-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Novel
by Sarah Thankam Mathews
From a brilliant new voice comes an electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself - a warm, dazzling, and profound saga of queer love, friendship, work, and precarity in twenty-first century America.
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, grueling 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.
A beautiful and capacious novel rendered in singular, unforgettable prose, All This Could Be Different is a wise, tender, and riveting group portrait of young people forging love and community amidst struggle, and a moving story of one immigrant's journey to make her home in the world.
"Mathews achieves what so often seems to be impossible: a deeply felt 'novel of ideas'...[She] somehow tackles the big abstractions—capitalism, gender, sexuality, Western individualism, etc.—while at the same time imbuing her characters with such real, flawed humanity that they seem ready to walk right off the page. Rarely is dialogue rendered so accurately...[B]eautifully written, lusciously felt, and marvelously envisioned. Resplendent with intelligence, wit, and feeling." - Kirkus (starred review)
"Sneha is a magnetic teller of her tale of finding love, growing up, and summoning the power to change—and choose—her life. Kindred to Brandon Taylor's stellar Real Life, this novel burrows deep." - Booklist (starred review)
"[P]oignant and illuminating...Mathews is most affecting when charting the wonders of community-building, delving into the strenuous work that goes into sustaining meaningful friendships as well as the heartbreak that ensues when connections are fractured by dishonesty. This thoughtful exploration of the legacies of trauma makes an impact." - Publishers Weekly
"This bold and wide-ranging novel sets its sights on what it really means to be 'okay'...[asking] questions that have consumed innumerable 20-somethings...Mathews expertly captures and elevates the position of being a young queer person in the post-recession U.S. with many more questions than answers." - Vogue
"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 Matrix
"Some books are merely luminous—this one is iridescent: with joy and pain, isolation and communion, solemnity and irreverent humor. 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
This information about All This Could Be Different was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sarah Thankam Mathews grew up between Oman and India, immigrating to the United States at seventeen. Her work has been published in Best American Short Stories and she is a recipient of fellowships from the Asian American Writers' Workshop and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 2020, she founded the mutual aid group Bed-Stuy Strong. All This Could Be Different is her first novel.
If you liked All This Could Be Different, try these:
by Michelle de Kretser
Published 2026
A new novel of startling intelligence from prizewinning Australian author Michelle de Kretser, following a writer looking back on her young adulthood and grappling with what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art.
by Miranda July
Published 2025
The New York Times bestselling author returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious and surprising novel about a woman upending her life
by Kate Walbert
Published 2019
From the highly acclaimed, bestselling National Book Award finalist and author of A Short History of Women, a searing and timely novel about a teenaged girl, a charismatic teacher, and a dark, open secret.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
