*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).
Jill and Carlo cover the latest on the negotiations over Biden's economic agenda, workers on strike across America, and Love, Hate, Ate...at the movies!
All the news you Need2Know for Friday, October 15, 2021.
What to Stream — or attend — this weekend with "No Time to Die," Netflix's Rita Moreno documentary, "Crawl," "Zodiac," and "Star Trek V."
With prices surging worldwide for heating oil, natural gas and other fuels, the U.S. government said Wednesday it expects households to see their heating bills jump as much as 54% compared to last winter.
Officials say at least 46 people were killed and another 41 injured after a fire broke out in a decades-old mixed commercial and residential building in the Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiunging.
Biden tries to get out in front of the supply-chain shortages as the cost of living keeps going up, Trump tells Republicans not to bother voting, terror in Norway and more.
A man armed with a bow and arrows killed several people and wounded others near the Norwegian capital of Oslo.
Why are so many Americans quitting their jobs? Jill and Carlo discuss, plus the coming Christmas supply chain disaster, and William Shatner gets his chance to go to space for real.
A coroner in Wyoming says slain cross-country traveler Gabby Petito died as a result of strangulation.
Colorado wildlife officials say an elusive elk that has been wandering the hills with a car tire around its neck for at least two years has finally been freed of the obstruction.
