Sarah Thankam MathewsCritiques

Oh, I don't know how to write this review.
I guess just: there's a lot good about it, and I have some weird ambivalences about it. Mostly my own periodic fatigue with first novel / bildungsroman / graduate in their first job and figuring out life narratives; and the disconcerting feeling of being pulled out of a story to recognize my own environment, realizing I know that place, that client, and maybe even one of these people, a passing reference to something so pivotal in my own life.

Three quarters misery, with a reversal of fortune in the end, and the gap between is too painful to make for an enjoyable read. After graduation, Sneha moves to Milwaukee for a seemingly well-paying and secure consulting job and is even able to bring in her dudebro Thom (who, hilariously, treats Sneha just like she's him), and she falls in love with a complicated woman. When everything goes sour, her devoted friends try and pull her through, but Sneha folds and allows her miserable landlord and cheating boss to shatter her life. Oh, and yeah, she's remains closeted to her unknowing family back in India. The plunge to the bottom includes some rough and exploitative sexual encounters, and her strongest advocate is a woman she isn't attracted to but who becomes her lifesaver to sanity. In the altogether, Sneha's fall is too long-lasting and her rise is given short shrift.½

For many good reasons, Sneha, struggled to find her way as a new college graduate in 2008. Matthews portrayed these challenges with humor and empathy. The characters were sympathetic although some did seem too good to be true. I liked how friendship was more important than romance. All of the characters grew over the course of the novel in ways I found believable.½

A twenty three year old lesbian immigrant woman struggles to succeed both financially and romantically in Milwaukee Wisconsin. She has friendships with many varied people including an employer who doesn't always pay her.. She finally finds Marianna who seems to be the woman of her dreams but things are always a struggle. She has a checkered family past and was abused by an uncle. All this leads to periods of aimlessness and lack of confidence. Mathews is a wonderful young writer and this is a marvelous first novel.

Heart-wrenching and empathetic. As she discovers them, you get a real feeling for S's character and values. A deep and unflinching look at love and learning to love while growing up and finding your feet in a nearly unforgiving world.

This is an interesting book. It was nominated for the National Book Award and ended up on a few other top novel lists. The lead character, Sneha, is a 22 year old first generation Indian immigrant. She is gay and has moved to Milwaukee in 2013 for her first post graduation job. She is working as a contract employee for a consultant on a project for a large company. She is living in an apartment paid for by the consultant but one with a management landlord from hell. The book deals with how she deals with navigating all the ups and downs of a young woman trying to make her way in the world of friends, lovers, parents, work etc. As an older white hetero male, I realized that the characters in the books are ones that I would never know but through a novel. The beauty of fiction. This book is well written with wonderful prose. The characters can be frustrating in their relationships and their actions but it does take me back to my own youthful adventures. The joy of a decent paycheck and meeting new friends and developing your way in the world. The book does dwell mainly on the LGBTQ community but also includes straight friends. Mathews tells everything through Sneha which puts a lot on the character. She has to deal with her own culture, especially her parents who are back in India and do not know about her being gay. This is very worthwhile book because it deals with a demographic that will continue to grow and will come into conflict with the existing white culture that they are trying to integrate into. I will look forward to future work from Mathews.

In a long line of books about angsty twenty-somethings trying to find themselves and figure out life, Sarah Thankam Mathews delivers one that steps out of the crowd with All This Could Be Different. Sneha has just moved to Milwaukee for her first job out of college and she wants all of the normal things — success at work, friends, and a girlfriend — but finds it all very difficult to navigate as she is burdened with family secrets and personal issues. Mathews separates herself from so many similar themed novels with interesting characters and sparkling prose that make them leap from the page with believability, and enough plot to keep things moving. All This Could Be Different is an excellent novel that explores themes of LGBTQ+, friendship, relationships, family, and racial justice.

A difficult book to read. A sad story. No one seems to succeed. Many horrible circumstances.

All This Could Be Different follows "S," a young Indian woman who is grappling with what it means to be young, a woman, a lesbian, and an immigrant in a society that often dismisses and takes advantage of people in those categories. She navigates romantic and platonic relationships and the way her childhood traumas block her ability to be fully present in those relationships. And I think that second part is where the book just lost me. It seems to have a lot to say about a lot of things, but so many of the situations seemed to be repetitions of a cycle where a character messes up, the other character forgives them....and then they mess up in pretty much the exact same way again. It didn't feel to me like most of the characters, S among them, really did much growing until the very very end of the book.