Unprecedented Times

by Malavika Kannan

Malavika Kannan establishes herself as the literary voice of Gen Z in this piercing coming-of-age narrative

Which comes experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. Her narrative is set—she’s going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian-American childhood in Florida, embrace her queer identity, experiment with love, and write all about it. Within a few months, she gets a new tattoo, makes her first real best friend, falls in love with her un-labeled situationship, and even gets her heart broken. Rishi’s first semester Asian American Autofiction final practically writes itself.

What is not a part of Rishi’s plan, however, is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifying place, she finds more and more solace in the friendships she’s made. In lieu of virtual college, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective and grapple with America’s political situation and growing disillusionment…along with sexual tension and responsibility. It’s only when those relationships, too, start fracturing under the stress of careless decisions, unrequited crushes, jealousies, and, yes, the unprecedented times, that Rishi begins to question her own story.

Unprecedented Times captures the beauty, frustration, love, and pain that exists in relationships between best friends, between lovers, between mothers and daughters, and between storytellers and themselves. Malavika Kannan’s fresh, arresting novel captures the excitement and the terror of modern young adulthood through the eyes of an unforgettable, flawed, and lovable narrator.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Contemporary, LGBT, Literary Fiction, Adult, Adult Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

Expected publication August 18, 2026

Reviews

[cyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. This book was so amazing I am actually speechless. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into it but it had a pretty cover and the synopsis sounded interesting so i figured why not. I was not expecting to enjoy this book so much. I am often wary when reading books revolving around the pandemic because they never really capture what it felt like going through that time in a way that feels worth it. This book explored the pandemic and its effects on people without it seeming unnatural. The characters in this book were messy and real and relatable. Reading this made me forget I was reading it felt like watching an intimate home diary of someone’s life. I don’t even have the words to explain how much I loved this but I seriously recommend it.

[Malavika Kannan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hope you like it!

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5⭐️ thank you to Netgalley for the ARC. Frustrating. But it IS very funny to have your self insert character in your navel gaze-y autofiction novel state publicly that they are pro-navel gazing in the first 20 pages. That got a chuckle out of me.

This did not work for me as a meta-commentary on autofiction or as a COVID coming of age as the blurb suggests. While there are some interesting vignettes, they feel adrift in the rest of the low-plot stream-of-consciousness narrative in which our central character learns nothing and does not grow at all (except the final chapter, the strongest part of the book, which ends abruptly) These topics and experiences might be better synthesized in a collection of personal essays or short stories. Otherwise, this feels more akin to a self-indulgent glamorized diary than a work of literary fiction.

I say this with grace: Unprecedented Times, like most of Kannan’s other work I have read, feels unripe. This feels like an early draft rushed to publication in the immediate aftermath of her experiences, with no opportunity to gain the distance and perspective that this book desperately needs. That’s not to say it’s HORRIBLE, or that she is untalented, there’s good stuff here. I just wish I read it later in her career, when she was ready to kill her darlings. I wish she had an editor willing to tease the strengths out, because they ARE here. The marketing for her litfic debut (and for a lot of her other stuff) relies on “the unfiltered mind of Gen Z” element that misses the real value of her perspective, which does not derive from her youth. (If anything, the market is over saturated with Gen Z stream of consciousness opinion, it’s every corner of the internet, all the time. I say this as a zillennial) There are some interesting arguments and lyrical turns of phrase, but it’s bogged down in a lot of pithy, self-aggrandizing nothingness.

Does a story have to mean something? Does Rishi (and Kannan) have to find narrative meaning in her experiences for them to be worthwhile? It’s an underbaked thesis. If your argument is that it means nothing, surprise! It now has the meaning and purpose of declaring not all experiences have narrative meaning. Really, you need to have an editor who can call you out on shit like this. Is it worthwhile? Decide for yourself.

Again, all the love and light in my heart to this author, but if all the characters/plot points are from your real life with the serial numbers filed off AND you refuse to engage with the themes to pluck meaning from the experiences, why bother to write fiction at all? Why not a blogpost, a tweet, an essay, a memoir? If you don’t care to find a point to all of this after 352 pages, why the fuck should I?

TLDR: Best of luck to this ambitious young writer, but I’m uninterested in reading every ham-fisted first draft raced to publication that paves her way.

[Naima]

I’m just gonna be real I felt sooo cool reading an ARC of this book (thanks Netgalley!) while the author was the subject of the latest major niche queer internet discourse.

This book was a very true and real story about people who went to college in the year 2019. Everything cringey about it was unfortunately actually just accurate. Similar to another review I read on here, I did sort of wish the main character would go through more personal growth and self reflection than she did—but who’s to say that’s not realistic too? Yet another book that had more vibes than plot, but the drama and mess of it all kept me turning the pages.

