Meena Dave, the main character in Namrata Patel’s novel The Candid Life of Meena Dave, is a photojournalist and traveler. Meena allows her photography to lead her in her journeys, and prefers to live without a home base, without roots, and with no long-term attachments. Meena lost her parents in a tragic accident when she was young, and has learned to keep people at a distance to safeguard her heart. Meena’s quest to never settle down in one place is knocked off course when she unexpectedly learns that she has inherited an co-op apartment in Boston. Even more surprising is that Meena does not know the mysterious woman who has bequeathed her the historic apartment.

While Meena moves into the apartment temporarily, in order to uncover the mystery of who has left her this apartment, she becomes entangled in the lives of the other occupants living in the apartment building. Her neighbors include three older aunties with no respect or interest in personal space, who insist that Meena maintain an open-door policy, allowing them access to her apartment whenever they want to drop by. In fairness, the aunties never visit empty-handed; they bring chai and introduce Meena to delicious Indian food. For independent, keep-people-at-arm’s-length Meena, the aunties’ intrusiveness is not welcome and there is some friction as they all learn to understand each other.

I loved this story, especially Meena overcoming her reluctance to let her guard down and opening up to learning about her culture from the aunties. I didn’t love some of Patel’s writing; some parts are overly-detailed and wordy and I did not really vibe with any of the characters, other than Meena’s handsome next-door-neighbor and his cute dog. But overall, it was a good read and I recommend it confidently, if not exuberantly.