This is the perfect wedding! Anisha as the (reluctant) bridesmaid to her Aunty Bindi’s wedding, Bindi as the beautiful bride.
There is one missing thing! The groom has disappeared!
Anisha’s soon-to-be uncle has been kidnapped, and it is up to Anisha and her friend Milo to find the groom, and who captured him, before the wedding stops for good!!

Anisha is the main detective, the leader, the front-runner, the first in command! She is just your regular ten-year-old. She goes to school, plays with her best friend Milo, and spends time with her family.

Although Anisha is a detective, what she wants to do when she grows up is become an astronaut, and create a cure for meanness.

Anisha Mistry lives with her family in England. Most of the story takes place at her house and in the neighbourhood. In the book, the family shares lots of different traditions from India with Anisha; food, mehndi, traditional clothes, etc.
Even though Anisha lives in England, Indian culture is prominent in her everyday life. In the book, she shares some of her first encounters learning about her family's traditions, like when she said that in her younger years, she thought her mum’s Mehndi (Henna) was hand cream, as a result, she got the mehndi all over her hands and wiped it on her mum’s bedspread. Later her mum explained what Mehndi was.

Anisha is very smart. Some could say top-of-the-class!
She is one clever cookie, this means that at school, some kids take advantage of her and force her to do their homework.

Before we get anywhere into the mystery, we are introduced to a boy that is sensitive, calm and, stands up for animals. He helps his best friend with figuring out passwords, and how to deal with situations.
As we dive deeper into the mystery, you start to see more of Anisha’s best friend and sidekick, Milo Moon, helping to unfold the mystery. In this book, her other friends aren’t really mentioned, but she does have an arch-enemy from her school that you may need to keep an eye on.

Anisha is her Auntie’s bridesmaid at the wedding, but she isn’t too happy about this role at first and feels as if her auntie declared that she should be the bridesmaid. When Bindi gives Anisha the bridesmaid dress, she thought that her orange and gold lehenga looked ‘horrid’, but I thought it looked nice, seeing the illustrations in the book.

Anisha needs her auntie’s wedding to continue, and she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her soon-to-be uncle, Tony.
After hearing of the kidnapping, Anisha uses her smarts to get out of trouble and find clues to try and figure out what happened to Tony, and who snatched him.
As an inquisitive kid, Anisha uses her curiosity to search for answers and look for clues to get the right information.

Anisha: Accidental Detective is written through Anisha's perspective in first-person but also adds interjections to show how she feels about what is going on or her reflections on earlier years, it made me feel like I was reading my very own diary. This book also added surprises to almost every other chapter and you never know what to expect!

"It made me feel like I was reading my very own diary."

The author, Serena Patel, helped me understand different words that were used in the book; like Paaji, which means brother in Punjabi. She also adds personality to the story by showing us Anisha’s point of view, and a fact file about her on the first page, so you can get a bit of a summary of what you can expect from her in the rest of the book.

"She also adds personality to the story"

In this book, Serena referenced a lot of Indian food, traditions, and languages. For example, at the wedding, Anisha mentions the priest speaking Gujarati, Hindi, and Punjabi. Another example is when she talks about samosas and jalebi. (a type of sticky sweet snack served in circular or pretzel kind of shapes).

"At the wedding, Anisha mentions the priest speaking Gujarati, Hindi, and Punjabi."

At the end of the book, there's a quiz to discover which character you're most like!

This book made me feel excited to turn every page, so I rate it a 5 out of 5. The twists and turns of events in this book lead you down a path you never would expect. I also decided to rate this story a 5 because it had some witty moments from Granny Jas that made me laugh, too!
I love mysteries and books with suspense, they keep me wondering what happens next and it had the right amount of good humour, educational moments, and surprises to keep my eyes glued to the book.

The genre of this book is a children's mystery book because Anisha; accidental detective, dives into a kidnapping dilemma that has only a limited amount of time to solve, while piles and piles of drama are happening in the house.

The way that Anisha talked about her story while experiencing it, made it feel a little bit like a kid's version of a reality TV show. I also liked how you could see what was happening in the book on every other page, and to help me visualize was the amazing illustrator, Emma McCann.

Although they did almost ruin the wedding, I must say, I like how the culprits managed to act normal despite their plan slowly going downhill right in front of their faces. Their plan to sidetrack Anisha and Milo caused her to get into a lot of trouble!

The majority of the characters are Asian or of Asian heritage. The asterisks in this book helped me to understand traditions and different references in Indian culture.
Something that stood out to me is that there is an Asian female lead, and in children's mystery books it’s quite rare for me to read about a lead character like Anisha, so it was quite refreshing to see a female character with that heritage for the first time.

I think that the moral of the story is to try your best, no matter the sacrifice, even if it means putting your reputation on the line to save others. 

Overall, This book is amazing! I can’t wait to read the next one in this series!
Thank you so much for reading this review, let me know if you enjoyed it in the comments below.

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