[Lily ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

The problem with autofiction is that sometimes the author’s life isn’t nearly as interesting as they think it is.

Things I liked:

- Rishi being a burnt out youth climate activist. Really interesting and I wish we had more ruminations on this and how it affects her day to day life.

- Time spent on the farming co-op. I could only take so much of the run-of-the-mill Gen Z characters in run-of-the-mill Gen Z places like college or NYC. The setting had so much potential! (It did also make me wish I was just reading Alison Bechdel’s Spent, which is an actually interesting and well written autofiction about queers on a farm during the pandemic)

- Solid pacing. I liked the distinct acts and the writer’s ability to skip time without it being disorienting or seemingly unnecessary.

Things I didn’t:

-The characters. Jesus Christ, the characters. Maybe the problem is that I know these people way too well. I spent too much time in college surrounded by filthy rich kids with leftist politics and cliques and infighting. Just a personal issue for me I guess but I did not like spending time with any of them. I love an unlikable character, but it has too be purposeful and well done. This was not.

- Rishi’s voice and meme references. Jesus Christ the meme references. Maybe it would be better if I was less online and didn’t know that the quilt remarks were ripped off of twitter but unfortunately I did know this and I couldn’t help but cringe, like when someone makes a joke you read online three weeks ago and you just have to fake laugh. I understand that it’s time appropriate for the pandemic but was very frustrating for me to read.

- The way privilege is addressed in the story. It’s mentioned often (slay), comparing dynamics and characters mentioning, but doing nothing to offset, their privilege, both racial and economic. I love a story with evil rich characters, and I feel like if this was more well written/edited it could be a stronger commentary on how although these kids are aware and guilty of their privilege, they do nothing to help others. That’s real, that’s believable, but I worry that many readers will not understand this, as it was very muddled.



Anyways it’s the best cover art I’ve seen in a while. I also read that the author thinks you can just choose to be a lesbian and wahoo boy I could definitely tell from the book.

[Seairra Mortellaro]

Unfortunately, this book was not my cup of tea, mainly because of the writing style. It felt very unpolished and was hard to read at times. The humor was too millenial-ish for me personally, which doesn't really match up with the marketing material claiming that Kannan is "the literary voice of Gen-Z". I can't definitively speak to the quality of the book as a whole, as I did not finish it, and these issues are specific to my preferences rather than definite flaws. So if you don't mind a very casual writing style and millennial memes, you might like this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Kimmy]

dnf'ing at ~20% bc i lived this exact kind of insufferable gen z college experience and i don't feel the need to revisit it for 300+ pages. this is a great cultural document; i'll give it that.

[Kennedy Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible read! I flew through this and thoroughly enjoyed the formatting. Normally, I don’t love such long, seamless chunks of texts, but I think it worked well for this novel. This story was heartbreaking, and very relatable as a recent college graduate who’s also been on both sides of the friendship breakup. I think Rishi’s character arc and overall development was written really well. I’d give this 4.5 stars, but round it down to 4 simply because this is a surprisingly dark story that I don’t think I’ll read again, but still thoroughly enjoyed.

[Steve Oyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy!

Although I’m certainly not anywhere near this book’s target audience, there is something universal about the communicative property of the COVID pandemic that (now that enough time has passed) even allows a queer 20-something coming-of-age tale resonate with me.

Does the biographical nature of the story result in Rishi never fully understanding how destructive (disruptive?) she truly is? It seems so. Even in the end trouble is everyone else’s fault, bad times forced upon her by the evil of others. But maybe that’s the point. How many of us want to look full-on in the mirror at the effect we have on others?

[Sara]

As I first starting reading, I had doubts about this book. I didn’t find the first section about Rishi’s college experience terribly interesting. I think stories about college freshmen getting drunk and laid for the first time are kind of like dreams — only interesting to the person telling them. It also took a bit of time for me to get used the prose, which was a little too casual. I don’t necessarily like when a book sounds like how an author talks — I prefer the prose to be more literary. Some of the sentences felt like they were pulled directly from the author’s Twitter drafts. I also realized I have complicated feelings about auto fiction. I saw another review citing Toni Morrison, who apparently tell hers students NOT to write what you know, and I also see why she would give that advice. HOWEVER, as the book continued, I settled more into the style and the characters. I was surprised by how not-annoying I found a book about the pandemic to be, so I think that’s an impressive feat. The last third of the book was especially strong. Overall, I think this was a successful portrayal of a very specific type of online, Gen-Z leftist, and I liked her transformation over the course of the novel. I related to Rishi’s expansion of political consciousness, and the way she loved others fiercely in a way that wasn’t aways accepted well. I think Rishi's relationship with her mom was one of the strongest elements of the book, though I wish that had been a little bit more present in the latter half. Ultimately I would recommend it, but only to certain friends who I know wouldn’t find the characters too annoying.

