Ayushi (bookwormbullet)'s Reviews > A Show for Two

Thank you so much to Inkyard Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I had really high hopes for A Show For Two after reading Counting Down With You last year, but overall I feel like Tashie Bhuiyan’s sophomore novel fell short of the bar I had set. While the premise of the novel sounded so interesting and had so much potential, I think it ultimately ended up being CDWY but in a different font. The novel also had so many plot arcs, characters, and themes clashing with one another that it was hard for me to connect to any of the romance.

Addressing this last comment, this book is clearly marketed as a romance, but I felt like the romance between Emmitt and Mina was barely the main focus of the book (for me). Instead, plot points like the film competition, Mina’s decision between NYU and USC, Emmitt’s passion for photography, Emmitt’s own conflicts with his mother, Mina’s depression, Mina’s struggle with relating to her heritage and faith, as well as Mina’s conflicts with her sister, her parents, her best friend, Rosie, and Emmitt, made me completely forget that this novel was about Mina falling in love with a celebrity going undercover at her high school.

Speaking of Emmitt, I was honestly just very confused by his character. He first came off as this condescending a$$hole who was incredibly rude to Mina while being super dark and mysterious. However, 0.2 seconds later, he became super flirty and cocky with Mina, and I was kinda shocked at how quick that jump was. He also just felt like a walking “hot British love interest” archetype without much depth? I feel like this was my issue with Ace in CDWY, as well. It just felt like the stuff that defined Emmitt boiled down to the fact that he wears rings, has three piercings, has a snake tattoo, and says “love” and “sweetheart” every five seconds.

Also, similar to CDWY, I felt like there was this grey area of consent throughout the novel. In CDWY, there are several moments where Ace invades Karina’s personal boundaries and touches her, plays with her hair, without asking if she’s okay with it (back when they barely know each other). The same thing happens in ASFT, but on both ends. There are instances at the beginning of the novel when Mina and Emmitt aren’t fully friends yet where Mina touches Emmitt and physically drags him around, and instances where Emmitt puts his fingers on Mina’s face and lips, touches her hair, grabs her hands, and more. I feel like this was supposed to be shown as cute and romantic, but it just made me uncomfortable thinking about a person who's practically a stranger doing that to me.

This book once again explores the theme of parental abuse, at a much higher degree than in CDWY. Prior to reading this book, I was hoping to see the MC of ASFT have a healthier relationship with her Bengali parents, and was disappointed to see that this wasn’t the case in ASFT. As much as I understand the authenticity of this type of parental abuse, as it comes from Tashie’s personal experiences, I’m honestly just very tired of seeing abusive relationships portrayed among South Asian parents in books and other media. As a reader, I primarily read books as a form of entertainment and escape and as a Bengali reader, I love South Asian books that depict Bengali joy. Thus, reading books that portray parental abuse becomes emotionally exhausting and makes it hard for me to even find the Bengali joy within the pages. In my opinion, there are other ways of depicting intergenerational conflict that are much more impactful than featuring parents being absolutely horrible to their children. There also wasn’t even any proper closure between Mina and her parents at the end of this novel. Obviously, intergenerational conflict can’t be 100% solved within a 300 page novel, but ending the novel without Mina’s parents not even attempting to see things from Mina’s side left a bad taste in my mouth.

Additionally, as much as I adored Karina’s relationship with her brother in CDWY, I lowkey despised Anam in this novel and how she blamed Mina and called her selfish for ditching her to pursue her dream in California. She was also so rude to her parents, omg. There were moments where my jaw dropped at the attitude she showed--if I said half of the things to my parents that Mina or Anam said to their parents in this book I would not be alive writing this review right now, LOL.

I think what I enjoyed most in this novel was Mina’s journey to figure out where she wanted to attend college and where she wanted to end up after graduating high school. Just like Mina, it was my dream to attend film school at USC for the longest time and my ultimate decision ended up being eerily similar to Mina’s. So it was really cool to see that arc play out!

Overall, if you enjoyed CDWY, you’ll most likely enjoy ASFT as well. I’m excited to see what stories Tashie writes next, and as always, I hope for her next novel to feature Bengali rep depicted in a positive manner.