This epistoloary novel is made up of letters from Twinkle to her favorite female directors like Ava Duv, Mira Nair, Nora Ephron etc. (they’re more diary entries than letters really) that immediately bring readers up to speed to who Twinkle Mehra is.

A junior in high school, Twinkle dreams of becoming a film-maker and despite her initial nervousness and apprehension, accepts the shy, geeky Sahil Roy’s offer to make a film for the school’s Midsummer Night Festival.

You see, Twinkle has always been a wallflower, shy and invisible but the chance to get into the director’s chair for real elevates her beyond her dreams. Not only is she doing what she loves, but she starts to believe she can finally become one of the “silk feathered hat’ people instead of a “groundling” (Gotta love those Shakespearean way of dividing the geeks and the populars). Maybe her best friend, Maddie who has been distancing herself from her will become as close as sisters again? Maybe her big crush, Neil Roy will finally notice her. She’ll be visible!

But that’s not all. She becomes convinced that this will be the solution to all her problems when Maddie gets cast as the lead thus necessitating more time together and Twinkle starts getting anonymous admirer emails from N. Surely, it must be Neil!

However, the more time she spends with Sahil in filming, getting props and just talking, Twinkle begins to fall for the “wrong” Roy twin. Totally off her script but Sahil’s sweet, compassionate nature and his love for movies makes it clear that maybe her plot for happily ever after is not as good as what is right in front of her.

I’ll admit at first, Twinkle seems a bit immature. She’s hyper, prone to flowery phrases and very oblivious to Sahil’s feelings and the true identity of her secret admirer that anyone can guess within three pages. But I think it’s understandable since she may be a junior, but she’s 16 because she skipped a couple of grades. So her overdramatic, hyper and angsty outbursts are just her growing up. Nonetheless, her quirky POV makes it very engaging.

Besides, she isn’t all quirks as Twinkle’s flaws begin to rear their ugly head. When Twinkle’s star begins to rise, she starts to let it go to her head. Her insecurity of being invisible and a loser is what begins to fuel her artistic endevours. She convinces herself that its her duty to use her film to expose people for who they truly are, that way no one will forget her or ignore her again. Her friends and Dadi warn her that she’s acting arrogant but she just feels they’re trying to break her esteem down back to its lowest point. Why won’t they let her bask in her talent?

While it felt like it came suddenly at the moment, I really liked the turn of events as it gives Twinkle an edge and a huge flaw that allows readers to see how her self-perception and her emotional hurt have shaped the way she’s currently behaving. Even though it’s wrong, you can understand why. Plus it’s a good message on how to deal with recognizing your own flaws and vengence and fixing your mistakes.

There’s also worthy commentary here about dealing with fizzling friendships and how resentment and black and white thinking can blind you to how a relationship can falter on both sides. Twinkle’s black and white thinking is part of why she keeps aspiring to be a “feather hat” person even though she knows her true friends are with the groundlings, they’re the ones she likes to hang out with. It’s why she still keeps new friends at a distance because their “feather hat”ness is a wedge in her mind that there’s still secretly awful thanks to wealth and privilege.

Additionally, Twinkle has family struggles too with finances compared to her peers. There’s also her slightly absent parents especially her mother whose depression over her nani’s death leaves them estranged. In fact, Twinkle feels her mom blames her for not being able to go back to India in time. It’s heartbreaking. But at least, there’s Twinkle’s dadi whose hippie-ish spiritualism and optimism bring some support to Twinkle’s dreams and a smile to my face.

Sahil feels a bit like Rishi as he is a sweet romantic who doesn’t stand for sexist comments and wants to support Twinkle in everything she does. He also has big issues with his brother, Neil. But Menon brings some variation as Sahil has been crushing on Twinkle for ages and has only found the courage to make a move by suggesting they work on a film together. As for his sibling rivalry with Neil. His twin is a golden boy in sports, academics, looks, you name it, Neil shines at it. So Sahil has always felt stuck in Neil’s shadow and invisible to everyone else leading to huge resentment issues. Like even Twinkle just bringing up Neil’s name sends a dark cloud to Sahil’s face, it’s that bad.

That’s why he likes film criticism and producing. He finds that he can excel at it. People come to him and rely on him to handle the production side and he starts to feel seen, he has found his niche.

I do wish there was a little more insight to how Sahil finally understood how his insecurity made him overreact. I mean he does realize it at the end and he understands it, I just feel like it would have been more fufilling to see it from his POV instead of just being relayed afterwards.

However, their romance is organic and sweet because they see each other beyond their low self-perceptions. They have so much in common in not wanting to be in someone else’s shadow, to be known on their own merits and that they finally found someone who is able to recognize their shine before they get their film success is incredibly heartwarming.

Yes, the secret admirer mystery throws a bit of wrench in their road to happiness as Twinkle struggles between her dream and her new love but it felt more like a minor obstacle as it is clear where her heart lies, there’s not much tension in Twinkle’s choice.

Even though film is what brings Twinkle and Sahil together and forms a big passion in their lives, it’s what they want to do for their future, I did not feel it. Twinkle says she wants to use her films to empower people who normally don’t see their stories onscreen, she wants to break the gender norms and the glass ceiling. How does their Dracula gender-bend do this exactly?

I mean Ghostbusters (2016) and Oceans 8 were fine, but they didn’t exactly bring new messages about women’s roles in patriarchial society. How was Draculess supposed to do this? Maybe by making Dracula a female it could speak to the demonization of women in literature and how powerful women are seen as monsterous and emasculating and must be destroyed even if they live in solitude because their presence and power is a threat to male-dominated society?

Why does Sahil like horror movies in particular? Is it because horror movies reflect the fears of society of “the other,” which is predominantly those who are marginalized and thus sheds light on how film is used to cement the status quo. Or in the case of Peele’s Get Out, highlight the true horrors in society that continuously targets POC?

As you can tell I have taken a film. Last year in fact and it was specifically about horror and sci-fi (it was not about musicals or other genres I was led to believe when I signed up) so a lot of the commentary is still in my head. But I know this commentary thanks to class. Others don’t and since it’s never shown in the book why Twinkle and Sahil’s film is supposed to break barriers, it falls flat to me. Dimple/Rishi’s passion for coding and comics respectively was palpable through the page. Here, it feels like film was the medium for Twinkle and Sahil to feel in control and to feel seen, not so much about the message it gifts others.

From there, the success of the film that others would be so taken with it also feels unbelievable. I can imagine they’d be taken by Twinkle’s artistry and her filming techniques (which there’s also little expansion on) but its underlying message no.

So while that plot point is muddled, the problems friendship, love and family that Twinkle deals with, is what carries it through. In fact, I couldn’t stop smiling at the ending. It was really sweet and worthwhile in those aspects.