[Kellie Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing cover and she wrote a shout out to the painter in the intro letter of the ARC which made me an instant fan of them both. I think the strongest part was the style, I loved the format especially with the dialogue. Tons of highlight-able lines, and this was the first time I’ve seen Gen Z depicted in a serious and literary way. Excited to read what she comes out with next!

[Rob Boylan]

DNF

Thank you to Henry Holt for the chance to read this early, but this book was not for me. That's fine. Not every book should be, or needs to be, for every reader (especially not old white guys -- however enlightened they like to think they are).

My feeling is that this book (her second, but first adult book) came too soon in life for this writer. I think back to my own writing in my twenties and my shoulders shrivel at the idea of anyone having read it, let alone having it published by a mainstream publisher. At not being able to get every last copy back. 

I also felt like her editor failed her a little bit? It's another thing I think back on, where I've felt like an editor could have protected me from myself. Yes, the writer has to write and you can't impede that, but is it not an abdication of duty to not advise, “hey, you already used ‘hearty’ on page 8, lets think of something besides ‘heartily’ for page 9”? Those are the little things they explicitly make red felt pens for. 

I really did have high hopes for this because the cover is absolutely incredible (the ARC did not have the artist or designer info filed out yet), but I just couldn't make it very far. It's a young person's book, and I've got clouds to argue with.

[AT · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should, by all accounts, be for me, a gay Indian-American woman who was studying the humanities at a prestigious university during the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic. This book is, tragically, not for me. My pedigree of demographics can assure you: my problem is not with the events that unfold through the eyes of Rishi, our narrator. My issue isn't the plot; it's the prose.

This is autofiction that's far too autofiction-y for my liking. Perhaps one of my problems is with the categorization of this book as "literary," an adjective that evokes refinement, when it reads like a recent college grad's diary. It feels like it was streamed right out of a 20-year-old brain and bottled at the source. This lack of artfulness could be interesting, and I'm not a hater of pithiness nor concision. But there's nothing in the way of thematic atmosphere surrounding these short, punchy sentences to make them interesting, so the onus falls on the diction. I just reread Garielle Lutz's masterful "The Sentence is a Lonely Place," and in reading this book, I found myself longing for beautiful sentences. For rhythm, for assonance. This is not just a problem with Unprecedented Times; this is the type of autofiction debut that publishers have been stacking up for years, and I'm fatigued. And maybe I'm especially affected because I can maintain a cool distance from the white Bushwick divas and the straight Chicago lit bros writing their own curt, stream-of-consciousness narratives. This, however, is the first time I'm feeling this way about a book about someone who looks and acts exactly like me.

More things I didn't care for: A lot of the humor just doesn't land for me. The millennial-ish "punchable white men" stuff, "This is fine" dog meme stuff. These are things I tolerate in real life but don't need in a piece of literary fiction, even if it is period-accurate. There are also puzzling portions which are neither clearly satire nor necessarily a reflection of the narrator's character flaws, after which her narration continues to move on at a breakneck pace. (I'm thinking about the choking paragraph (which is reprised during a very dark, serious moment, so surely it couldn't have been comedic?), the eating-disorder dialogue, the conversation with Larkin in front of the refrigerator, and the Boccaccio invocation.) I was also confused by the narrator repeatedly saying she's prettier than her love interests, describing them as unattractive. This is an odd statement to reiterate, but the book pushes us to take it at face value, and doesn't unpack it or use it to build up a flaw in Rishi (that she will never meaningfully confront within these pages).

Some things I liked: the epistolary segments and format changes, which felt especially useful in an internality-heavy book like this. The letters and emails used some quite lovely tonal shifts out of the narrator's mental register and into her correspondence register, which I thought was well executed. I enjoyed a lot of the family stuff and found the coming out scene and post-coming out fallout especially relatable. The characterization of the parents is very careful and precise. There are some nice observational moments that start building up once Rishi moves to New York — I liked the laundering of the thrifted sweaters and the anxiety of cooking for Kavya, for instance.

The final section of the book, after the assault, is by far the strongest. This portion has some thoughtful prose, well-constructed sentences, bits of musicality, and nicely-placed references to literary figures. This is the part of Unprecedented Times that had me wishing for more meat, more thematic bulk, more critical engagement — but then it just ended! On, may I say, a very confusingly meta promise that the narrator would take some time to process and think deeply about her life events before writing any more. I just wish this book had demonstrated more of that thinking process.

