Oct 1

Oct 1 All This Could Be Different

Author: Sarah Thankam Mathews
Publisher: Viking
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She's moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, gruelling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women--soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.

But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It's then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.

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!