Dating Dr. Dil | By Nisha Sharma
Book Review | Contemporary Romance
My thoughts
Narrative and Plot
I wanted to read Dating Dr. Dil when it first came out, but the mixed and often negative reviews made me back out. Now that I’m already invested in this world after reading Tastes Like Shakkar, I decided to give it a go. You do need a certain level of suspension of disbelief to go along with the story.
The plot didn’t have much going for it. It stayed stuck on the same conflict and kept circling back to it repeatedly, without much progression.
Characters and Conflicts
I understood Kareena and her motivations. In an Indian household, when a woman says she wants to marry for love, it can often be seen as impractical or even rebellious. The “be practical” and “just settle down” arguments are ones many women hear often.
Prem, on the other hand, doesn’t believe in love but rather in compatibility between a well-matched couple. That perspective made sense to me too. In a culture where arranged marriages are the norm, his logic had some grounding.
That said, the way his character arc was handled—being “fixed” after just one conversation with his mother—was possibly the cheesiest and most outlandish moment I’ve read in a desi romance. It felt like a quick fix for a deep-seated issue that could have been a trauma response. Prem needed counselling and a lot of healing, and the book just skipped over that entirely.
Kareena also had grief to process, but at least she had a support system—her aunties and friends—with whom she could talk things out. Sadly, Prem didn’t seem to have that.
Also, every time Prem mentioned “Charlie,” I cringed. There was no rhyme or reason for it, and it just made him come across as a bit of a cringe-worthy “fuckboy.”
On the plus side, the ensemble cast was entertaining, and it was fun to revisit familiar characters.
Conclusion
Overall, Dating Dr. Dil was a flawed desi romance, but still a quick and entertaining read.
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