Thanks to Holt for the ARC!

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is for an ARC given out through Netgalley.

[Spoilers ahead]

I did not enjoy this book, and I really think that it was the sort of book I would enjoy based on how much I initially have in common with the protagonist. I also went to school for writing in the Bay Area in 2019, and am still living with how jarring it was to go through the pandemic while living someplace new and trying to connect with people while living through that distancing time.

But I quickly became annoyed with Rishi being so self centered. She goes through the entire book expecting people to read her mind and getting upset with anyone who doesn’t make her their entire focus. And even when people try to lovingly check her and have a conversation, she pushes them away as soon as they stop being the perfect person she needs them to be. And despite thinking about herself all the time since the main pov is in her head, I never saw any true self reflection of growth. I wanted to stop reading this book several times but stuck it through hoping there would be some growth at the end that would make all her struggles to connect worth the read, but I was disappointed. She is a user that feels like the world owes her everything she can grab and more, but gives very little back to the people who love her.

Rishi self indentifies as a lesbian very early in the novel, and maintains that as her label despite choosing to sleep almost exclusivly with men because they are “easier” to find and seduce. It allows her to have dissociative sex without having to develop the deeper relationships that she feels she would need to have with women. And that is a really interesting character trait and says a lot about her fear of emotional intimacy, but there never is really any deep reflection on that from her. I would have loved to see that dynamic of her explored more deeply but we only ever skim the surface.

On a craft level, I think that the decision to leave off quotation marks in dialogue was a poor one. It makes it come across as if this is meant to be some literary fiction style Bildungsroman, but the lack of growth in the main character and the relativly short period of her life that we visit just doesn’t live up to that. This is a fairly typical first time at college/away from an strict household story that leans hard on the Pandemic to give itself more weight, but also can’t resist dated references to memes to inject a bit of comedy.

I think that SA scene was very well written, and showed a different type of disassociation from Rishi’s consensual encounters that was very well down and heartbreaking. But also as the narrative was leading there I was rolling my eyes because it was so close to the end of the book I knew there wouldn’t be any satisfactory reflection or long term impact on her character that we would get to explore. If it had happened earlier it would have been interesting to see how that affected her promiscuity. Would she have become sex adverse? Or thrown herself into even more dangerous sexual situations to reclaim control? Though she has sex one more time after that with her female roommate, it is just a continuation of their already established and toxic dynamic.
Sorry for any details I might have missed, I read this over a month ago and wanted to wait until I had cooled down a bit before actually reviewing it.

[marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahhh honestly, where do I even begin? I am so conflicted with how I feel about this book- truly a bit of a love/hate.

I’ll start off with this, the writing throughout, was so good. Poetic and entertaining without being self-important. I was open minded and ready to see where the story and the character would take me. Rishi is so unlikeable to me. I could not stand her for most of the book. It rubbed me the wrong way how obsessed she was with the white people in her life and how highly she regarded them as if they were so wise and other-worldly beautiful. The white characters to me seemed flat and kind of annoying to be honest. So for most of the book I was dreading seeing what decisions Rishi was going to make.

Towards the last parts of the book, something shifted and I really felt myself feeling sorry for Rishi and kind of understanding her in a way. I hated her so much in the beginning and then was like… **wait… is this me? Is this how I am? I hope not :(** I really felt for her because even though she made some yikes decisions, there are worse things that people do. She feels so deeply that it made her a bit crazy and I get that. Her relationship with her mom broke my heart.

I didn’t enjoy reading about COVID, but maybe that’s my own thing having my last year of college affected by it. I just don’t like reading about COVID. This book though, even though I have a hard time reading unlikeable main characters, I can see this being a really good read for women in college.

**Spoilers**
I HATE Georgia. I was tired of hearing about her all the time and how she reacted towards the end was messed up and made me feel vindicated for never liking her. It’s so messed up that her and Clara hard cut-off Rishi and never told her how they felt until it was too late for Rishi to do anything about it. And Kavya’s rejection towards the end made me feel even more bad for Rishi. Do I think it was the right thing to do? Absolutely. But I still felt so bad for her. The book also had this really meta auto-fiction thing going on so it made me also feel for the author and just wish for her less painful experiences going forward.

[Michelle Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Netgalley ARC*

Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. for the opportunity to read and review Unprecedented Times by Malavika Kannan ahead of its 8-18-26 release!

