Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - All This Could Be Different

This was slightly disappointing to me. BookTok sold me quite a lot on this so I had high hopes and they weren’t necessarily met 🥲

In saying that though, there were some real tender moments where I truly felt for Sneha. She’s obviously brought so much trauma to the forefront

e.g. her father’s deportation, her inability to ‘come out’ to her parents, her uncle’s sexual abuse towards her

so it’s completely understandable that she does the things that she does. Also, I got quite frustrated at Marina and Thom throughout the story, when they dropped her whenever they felt it was convenient. Friendships, I have also found through personal experience, are so volatile that sometimes it can be hard to keep up 🫠

Someone said this was one to read when you felt a bit lost in your 20’s and it definitely fits that genre. I’m hopeful to read other things by Sarah Thankam Mathews that’ll work better for me though 🥰 Thank you!

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rachelmichelson's review

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challenging dark inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.75

This took me awhile, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

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lifewithjoce's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring slow-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

4.0

in search of a Tig to help me start a commune

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fatkidatheartreads's review against another edition

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dark

Loveable characters? No

2.0

This book rubbed me the wrong way.

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rachaelwho's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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

Pacing was off for me. It took me a long time to get invested, and even once I had, the first act felt so long that I was surprised to find more acts beyond it. But the author had a lot to say. It's not 5 stars bc it's perfect, but because there's nothing worth faulting it for, if that makes sense. A very caring, thoughtful book. Excellent voice acting from the narrator.

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lindsayerin's review

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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

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readswithcocktails's review against another edition

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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? It's complicated

3.75

This book is full of gorgeous prose, well developed characters, and powerful themes. Ultimately, though, it wasn't my cup of tea. I feel weird saying it's too literary, but I'm definitely a genre girl. I like my social commentary through futuristic scifi worlds and fantasy realms. I can see why a lot of people love it though. I appreciated this book and will definitely check out the author's next novel.

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billyjepma's review

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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.

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