.  Would you be purchasing For the Love of Laxmi?  Let me know in the comments below!

Much Love,