LoveReading Says
Raw with struggle and the precariousness of life as an immigrant in need of a sponsor, a young person in need of financial security in uncertain, unfair times, Sarah Thankam Mathews’ All This Could Be Different is an intoxicating firecracker of a debut.
While her Indian parents were unfairly forced to return to their homeland, Sneha remains in the States, with the weight of their loving expectations on her shoulders, and past abuses weighing heavy in her heart. A new job has taken her to a new location, where she knows no one. After determining to have a whole lot of sex, Sneha forms group of friends – individuals with their own struggles, but the kind of folk who’ll pick you up, dust you down and support you until you’re back on your feet.
Defy tightrope-walking the intersection of the personal and political, All This Could Be Different presents an ode to friendship and lust, to queer love and community as a young woman transcends abuses of her past, and tackles cultural differences and the hardships of being an immigrant to forge a different kind of life. It’s also funny, stirring and alive with longing, and left me longing to read what Sarah Thankam Mathews writes next.
Joanne Owen
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All This Could Be Different Synopsis
'This is not a story about work or precarity. I am trying, late in the evening, to say something about love, which for many of us is not separable from the other shit.'
This is a novel about being young in the 21st century.
About being called a 'rockstar' by your boss because of your Excel skills.
About staying up too late buying furniture online, despite the threat of eviction hanging over you.
About feeling like all your choices are mortgaged to the parents that made your life possible.
About the excitement of moving to a new city: about gay bars, house parties and new romances.
About a group of friends - about Sneha, Tig and Thom - and how that can become a family.
About love and sex and hope.
About knowing that all this could be different.
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9781474624770 |
Publication date: |
4th August 2022 |
Author: |
Sarah Thankam Mathews |
Publisher: |
Weidenfeld & Nicolson an imprint of Orion Publishing Co |
Format: |
Hardback |
Pagination: |
320 pages |
Primary Genre |
Romance / Relationship Stories
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Other Genres: |
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Recommendations: |
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Sarah Thankam Mathews Press Reviews
All This Could Be Different is an extraordinary novel, spiny and delicate, scathingly funny and wildly moving. Sarah Thankam Mathews is a brilliant writer, one whose every ringing sentence holds both bite and heart. -- Lauren Groff, author of FATES AND FURIES
Sarah Thankam Mathews' prose is undeniable and hyper attuned to the terrible privacy of the mind. In All This Could Be Different, she captures the sneaky, unsayable parts of longing and writes sharply about the long shadow of family -- Raven Leilani, author of LUSTER
Some books are merely luminous-this one is iridescent: with joy and pain, isolation and communion, solemnity and irreverent humour. Even the title has twin meanings. All This Could Be Different is a sorrowing observation of our contemporary precarity, but 'All this could be different' is equally - and ultimately - a declaration, an electrifying act of resistance -- Susan Choi, author of TRUST EXERCISE
Battle cry and love song both, All This Could Be Different is an ode - tender, sexy, and smart - to coming of age in turbulent times. As Sneha navigates the hilarious and deadly serious work of being a good friend, lover, daughter, immigrant, adult, queer woman, and worker under late stage capitalism, what emerges is a portrait of a woman determined to live her life to its brim - no matter what. Sarah Thankam Mathews writes like a blaze, and this book will remind you what it is to be young and powerfully alive -- C Pam Zhang, author of HOW MUCH OF THESE HILLS IS GOLD
Sharply observed and deeply empathetic, All This Could Be Different is a gorgeous story of dreaming and daring against the odds. I loved these flawed, funny friends and I rooted for them, and as I raced toward the end I felt an ache in my chest, missing them already -- Dawnie Walton, author of THE FINAL REVIVAL OF OPAL & NEV
Sarah Thankam Mathews' All This Could Be Different is an exquisite debut. Mathews' is a completely original voice that is, by turns, fierce, witty, musical, poignant, and, yes, deeply sexy. Simultaneously a tender portrait of chosen family, a stunningly rendered queer romance, and a keen reflection on work in a monstrous economy, this novel also thrums with a persistent, private hope for another, better world. It is the kind of book one should read not only to be entertained or impressed, but also to feel less alone -- Sanjena Sathian, author of GOLD DIGGERS