Review: Enter Title Here by Rahul Kanakia
Title: Enter Title Here
Author: Rahul Kanakia
Pages: 352
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publish Date: August 2, 2016
Genre: Young Adult Realistic Fiction
Synopsis: I’m your protagonist—Reshma Kapoor—and if you have the free time to read this book, then you’re probably nothing like me.
Reshma is a college counselor’s dream. She’s the top-ranked senior at her ultra-competitive Silicon Valley high school, with a spotless academic record and a long roster of extracurriculars. But there are plenty of perfect students in the country, and if Reshma wants to get into Stanford, and into med school after that, she needs the hook to beat them all.
What's a habitual over-achiever to do? Land herself a literary agent, of course. Which is exactly what Reshma does after agent Linda Montrose spots an article she wrote for Huffington Post. Linda wants to represent Reshma, and, with her new agent's help scoring a book deal, Reshma knows she’ll finally have the key to Stanford.
But she’s convinced no one would want to read a novel about a study machine like her. To make herself a more relatable protagonist, she must start doing all the regular American girl stuff she normally ignores. For starters, she has to make a friend, then get a boyfriend. And she's already planned the perfect ending: after struggling for three hundred pages with her own perfectionism, Reshma will learn that meaningful relationships can be more important than success—a character arc librarians and critics alike will enjoy.
Of course, even with a mastermind like Reshma in charge, things can’t always go as planned. And when the valedictorian spot begins to slip from her grasp, she’ll have to decide just how far she’ll go for that satisfying ending. (Note: It’s pretty far.)
5 Reasons I Hated Enter Title Here
1. The main character Reshma is a an antihero, so naturally I hated her from page 1. She was a total b**ch to so many people, and I developed a strong hatred for her. I know she's not a real person, but if I ever met her in real life, I would punch her in the face. She was awful. The author did his job because he wanted to make her an antihero, and it was well developed, but that just didn't work for me. I don't want to read a book where I can't root for the main character.2. The whole concept of the "average American teenager." Yes, I am a teenager, and I became highly offended by Reshma wanting to be an "average American teenager" and what she thought it entailed. I'm pushing this back on the author because I don't think he really understands the teenage girls of today's day and age. Not all of us get drunk and go to parties and let the first guy who asks into our pants. I didn't think it was accurate, and I felt as if the author really didn't know what he was talking about.
3. I thought this book was about the struggles of getting into college based off of the synopsis I read, but no, the majority of the book involved around Reshma crossing off things from her stupid list and being an awful person to people. I feel like it strayed from it's intended purpose and I found it misleading. I didn't really connect with it as much as I thought I would have because it really doesn't focus on college.
4. Going off of my last point, there really wasn't a purpose for reading it. The ending was eh at best. I kind of feel as if I wasted a lot of time reading this book. I definitely didn't take away anything from it. It was just like okay, I'm done reading this, why did I want to read this?
5. I hated how everyone let Reshma boss them around. She bugged all of her teachers until they changed her grade, which irritated me so much. Also, if she doesn't get her way, she sues the people and gets her lawyer to step in. She literally cheated for most of high school, but she doesn't see anything wrong with it. She bought drugs off of this girl and started blackmailing her to be her friend. She walked all over everyone no matter their status. She didn't learn any lesson whatsoever and her parents mostly went along with it. It made me really mad.
The only good thing about this book is that it has a pretty cover, and it only took me a little over a day to read. I really didn't like this book, mostly because the main character wasn't for me. She was an awful human being and I couldn't stand her. She didn't grow as a person whatsoever, and I'm kind of mad that I wasted my time on this book. It had so much potential, but it fell flat.
If you like antiheroes, go ahead and read this book. If you don't, I'd stay far, far away from it. Run screaming in the opposite direction.
About the Author
Rahul Kanakia’s first book, a contemporary young adult novel called Enter Title Here, is coming out from Disney-Hyperion on August 2nd, 2016. Additionally, his stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Apex, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, The Indiana Review, and Nature. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and a B.A. in Economics from Stanford, and he used to work in the field of international development. Originally from Washington, D.C., Rahul now lives in Berkeley.
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