Synopsis:
This is a Gen Z coming of age story told by Rishi, a first generation teenager in the Asian American diaspora community who is starting her first year at Stanford. As a former child climate activist and a gay child of immigrants, her story is full of the jaded, anxious, but inherently inclusive rhetoric that defines a large part of this generation of Americans. A significant aspect of the story, in addition to her peer relationships, is the relationship of Rishi with her mother and their culture, as well as Rishi's adult mentors. It starts with the chaotic and energetic early days of college - new friends and situationships galore - but quickly spirals when COVID descends on the world.

Thoughts:
I immediately liked the snarky and sarcastic tone of the narrative. The author manages to capture the tumultuous emotions of this age and experience with a raw transparency that lends to the genuine feel of the language. It was sometimes cringy, other times nostalgic, and often transported me back to my early college days.

It was well written but filled with heavy navel gazing, at times reading more like the pontification of an autobiography rather than a fictional narrative (solidly in the "autofiction" category). The story tended to be a bit on the nose but that was perhaps by design. The interactions between the characters were really well done. It read like a slow unraveling.

It was equal parts interesting to read of the college experience with the pandemic and uninteresting because I still have PTSD from my own experience and I don't think I'm quite ready to read about it for leisure! A good debut novel, not exactly my cup of tea which might be age related or just genre related (shrugs) but I look forward to seeing what she produces as she matures as a writer.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Thank you to the publisher for my free copy*
I really enjoyed how Unprecedented Times was written: the author has a great way with words, though I will say it takes a minute to get used to the flow. It definitely needs clearer chapter breaks and better “who is saying what” cues. The mother-daughter dynamic hit me the hardest. That constant cycle of fighting, making up, and the thin line between love and hate felt so relatable. There is an interesting tension where the daughter is clearly grateful, but you can feel how the parents almost take their own immigration journey for granted. Living through the COVID pandemic myself made seeing this perspective even more interesting. I like to read about how others experienced similar things I went through, even if it’s not exactly the same. I loved the touch of the handwritten letters Rishi writes around this time - it honestly made me want to start writing to people again! I feel more connected to people in a way through writing. This book also captures specific music and catch-phrases that are more commonly heard today like, “f*ck around and find out,” or quoting M.I.A.’s Paper Planes. There’s a lot of growth toward the end, especially with Rishi’s change of scenery. Her grief over losing a friend was gut-wrenching. You can feel her heart breaking and how much she regretted her mistakes. I really felt for her in those moments of feeling unloved or unwanted. I also saw a lot of myself in Kavya, too. I tend to be the aggressive “fixer” who leans into being brutally honest, but this book reminded me that sometimes people just need me to be gentle.
Also, a few side notes: The name-sharing with a chicken is a first for me, and can we talk about 38 being called “old and gray”?! Please stop it right now. Lol. Bottom line: It’s a raw look at life through a young person’s perspective, while touching on trauma, grief, and friendships. In the end, family is who shows up for you in these Unprecedented Times.

[Ananyaa Ravi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unprecedented Times was genuinely interesting to me as a look into the interior minds of ivy league Gen Zers who have had to navigate a world that changed faster than anyone could prepare them for. Yes, it is squarely an autofiction bildungsroman making it more prone than usual to navel gazing, but I still raced through the story, and feel that M.K captured the textures of a young college experience really well. Rishi is not always likable - smart but ultimately too invested in performing coolness through thoughtless, provocative choices to be someone truly interesting. In this I saw some of Lena Dunham's Hannah, a similarly polarizing character. I did not find her to be unrealistically portrayed however, Rishi and her friends are people many of us will know.

The standout for me was the strained mother-daughter relationship and the tumultuous, fraught friendship between Georgia & Rishi. Who has not had a friendship crash and burn in college? Or more precisely, which gay woman hasn't?! I also have seen so often 2nd-gen immigrants write off or stereotype 1st gen ones and WHAT A RELIEF that there is a strong, Indian lesbian in this book who has her issues but is also not a caricature. And what a delight to see the real friction in these cross-continental, mirror-culture friendships verbalized. There is so much bad Indian-American representation that to see an honest one feels like a breath of relief. For that alone I rated it 4 stars. And yes, there's also some half-baked thoughts in the book that don't quite cohere. Better editing could have made this a tighter book, and elevated it from YA autofiction to "literary fiction" - but perhaps that is not what the author or publisher are after. For me, this is a book that will make some girls feel seen and then cause them to cringe at themselves, which is one of the worthwhile feelings to go after as a reader.

Also the cover!! Incredible - Shyama Golden is that you?!

[Luca Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read and review an advanced copy of this book!

