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lindsayerin's review
challenging
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Deportation, Alcoholism, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, Incest, Pedophilia, and Sexual assault
Minor: Fatphobia
dixiecarroll's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
“I am fearless, I am quiet, and I wish to feel nothing” - summing up how I feel finishing. I loved it but I also didn’t love it. It was pure anxiety from start to finish (for me). Even though I cannot relate to this experience being that I am not a person of color or an immigrant, I related to the feelings of loneliness that come from being a single working adult. Anyway go read this but be prepared to feel sad
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Gaslighting
Minor: Deportation and Police brutality
billyjepma's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I had to read this in increments over several months, not because it wasn’t good or because I wasn’t invested, but because it rang with a truth too heavy for me to manage at the time. I will admit to not reading much fiction of this style—you all know that I live in weird genre stuff almost exclusively—so take this with a grain of salt if you want, but this is one of the most honest and truthful representations of what it feels like to be a twenty-something in America. All of the crushing anxieties over whether you’re political enough, angry at the right things, aware of your internalized prejudices, rebellious against the systems that you know will also keep you alive and happy, the quiet bitterness at how goddamn hard it all is—all of that is here in savage details that feel sharply unique yet fully relatable.
Even when the protagonist makes mistakes and acts like a shitty person, Matthew’s characterization ensures that we know it’s a side effect of a deeper issue (usually internalized racism, prejudice, or self-hatred redirected outward). Our world is messy, and the people in it are clumsy, and I appreciate it when a book lets its protagonist be messy and clumsy without defining her by those things.
The book is also rich with cultural specificities that reckon with realities I’ve never experienced or probably considered—the fears, hopes, and other turbulent, fragile emotions involved in trying to, or trying not to, assimilate into a society that might not want you. That Matthews does it with this much confidence and care feels like a massive feat. She wields emotion like a scalpel and a sledgehammer, sometimes simultaneously. It leads to a book that’s often ugly in how honest it is—which is why I had to pace my reading—but also deeply empathetic. There’s tremendous compassion in these pages, compassion that’s informed by harsh realities and supported by fragile hopes that, when carried communally, can become the precious things that keep us alive.
A wonderful book. I don’t think I’ll ever read it again, but it has left fingerprints on me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Cursing, and Classism
Moderate: Racism, Eating disorder, Alcohol, Police brutality, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Grief, Addiction, Deportation, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Drug abuse, Blood, and Vomit
danidamico's review
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
"The anger did not arise from what he was describing; it rose from an expectation for a much better life than the one he owned".
"I stared off into the low dark, thinking about how to shape a life's great turbulence into a story".
"How will we learn about the world if not from each other?".
"My family is a geode of silences. You would need a hammer to smash it open".
"Just as romantic love faded or fractured, so too could friendship end. But nobody consoles you after a rupture with a beloved friend. There are few movies ideal for watching while your tears salt pints of ice cream, no articles in women's magazines that you can skim at the hairdresser's. You have only the ache. No script to accompany it. No ritual to give it shape".
"How was anyone expected to dream loftily about the future when the present ground them down to powder and nothingness?".
"I stared off into the low dark, thinking about how to shape a life's great turbulence into a story".
"How will we learn about the world if not from each other?".
"My family is a geode of silences. You would need a hammer to smash it open".
"Just as romantic love faded or fractured, so too could friendship end. But nobody consoles you after a rupture with a beloved friend. There are few movies ideal for watching while your tears salt pints of ice cream, no articles in women's magazines that you can skim at the hairdresser's. You have only the ache. No script to accompany it. No ritual to give it shape".
"How was anyone expected to dream loftily about the future when the present ground them down to powder and nothingness?".
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Mental illness, Lesbophobia, Racism, Sexual assault, Deportation, and Grief
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Fatphobia, Police brutality, Transphobia, and Outing
cleo_reads's review
5.0
Wow, this is a remarkable debut and also a remarkable book. Also remarkably hopeful and generous for lit fic.
I found parts of it heavy, both because of all of the content warnings I put below and because it's such an emotionally accurate portrayal of being in your early 20s and wow, can that be hard to read about. But it's ultimately hopeful and uplifting.
Here's Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya's review, the review that convinced me to give it a try, even though I don't usually like lit fic - https://www.autostraddle.com/all-this-could-be-different-review/
A note for my fellow genre romance readers - this is absolutely not a genre romance - the MC does have a messy, on again, off again relationship but there's no hfn or hea and that felt like the absolutely right choice to me. This is a brilliantly written lit fic, coming of age story and that's what it should be read as.
I found parts of it heavy, both because of all of the content warnings I put below and because it's such an emotionally accurate portrayal of being in your early 20s and wow, can that be hard to read about. But it's ultimately hopeful and uplifting.
