*By Samantha Errico*
Fashion designer Rachel Roy and daughter Ava Dash noticed that very few young adult novels featured Indian narratives. So they decided to write one themselves.
"We realized there have been so many retellings of Greek myths, so we decided that we wanted to be the first," Dash told Cheddar. "So we went through and found a story that really spoke to us."
"I asked her if she knew any Indian myths," Roy said of a telling interaction she had with her daughter, "and she said 'no, you haven't taught me any.'"
According to Roy, who is half-Indian, the book was also inspired by her father, who was born in Bangalore, India.
Eventually, the mother-daughter pair settled on "96 Words for Love," a story about young love and self-discovery. The coming-of-age myth follows a 17-year-old girl who "falls in love and forgets who she is," Dash said. The title, she added, refers to all 96 ways one can say the word "love" in Sanskrit.
Roy said that while she was developing the story, her then-teenage daughter was facing some of the same challenges as her fictional protagonist.
"What do I do next? Is it what my parents want me to do? Is it social media and what I see reflected in entertainment wants me to do?"
Above all, Roy said, she wants to empower her daughter to celebrate "what makes us beautiful both on the inside and on the outside."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/fashion-designer-rachel-roy-writes-young-adult-novel-with-daughter).
They say life is about the journey, not the destination — and how you get there makes all the difference. Americans shunned train stations, roadways, and airports amid the coronavirus pandemic, never realizing things could be fundamentally different when they return. In this episode, we're exploring the evolving world of transportation, from how we get around to how goods get to us.
There are a lot of Trump investigations, Peloton has too many bikes, and M&M's get a makeover. Here is all the news you need to know for Friday, January 21, 2022.
Cheddar recs "Ozark" Season 4, Part 1, "Archive 81," "The Last Duel," and "Booksmart."
The 19-year-old Belgian-British pilot Zara Rutherford has set a world record as the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose to the highest level in three months as the fast-spreading omicron variant disrupted the job market.
It's been one year since Biden took the helm, even 10 hours of talking couldn't get the voting rights bill passed, and log on for Sundance 2022. Here is all the news you Need2Know for Thursday, January 20, 2022.
Cardi B has offered to pay the burial costs for all 17 people killed in a fire in a New York City high-rise. New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday that the rapper had offered the financial relief for victims of the Bronx fire.
Crews are making railroad repair in Los Angeles after a train derailed near the location where thieves have been raiding cargo containers, leaving the tracks littered with empted boxes of packaged goods sent by retailers.
Good masks vs. bad masks, big banks pay better than ever, and Autopilot manslaughter charges. Here is all the news you Need2Know for Wednesday, January 19, 2022.
A Rome villa containing the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio is going back on a court-ordered auction block after no apparent winning bids were entered.