Malavika Kannan’s Unprecedented Times follows Rishi, a burned-out teenage climate activist who arrives at Stanford determined to learn who she is as a writer, an independent adult, and a member of the queer community. She aims to reinvent herself as someone finally living a fully independent life without the burden of being an activist influencer. She gets her first situationship! She has her first heartbreak! She finds herself pulled into an intense friend group whose overlapping ambitions, insecurities, and desires become even more volatile when the COVID pandemic disrupts everything and binds them together, working with a farming collective.

I most liked this book in the moments where Rishi and her mom's relationship was highlighted (I am always here to think about inter-generational relationships, especially when they span different cultures) and also when it captured the heightened emotional atmosphere of early adulthood. When we are young, every conversation about politics, art, identity, or love carries enormous personal stakes! I remember those days :) Kannan is particularly good at depicting the earnestness of young people trying to figure out how to live authentically in a chaotic world.

At times the novel’s dialogue was both a bit hard to follow (no quotation marks) and made the characters feel more like vessels for ideas than fully differentiated people. The pacing also sometimes stalled during these conversations, especially in the middle sections.

All that said, Unprecedented Times offers a thoughtful portrait of a generation shaped by activism, the pandemic, and the uneasy realization that adulthood rarely unfolds according to the narratives we imagine for ourselves.

[Ryan Brandenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s an increasing number of books currently being published right now that shed light on the COVID-19 pandemic. I find many of their storylines intriguing, as it’s fascinating to revisit that era and gain insights into the experiences of others during that challenging time.

This book is titled “Unprecedented Times,” which was a phrase coined during the pandemic and is now commonly used to describe this period — and it was perfectly titled for this novel that tells Rishi’s story.

At the start of the pandemic, I, like everyone else, was glued to the news following everyone’s reactions to what was going on. Little was covered about college students having to uproot from this period in their lives, often having to move back home, give up their freedom, and spare themselves from all the fun they were having.

That’s precisely what this story is about. Rishi and her new friends are enjoying their freshman year at Stanford University, experimenting and becoming so-called “adults” when COVID strikes. What unfolds is a beautifully told coming of age story of what happens when their lives suddenly stop for a unique reason that’s never really happened before.

I found Rishi’s storyline and the captivating cast of characters she interacts with to be incredibly engaging throughout the entire book.

Author Malavika Kannan has crafted a really unique storyline that will attract fans of Sally Rooney and Clare Daverly, two authors who are top-notch authors in my view. Her writing is stunning in this character-driven novel that shines a light on the immigrant experience and sexuality that’s unlike anything I’ve read before.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Henry Holt and Co., for providing me with an advanced copy of this upcoming novel, which will be released on August 18, 2026.

[Vangeli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unprecedented times is an authentic, hilarious, and heartbreaking novel capturing the inside thoughts of a queer college freshman. One of the things that I loved most was its honesty. Kannan was not precious with her protagonist Rishi and did not shy from the good, bad and ugly. In a generation of social media (where the art of nuance has pretty much been obliterated) it is refreshing to read the perspective of such a multi faceted protagonist who may not act the most rationally but whose actions are still justified and motivated. Rishi is such a breath of fresh air. Kannan explores the morality of auto fiction in her novel from multiple angles and proposes the question of what writers "should" write about. Though some have argued that a lens of auto fiction lens can be entitled, I felt it brought a 3 dimensional honesty to the novel that worked incredibly well.

Kannans humor was quick, clever and oftentimes shocking. There were many moments where you would be unsure whether to laugh or cry, which is such a nod to the multi faceted and chaotic perspective of our beloved protagonist. The novel was formatted in a way that felt seamless, as we navigate through thoughts, dialogue and even letters. Typically I prefer shorter chapters in books but the long chapters being divided by seasons served this novel well. From start to finish the text is engaging and never drags.

Unprecedented Times is such a special read. It is a book of reflection for post grads, and also a love note to queer college students. Malavika Kannan is the voice of a generation and has clearly put her entire heart and soul into this book. It is gripping, fun, heartfelt, and thought provoking. To this day this novel still weighs on my heart. I am excited to see it soar.

[asil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unprecedented times? A phrase that can only mean one thing: COVID-19. A phrase I truly grew to hate, if I’m being honest. And yet… here I am hugging a book wrapped entirely around it.

Unprecedented Times is written almost in diary-entry form, which I know will drive some readers a little nuts. I loved it. It felt intimate and unfiltered, like peeking directly into someone’s brain at 2 a.m. The honesty in these pages is what makes it work. Nothing feels polished for approval. It’s raw, messy, and deeply human.

