One might be tempted to look at the cover of “There’s Something About Mira” and think that Sonali Dev’s newest novel is a romcom. While there is plenty of romance in this very touching story that spans generations, states, continents, cultures, and social status, there are also quite a few situations that force readers to examine our own prejudices and misconceptions. Even in how we express ourselves, we often reveal our inner, often very unintentional microaggressions.

Mira, the titular main character, is a lovely young woman of Indian descent. By Indian standards (her parent’s standards), she isn’t really that young anymore. But she has (finally) gotten engaged to a perfectly wonderful man, Druv, and they are planning a huge Indian wedding. Four days. Multiple wedding dresses. The whole shebang. Her parents have worked hard for their success, and Mira didn’t grow up privileged like the other Indian kids her age in her Chicago suburb. Her conservative parents have instilled in Mira the “rules” that she must behave, must be perfect, must always be the good Indian girl so as not to embarrass them. Mira has always complied, except once when the results were disastrous.

But as much as Mira knows she is lucky to have Druv, she holds back. She is still living with her parents, and we learn that her twin brother lives in New York, and she hasn’t seen him or talked to him in a long time. There’s also a thinly veiled reference to something that happened to Mira in high school, and we know that she hasn’t shared anything really personal with Druv, including her very mixed feelings about her parents and her brother. She and Druv have planned their engagement-moon, a kind of engagement honeymoon, to New York. It’s a city Druv loves; he wants to show her his favorite places.

Mira, on the other hand, loves watching romantic movies. In her mind, she can’t wait to visit the Empire State Building where Deborah Kerr planned to meet Cary Grant in “An Affair to Remember,” and more recently where Meg Ryan decided to meet Tom Hanks in “Sleepless in Seattle.” There are many iconic New York sites which in Mira’s mind relate to films she’s seen and loved, and she wants to visit them all. But Druv has to cancel the trip because of work. He’s a doctor and his partner was injured, so Druv is needed in the practice. Mira doesn’t want to cancel the trip; it’s all paid for and nonrefundable, so when Druv suggests she go alone, she jumps at the opportunity.

There’s also the fact that she wants to see her brother, Rumi, and patch things up. She can’t imagine getting married without her twin brother there with her, but she has to convince him to come. We know that there has been a family estrangement, but we do not know what caused it. When Mira arrives in New York, we learn exactly why her brother is estranged from her parents.

We see there’s definitely some magic in the air as Mira walks along Times Square toward the Empire State Building. Dev’s writing perfectly demonstrates how Mira is feeling and at the same time showcases her love of movies as she muses, “In my head Cary Grant smiles knowingly at me as I hop onto the sidewalk over a manhole. Meg Ryan tendrils of hair dance around my face as I walk and walk, skipping to dodge the crowds. I can feel it getting closer. My eyes sparkle like Deborah Kerr’s when it comes into view. My gaze travels to the very top, where the ornate concrete rises in a steeple and crescendos into the iconic antenna. Christopher Reeve as Superman winks at me as he replants the antenna at the top of the tower.” It’s all magic to Mira. And then the real magic happens. She finds a ring.

The ring becomes Mira’s obsession. She feels that she found the ring so that she could find whoever lost it and reunite them with their possession. When it turns out that the ring is of Indian design, she is even more determined. And it’s that goal, to take the ring to its home, that drives the rest of the novel. There is beauty and there is incredible heartbreak as the journey to find the ring’s owner has Mira meeting people who are wonderful and people who represent the worst of closed-minded hateful horrors. Mira must come to terms with the results of her own indecision, her own inability to stand up for herself, as she decides what her future will look like. The many pieces of the story come together perfectly at the end, satisfying our desire for a happy-ever-after and also our desire for wrongs to be righted. Not all those wrongs are righted, but we’ll take what we get.

In this charming and brilliant novel, brimming with difficult truths, it’s as if Dev has created a magnificent smoothie out of ingredients that we wouldn’t have imagined could work together. Yet all of the ingredients, all of the situations, the couples and their troubles, blend together to make something more, something wonderful, something that we enjoy as much as it fortifies our soul.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.