A review by chillcox15
New Waves by Kevin Nguyen

2.0

2.5 stars. Kevin Nguyen's New Waves is a novel that proliferates the landscape of new technology industries and start-ups, the kind that glom onto either coast and either die out within a year or get sucked into a larger company with billions of investor capital to spare. In doing so, New Waves attempts to examine and critique the way those spaces replicate, enforce, and magnify white male supremacy, even as they attempt to plead ignorance; I think that on this point Nguyen's novel ultimately fails because it is at war with itself. A major aspect of this is Nguyen's treatment of the character of Margo. Margo, our narrator Lucas's best friend and accomplice throughout the working world, is a headstrong Black programmer, and its hardly a spoiler to say that, very quickly in the narrative of the novel, Margo is killed rather unceremoniously. Now, I'm glad that Nguyen doesn't really try to instill a deeper meaning in Margo's death (she isn't murdered for stealing company secrets) and that arguably becomes one of the main themes of the book, but attempting to write a novel about the mistreatment of people of color in the tech world and killing off the main Black character in order to push some of those ideas forward is not really a great look. Beyond that, it really feels like Nguyen's development of Margo feels overly self-conscious, in that he can't escape anxieties over stereotyping her and as a result most characterization feels like deliberate engagement or refutation of stereotypes which, uh, does not a great character make. Finally, beyond even that, a lot of the points that Nguyen makes about racism and sexism in the tech world feel obvious: tech companies are unwilling to make products marketed to Black people! Tech companies treat white experience of the world as a default! White women who attempt to be woke can sometimes make situations worse! I felt like the novel's commentary on these issues only came alive when it drilled down into more uncomfortable terrain, such as when Lucas has an HR charge against him for something that he felt was relatively urbane. But even then, the novel has largely become an obelisk of self-loathing, which, even if Lucas isn't white, feels akin to some of the white male novelists who have come before.

Also, feels a liiiiittle weird to basically repurpose the end of the Social Network.