Malavika writes about friendships shifting, relationships cracking, and the quiet heartbreaks that happened behind closed doors during lockdown. That strange pause in the world forced so many of us to confront ourselves, who we loved, who we lost, who we were becoming. I personally hold a complicated tenderness toward that period for what it changed in me, and I think that’s why this book landed so hard. It mirrors that unraveling and rebuilding.

A powerful thread throughout the novel is the experience of being queer and not white. I am neither, yet I felt that Malavika handled these perspectives with vulnerability and clarity, inviting readers into experiences that may not be their own without ever softening their truth. She writes naked human thoughts, the spirals, the doubts, the longing, and somehow makes them feel both specific and universal.

This won’t be for readers looking for a tightly plotted pandemic drama. It’s quieter than that. More internal. But if you want something reflective, emotionally honest, and deeply rooted in what that time felt like, this one stays with you.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I want to write a story, and I want it to be good. I come from two long lineages of yarn-spinners and gossipmongers, by which I'm referring to queers and Indian aunties. There is a lot to live up to.

I'm always weak for a good campus novel and this was no exception, though only the first part of the book truly fits that description. Rishi is our funny and spiky and messy narrator, busy navigating her first year of college, (unexpectedly complicated/intense) queer friendships and situationships, her identity as a writer, and conflicts with her parents when COVID strikes and turns her life even more on its head.

While Unprecedented Times has its faults — a slightly slow middle, drama and conflict that sometimes felt forced, an abruptness and lack of closure in the ending, perhaps some self-indulgence in the autofiction — I found it compulsively readable and really wanted to know what would happen to Rishi and her friends. I *still* want to know, given how so many things were left unresolved/open-ended, but I suppose that is true-to-life.

Where this book shines is in its exploration of how Rishi loves (and how this is perceived by both her and others); the challenging and often painful relationships that result with her mother, friends, and lovers; and the heartbreak of loss/change as the people and experiences you think are yours forever fade, disappear, metamorphose into something unrecognizable. You live, you learn — don't make me quote the entire Alanis Morissette song, but it does capture the heart of Rishi's story quite nicely.

[Alyssa Radigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

The writing style is very reminiscent of Livejournal or Xanga entries, which I did not mind (yes I am "old" for a Gen Z coming of age story.) There will be people who will be put off by the almost stream-of-consciousness style.I enjoyed the latter half of this read, and raced through it hoping to get a more satisfying conclusion with her mother. It wasn't there, but I definitely think this author will probably write that story in a decade when she is my age.

The pros: it definitely captures those early 20s relationships where you fuck everything up because neither one of you is fully mature and confident in yourself, and then get pretty irrational about it after. It also accurately portrayed a lot of the existential flailing of the pandemic as people's plans fell apart.

The cons: I don't think this author has enough space between the events of this book and the current day. There really isn't a lot of reflection on Rishi's shortcomings as a person. When her romantic relationships implode, the criticisms leveled against Rishi don't match the events we just read. Given time, I think the author will be able to more accurately capture her role in things instead of feeling blindsided by them.

I think when this author is approaching 40 she will be able to write a more honest and reflective version of this story

[CJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC

3.75
Alright so this was an interesting read. I think that if I had not committed to finishing this novel, I would have dropped it at around 50 pages in, which for a 300 pg novel is significant, but overall I'm glad I didn't.

Our Main character, Rishika, is a bit of an unreliable narrator. She is a former child climate change activist, and her disillusionment of the world shapes every interaction she has with the people and environment around her, to the point of being overwhelming.

The novel starts with her leaving for college, determined to make a new start for herself and create distance from her family and her past. She wants to live in the world of a great novel she is destined to write. This is what I initially struggled with- its teenage Rishi's first time leaving home and she is incredibly reliant on the people around her for mental support, while simultaneously treating them like characters in a novel she was meant to live. She is irrational, sometimes arrogant, and at times unlikable. As the novel progresses though, and the people around Rishi start to distance themselves and speak to her about her harmful behavior, I began to have a better appreciation for her character.

This is a very unique novel, and one of the first I've read that spoke about the effects of the COVID pandemic on college students (like me) and although at times it felt a bit fantastical (I'm sure taking a gap year and living on a farm was not the average student's response) it still felt like an uncommon acknowledgment of the collective loss of time and experiences.

[Iliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for providing a copy of this book.

