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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, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Transphobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Abandonment, and Deportation
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: Addiction, Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Racism, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, and Classism
Minor: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Pedophilia, and Deportation
deedireads's review
emotional
reflective
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
4.5
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
All This Could Be Different is a very millennial novel (in a good way) that takes a lot of what works in many successful books today, mashes it, and adds to it to creates something that feels wholly fresh and original.
For you if: You like sad girl novels but want a protagonist who isn’t just another white woman.
FULL REVIEW:
All This Could Be Different is a smart, impressive debut, and I’m very glad that the National Book Award put it in my hands. Think sad girl literature, but but make it a queer, first-gen immigrant, South Asian protagonist. Mathews takes a lot of the things that modernly successful books do well and builds on them in a way that feels fresh and novel.
The story is about Sneha, a young woman who graduated college into the midst of the 2008 recession. Her parents have moved back to India and she’s found a contract job as a corporate consultant in Milwaukee. When she’s not working, she’s on dating apps or finding girls to take home in bars, but also looking for new friends to forge connections with. Eventually she meets a dancer named Marina and they hit it off. Things are good — until they’re not.
This is — and I mean this in the best way — a very millennial book. It’s a bildungsroman (early adulthood novel) that nails the entry-level corporate hustle, the way it asks you to tie your identity to your job while you try to figure out who you are outside it; trying to climb a ladder while exploring friendship and love and holding onto yourself even if you don’t always know who you are. I think all young women understand this struggle. But of course, Mathews brings so much more here with Sneha being a first-gen, non-citizen immigrant. I don’t have those experiences personally, but I’ve seen a lot of reviewers say they felt deeply seen.
I also loved that Mathews allows Sneha to be young and imperfect and immature and a little ugly — she has some sexist thoughts and transphobic moments that wouldn’t have been uncommon in 2008. We get to see her grow and change in a way that feels true to her age and experiences, and that feels sort of rare nowadays.
This was a good one. Give it a go!
TL;DR REVIEW:
All This Could Be Different is a very millennial novel (in a good way) that takes a lot of what works in many successful books today, mashes it, and adds to it to creates something that feels wholly fresh and original.
For you if: You like sad girl novels but want a protagonist who isn’t just another white woman.
FULL REVIEW:
All This Could Be Different is a smart, impressive debut, and I’m very glad that the National Book Award put it in my hands. Think sad girl literature, but but make it a queer, first-gen immigrant, South Asian protagonist. Mathews takes a lot of the things that modernly successful books do well and builds on them in a way that feels fresh and novel.
The story is about Sneha, a young woman who graduated college into the midst of the 2008 recession. Her parents have moved back to India and she’s found a contract job as a corporate consultant in Milwaukee. When she’s not working, she’s on dating apps or finding girls to take home in bars, but also looking for new friends to forge connections with. Eventually she meets a dancer named Marina and they hit it off. Things are good — until they’re not.
This is — and I mean this in the best way — a very millennial book. It’s a bildungsroman (early adulthood novel) that nails the entry-level corporate hustle, the way it asks you to tie your identity to your job while you try to figure out who you are outside it; trying to climb a ladder while exploring friendship and love and holding onto yourself even if you don’t always know who you are. I think all young women understand this struggle. But of course, Mathews brings so much more here with Sneha being a first-gen, non-citizen immigrant. I don’t have those experiences personally, but I’ve seen a lot of reviewers say they felt deeply seen.
I also loved that Mathews allows Sneha to be young and imperfect and immature and a little ugly — she has some sexist thoughts and transphobic moments that wouldn’t have been uncommon in 2008. We get to see her grow and change in a way that feels true to her age and experiences, and that feels sort of rare nowadays.
This was a good one. Give it a go!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
Moderate: Addiction and Transphobia
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: Addiction, Sexual assault, and Deportation
mckeelyshannon's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
One of my favorite lines from this book was “I did not know how to explain this stubborn love for my parents that I staggered under, iridescent and gigantic and veined with a terrible grief, grief for the ways their lives had been compost for my own.“
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, and Sexual assault
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: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Racism and Deportation
Minor: Fatphobia and Transphobia
jukietoss's review
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
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? It's complicated
5.0
What a gorgeous debut. The relationships have such texture, the emotions are so authentic. I can't (and don't want to) put it into a box--it's a new adult story of lessons hard-learned; it's a love story to friendship and finding a way to not be alone; it's an immigrant story of never quite feeling on the inside; it's an anti-capitalist story of the ways in which leaders have failed us and no one will save us but ourselves; it's a queer story of self-acceptance denied and developed; and so much more. In this way, this book really has it all--but to me, it pulled it off without feeling like it was overreaching and trying to do too much.
I was in love with every character and their nuanced relationships with one another. I was swept away by little things rarely done well in books--conflict faced and overcome, a feature of friendship without being central. There were so many sentences that were so gorgeous I was constantly stopped in my tracks to re-read them and let them soak into me.
If you want a simultaneously raw but hopeful look at a queer Indian woman's post-college life as she finds her way to deep friendship, forging a path her own and not that she's been fed by others--one that's not always easy to read but that feels so fundamentally true that I wanted to bear witness, pick this up. Throughout this book, I felt privileged to have this access to Sneha's life and that of her people; I'm grateful to know her story.
I was in love with every character and their nuanced relationships with one another. I was swept away by little things rarely done well in books--conflict faced and overcome, a feature of friendship without being central. There were so many sentences that were so gorgeous I was constantly stopped in my tracks to re-read them and let them soak into me.
If you want a simultaneously raw but hopeful look at a queer Indian woman's post-college life as she finds her way to deep friendship, forging a path her own and not that she's been fed by others--one that's not always easy to read but that feels so fundamentally true that I wanted to bear witness, pick this up. Throughout this book, I felt privileged to have this access to Sneha's life and that of her people; I'm grateful to know her story.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, and Sexual assault
Minor: Transphobia