All Those Tears We Can’t See

All Those Tears We Can't See by Gita Audhya is the story of a first generation Indian-American girl and how she figures out her life and finds out that she has love for both sides of her cultures. We follow Monica, who believes that she is American at heart, even though both her parents are Indian. Although she loves both her parents and respects their beliefs and their customs wholeheartedly, there is a cultural gap that seems to never fill.

However, when Monica falls in love with Brandon, a Christian and American, her mother disapproves of the relationship. Samantha believes that this will put an end to Bengali traditions in the life of her future generations. Her past is holding her back from embracing the future with her daughter. To understand her mother better, Monica takes a job opportunity to go to India and she tries to understand her mother’s perspective. When she reaches India, she falls in love with the country and its traditions and religion. However, tragedy befalls her and her whole family when she falls prey to rapists. What will happen now? Can she go back to America and share her new found love with her mother and Brandon? Will she even get the chance? Would Samantha realize that love between two people had no boundaries? Would she embrace and accept Brandon, who was Christian, as her own family by breaking her predefined set of value about race and religion, and finally choose the ultimate justice for her daughter who was raped?