The novel "Bend it like Beckham" is about an Indian girl, Jesminder Bhamra, who loves to play football. Jess' biggest dream in life is to become a professional football player some time and play like her hero David Beckham. But Jess' parents don't want their daughter to play football, but be a conventional, nice Indian girl and go to university to study law. When Jess meets Jules, who loves to play football, too, she joins the Hounslow Harries, a women football team. Now Jess has to decide, what is more important to her: To respect the traditions of her culture and do what her partens tell her to do or to play football and make her own dreams come true.
In my opinion, the story of this book is quite gripping and emotional, but also very realistic, so that it could be easy for the reader to identify with the main character. The single characters are all very individual and likable, e.g. Jess' old fashioned mother or her high-spirited and temperamental sister Pinky, so that one can say, they are round characters, i.e. one can feel with them. Moreover the book is written in an individual and humorous style and most of the time easy to read.
To the readers "Bend it like Beckham" conveys a very important and clear message: First of all, that women should be more confident and let football not just be a men's sport, but also a sport for women. And another positive message is that one should fight for his own dreams, like Jess did, even if it is a hard and long way to reach one's goal.
All in all I can say that I liked the book very much and would definitely recommend it to anyone, who is interested in a book that is about football, but also includes a love-story and describes in a humorous and lovable way the everday life of an Indian family and what problems there can be in our modern society for an Indian girl that wants to go her own way.