Here's Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya's review, the review that convinced me to give it a try, even though I don't usually like lit fic - https://www.autostraddle.com/all-this-could-be-different-review/
A note for my fellow genre romance readers - this is absolutely not a genre romance - the MC does have a messy, on again, off again relationship but there's no hfn or hea and that felt like the absolutely right choice to me. This is a brilliantly written lit fic, coming of age story and that's what it should be read as.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Deportation, Mental illness, Xenophobia, and Racism
Moderate: Homophobia, Child abuse, Police brutality, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Classism
Minor: Chronic illness and Transphobia
dhritigupta's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
this one is a complicated 4 stars:
i really loved the prose in this, it was beautiful but also easy to read! i also felt like i haven’t seen many of these types of stories where the main character was brown and queer, so that representation was special.
that being said, i think there were a few things that detracted points for me, the main one being the way the two Black characters were handled in the book. i feel like tig and their sister were both used to explore issues that the author wasn't really in the place to explore?? like when coming from an author who isn’t black, it comes off more like perpetuating stereotypes than anything else. also feel a bit weird abt the author using aave and Black slang in those character’s dialogues for the same reasons.
i’m also kind of the in the camp that “imperfect” characters don’t have to say problematic shit for no reason… like there’s some weird stuff sneha says or thinks that i guess makes sense for the time the story is set in, but also doesn’t really add anything to the plot or her development. so why!
i feel like the romance with a white character started as a bit of commentary on how brown people are obsessed with whiteness but then evolved into a very real thing that i was supposed to ship… i cant! are u asking me to forget all those weird micro aggressions? i did not like the love interest and it made me sad to see sneha going through it for a white girl who really really wasn’t worth the trouble
last qualm: the book did suchhh a good job sometimes with describing cultural stuff/indian daughter stuff/immigrant stuff that it made me so confused when some low hanging metaphor or simile about mangos and saris was made. it was a mixed bag in that regard
i still enjoyed the book a lot though, especially with its emphasis on the power of platonic love, exploration of the feeling of safety, unique setting and descriptions of queer brown womanhood. a nice slice of life bildungsroman that was entertaining but reflective the whole way through
i really loved the prose in this, it was beautiful but also easy to read! i also felt like i haven’t seen many of these types of stories where the main character was brown and queer, so that representation was special.
that being said, i think there were a few things that detracted points for me, the main one being the way the two Black characters were handled in the book. i feel like tig and their sister were both used to explore issues that the author wasn't really in the place to explore?? like when coming from an author who isn’t black, it comes off more like perpetuating stereotypes than anything else. also feel a bit weird abt the author using aave and Black slang in those character’s dialogues for the same reasons.
i’m also kind of the in the camp that “imperfect” characters don’t have to say problematic shit for no reason… like there’s some weird stuff sneha says or thinks that i guess makes sense for the time the story is set in, but also doesn’t really add anything to the plot or her development. so why!
i feel like the romance with a white character started as a bit of commentary on how brown people are obsessed with whiteness but then evolved into a very real thing that i was supposed to ship… i cant! are u asking me to forget all those weird micro aggressions? i did not like the love interest and it made me sad to see sneha going through it for a white girl who really really wasn’t worth the trouble
last qualm: the book did suchhh a good job sometimes with describing cultural stuff/indian daughter stuff/immigrant stuff that it made me so confused when some low hanging metaphor or simile about mangos and saris was made. it was a mixed bag in that regard
i still enjoyed the book a lot though, especially with its emphasis on the power of platonic love, exploration of the feeling of safety, unique setting and descriptions of queer brown womanhood. a nice slice of life bildungsroman that was entertaining but reflective the whole way through
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Deportation, Incest, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Addiction and Racism
Minor: Fatphobia, Transphobia, and Vomit
bluedilly's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, and Alcohol
Moderate: Transphobia, Addiction, Bullying, Deportation, Incest, Medical content, Pedophilia, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Police brutality, and Sexual content
Minor: Death, Fatphobia, and Racism
agustinayloslibros's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Police brutality
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Racism, Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Xenophobia, Addiction, Classism, and Alcoholism
Minor: Deportation, Drug abuse, Child abuse, and Pedophilia
sjstringer's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Sexual assault, Deportation, and Addiction
suzyreadsbooks's review
emotional
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
such a roller coaster!! impressive writing & I really enjoyed listening to it. It does a good job of exploring second chances and learning how to let people in.
Things escalated so much as it got to the end and I think it could've benefited from 100 more pages and some additional time for character growth.
I wanted the friendships to feel more solid than what we actually got. Tig was my favorite character and I felt annoyed by how they were just constantly put in the position of teaching Sneha, while Sneha made little digs made about Tig being Black, fat, and non-binary that just never really got corrected. I know this is a book about messy, imperfect people but there are times in the book when Sneha gives her perspective from the future and admits she was wrong, but never about Tig.
& I wanted to understand Marina's appeal but it never really clicked.
Things escalated so much as it got to the end and I think it could've benefited from 100 more pages and some additional time for character growth.
I wanted the friendships to feel more solid than what we actually got. Tig was my favorite character and I felt annoyed by how they were just constantly put in the position of teaching Sneha, while Sneha made little digs made about Tig being Black, fat, and non-binary that just never really got corrected. I know this is a book about messy, imperfect people but there are times in the book when Sneha gives her perspective from the future and admits she was wrong, but never about Tig.
& I wanted to understand Marina's appeal but it never really clicked.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Drug abuse
Moderate: Deportation and Racism
Minor: Fatphobia and Transphobia