Ellie Pillai is (Almost in Love)

This is a sequel to the Branford Boase award-winning Ellie Pillai is Brown. In this book, Ellie has finally convinced her strict Tamil parents that she should be allowed to study drama. Ellie is a talented singer/songwriter and is finally being allowed to acknowledge her talent. She has a boyfriend, Ash, and everything seems positive. Then, Ellie goes to New York with her family and meets a boy called Shawn and a love triangle begins between them.

The one flaw of this book is that the love triangle seems to dominate the whole narrative, when much deeper themes like child loss, parental illness, eating disorders and racism are also covered and could have been treated with a little more depth. However, Ellie is an endearing and multi-faceted character to whom many readers can relate.