Beauty and the Besharam

Overview

Lillie Vale's young adult romance follows Kavya Joshi, a teenager repeatedly labeled "besharam" — too ambitious, too outspoken, too much — by people who'd rather she shrink herself. After a humiliating public breakup on the last day of junior year, Kavya retreats to the one thing that reliably brings her joy: performing as a princess at kids' birthday parties.

Her plans for a quiet, uncomplicated summer collapse when she's cast as Ariel rather than her favored Belle, and discovers that her longtime rival, Ian Jun, has been hired as her Prince Eric. Years of friction between them escalate further when their exasperated friends intervene, proposing a summer-long series of head-to-head challenges meant to finally settle the rivalry once and for all.

What starts as another arena for Kavya and Ian to outdo each other gradually shifts shape. The competitive banter that once kept them at odds becomes harder to distinguish from flirtation, and the story traces how two people who have spent years defining themselves against each other begin to reconsider what that opposition was actually protecting.

Behind the Rivalry

Beneath its competition-and-crushes premise, the novel is interested in the cost of being seen as "too much," particularly for a young South Asian American woman navigating expectations about how she should speak, want, and take up space. Kavya's ambition and bluntness are framed by others as flaws to be managed rather than traits to be respected, and the book uses her rivalry with Ian as a lens for examining where that judgment comes from and why it stings.

The book also fits a durable YA tradition of rivals-to-lovers storytelling, using structured competition — here, a manufactured contest engineered by well-meaning friends — as a vehicle for characters to drop their guard incrementally rather than all at once. The theme-park-adjacent, costumed-princess setting adds a layer of performance and role-play that mirrors the personas both leads maintain around each other, offering a lighter, comic counterweight to the more pointed commentary on gendered double standards.

Why Beauty and the Besharam Has Been Challenged

Much of the scrutiny directed at this novel centers on its handling of teen romantic and physical relationships, including scenes depicting the emotional and physical escalation between Kavya and Ian as their rivalry turns into attraction. Some challengers have raised concerns that the book's romantic content is too explicit or too central to the plot for the intended teen audience, arguing that it normalizes behavior they consider inappropriate for younger readers.

Other objections stem from the novel's frank treatment of a messy breakup and the language its characters use when angry, embarrassed, or attracted, which some readers have found unsuitable for school library shelves. This title has been the subject of formal challenge or removal efforts in 1 state and 1 school district tracked in this catalog, reflecting a narrower but still notable pattern of concern compared to more frequently challenged titles.