Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Book Summary and Reviews of Gita Desai Is Not Here to Shut Up by Sonia Patel

Gita Desai Is Not Here to Shut Up by Sonia Patel

Gita Desai Is Not Here to Shut Up

by Sonia Patel

  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2024, 400 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

From Morris Award finalist Sonia Patel comes a sharply written YA about a girl grappling with a dark, painful secret from her past, perfect for fans of All My Rage and The Way I Used to Be.

It's eighteen-year-old Gita Desai's first year at Stanford, and the fact that she's here and not already married off by her traditional Gujarati parents is a miracle. She's determined to death-grip her good-girl, model student rep all the way to med school, which means no social life or standing out in any way. Should be easy: If there's one thing she's learned from her family, it's how to chup-re—to "shut up," fade into the background. But when childhood memories of her aunt's desertion and her then-uncle's best friend resurface, Gita ends up ditching the books night after night in favor of partying and hooking up with strangers. Still, nothing can stop the little voice growing louder and louder inside her that says something is wrong...And the only way she can burst forward is to stop shutting up about the past.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Patel, whose own experiences inform this story, infuses Gita's first-person narration with thoughtfulness and humor that make her growing confusion and self-loathing cut deeply. Thankfully, Gita's friends are there to support her when she finally finds her voice...A tough read that's worth the discomfort." —Kirkus Reviews

"This searing 1992-set novel by Patel explores the ways that prolonged abuse can shape behavior...While Gita's journey toward finding her own voice is plagued by male characters who—both intentionally and unconsciously—cause her physical and mental harm, bright spots in the form of her kindhearted older brother and supportive gay peer help to carry the burden." —Publishers Weekly

This information about Gita Desai Is Not Here to Shut Up was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Sonia Patel

Sonia Patel writes out of her experience as a first-generation Indian American born in New York and raised in Hawaii, an experience lushly and brilliantly explored in her debut novel, Rani Patel in Full Effect. Rani received four starred reviews and was a Morris Award finalist and a YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults and Kirkus Reviews' Best Teen Books selection. Her subsequent young adult novels, Jaya and Rasa: A Love Story and Bloody Seoul, both received the In the Margins Book Award. Her short story, "Nothing Feels No Pain," appears in the YA anthology Ab(solutely) Normal. As a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist trained at Stanford University and the University of Hawaii, Patel has spent over twenty years providing individ­ual and family psychotherapy to children, adolescents, and their families. She lives in Honolulu with her husband, and they have two adult children in college.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more YA literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Memory Library
by Kate Storey
Journey through the pages of this heartwarming novel, where hope, friendship and second chances are written in the margins.
Book Jacket
Let's Call Her Barbie
by Renée Rosen
She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold new novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen.
Book Jacket
Babylonia
by Costanza Casati
From the author of the bestselling Clytemnestra comes another intoxicating excursion into ancient history. When kings fall, queens rise.
Book Club Giveaway!
Win Help Wanted

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

From the best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. comes a funny, eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America.

Enter

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Secret History of the Rape Kit
    by Pagan Kennedy

    The story of the woman who kicked off a feminist revolution in forensics, and then vanished into obscurity.

  • Book Jacket

    Going Home
    by Tom Lamont

    Going Home is a sparkling, funny, bighearted story of family and what happens when three men take charge of a toddler following an unexpected loss.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Y C L a H T W but Y C M H D

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.