This is such a painful reflection of the early pandemic era. It is so honest and worthwhile but you have to be a little chronically online and able to stomach an insufferable Gen Z protagonist. Rishi is self-centered and entitled but in a very “nineteen-year-old who was always told she was going to save the world” kind of way. Not only has she failed into such a cliche existence, she’s also been let down by the world’s apathy and is burned out of caring by age 18. Her narration can be so infuriating at times, she can’t take criticism, and she lacks self-awareness, often assuming her effect on others rather than taking the time to know them as their own people. I know so many people like this, and it’s also uncomfortable seeing myself in these aspects as well. The supporting characters are much more palatable and fun, they are almost fully realized individuals but in the end they all exist to revolve around Rishi (which I take to be a comment on her self-centeredness rather than a flaw of the writing). That said, if you can stand Rishi, she’ll take you on what coming-of-age journey looks like in a changed world.

The ending feels bleak, because, well, that’s the moment we’re in. We’re clinging on to desperate hope that things will get better as they get worse.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am typically hesitant to pick up a book that takes place during the pandemic, but Unprecedented Times caught my attention. I am so happy that it did. It reads as a stream of consciousness, putting the reader inside of Rishi’s own mind. Rishi, a daughter of immigrants from India, now living in Florida, is held tight by her parents’ expectations. She travels to Stanford to begin college, to start trying new experiences and to find herself, and to write all about it. This is cut short when COVID enters in her second semester.

What it really is – a beautifully written story about trying to find yourself, searching for identity, and navigating complex relationships. Rishi’s interactions with her mother are complicated, yet relatable. We watch as Rishi reaches out to find people that teach her about the different aspects of friendship, about who we hold close and who lets go. Woven throughout the story are other layers of growing up – entering college, living in a dorm, consent, sexual assault, activism, class, racism, all told through Rishi. The end came together as it might for any other person in her place, and it leaves me wondering how Rishi might be doing these days, years out from the pandemic.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the advanced digital copy. All thoughts are my own.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars - I won this book in a giveaway, so I finished it to give a complete opinion. However, I would have likely DNF’d the book around ~30% otherwise.

The writing was sharp, but often felt edgy for the sake of edginess and sometimes ended up cringey or crude. The first half of the story, before the pandemic and farm collective, wasn’t particularly interesting plot-wise and read like a personal diary that could have used more editing. The second half, especially the last few chapters, was much better written and improved my overall impression of the book. I also did enjoy the stream-of-consciousness writing style.

Overall, however, I found the character Rishi deeply unlikeable (except for the story of her relationship with her mother and the last few chapters, which put more of her often destructive actions into perspective for me). Throughout the story, Rishi consistently used other people in her life as potential characters in her own story rather than seeing them as people she supposedly cared about. I think I would have found this much more compelling if the character had engaged in any amount of character development or reflection throughout, but it felt like there wasn’t any.

I think perhaps this just wasn’t for me? As a millennial, I know I may not be the target audience for this.

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I loved this book! Kannan gives us gay panic, Florida lore, higher ed drama, mother/daughter tension, and a devastating friendship breakup, all through the lens of a first-gen American who is navigating the messiest parts of young adulthood (during a pandemic).

Rishi is a queer Indian-American freshman at Stanford in the fall of 2019, grappling with the stuff college freshmen usually grapple with (situationships, making friends, the meaning of life). When her academic trajectory is thrown off course by the pandemic, she is left without a script to follow. Her ensuing decision-making is chaotic - which is unsurprising, given the context - and she bears the weight of the natural consequences. Rishi is at once both overly insightful and thoughtless, centering herself by berating herself. Even with all her foibles, I was happy to be along for the ride.

Kannan hits the nail on the head with Rishi's friendship breakup, an all-too-common experience that is rarely given the same weight as a romantic breakup. I imagine that Rishi's heartbreak will help normalize that experience for a lot of readers.

Thanks again to NetGalley, Henry Holt, and the author for the opportunity to to inhabit Rishi's world for a bit!

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rishi is a freshman at Stanford, finding her people, and exploring her sexuality when the pandemic bulldozes everything. She and her classmates are faced with an uncertain future while navigating the perils of burgeoning adulthood.

This is a coming of age story set in the reality of a quickly changing world. The complications of friendship, love, family, and creativity are explored with a diverse cast of characters.

My thoughts: This one reads like a memoir. Honestly, part I of the book was a bit too long in my opinion. In twenty years when a young person picks this book up, it may be meaningful to read about the minuit details of the onset of the COVID pandemic, but having just lived through it, I wish that part would have been much shorter. However, the story really picked up for me in part II! I loved getting to experience Rishi's relationship with her parents, her mother especially. Complicated mother-daughter relationships always fascinate me. I also liked the grey areas of codependence that Rishi kept finding herself in. I enjoyed the discussions of class, gender, sexuality, and culture.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one!

Thank you to Netgalley and Henry Holt & Co. publisher for the ARC!