The Waiter

by Kwan-Ann Tan

London, in a not-too-distant future. The city is being swallowed into the ground, the rich are still getting richer, and Waiters do the jobs you don’t have time for. They queue for your concert tickets, stay in for your deliveries and stir your risotto.

Step into the shoes of an unnamed Waiter who has no recollection of who they were before their role at the Company. Now select your next job and decide whether to peek into the client’s luggage, and if you’ll risk losing work credits by helping a tired woman with her shopping. Balance your humanity with your job security at every turn, and manage your creeping desire to understand who you once were, and who you might become. You’ll want to crawl as close as possible to the edge of the maw without falling into its depths.

With 11 different endings and countless journeys towards them, The Waiter creates a labyrinthine world of possibilities and parallel worlds which combine to explore queer longing, consumerism and agency in a city and a psyche on the brink of collapse.

Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

130 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2025

Reviews

[Kwan-Ann]

it is I..............

[Anonymous Internet User · Rating 5 out of 5]

my incredibly unbiased review*:

I have been waiting ages to read this book and finally received the ARC and it is a 10/10! a great romp of a read, from the nostalgic format (who also used to read interactive fiction as a kid??) to gasp inducing plot twist endings.

get this book ASAP you'll consume it one sitting


*my cat and I are in the acknowledgments lol

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very different type of audiobook listen as I got to make choices at the end of the chapter and chose what chapter to go. I liked it very much but felt bit strange to be technically finished with the book yet there where chapters and story left. The story itself and characters was very compelling.

[Iva · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first time ever reading interactive fiction and it did not disappoint. I went into it without any background information on what the book is about and I loved the suspense. Feels like some of the endings could easily continue into longer stories or even books like the Timekeeper one or the one where the Waiter gets to restart their path.

Would rate it 10 stars if I could or should I say 11/11 hehe

[Hope Maynard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never read a choose your own ending book and this was a really interesting take on it. I suppose all the stories of our lives are interwoven. Blurring the temporal boundaries between past, present, future and imagined with an allegorical bit of sci-fi… this is a special book. It also is accompanied by a USB that I have yet to investigate, but look forward to greatly.

[Lis · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this!!!! there’s nothing quite like it!!!

[Éric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Combining a childhood pleasure from the 80s, the gamebook, with good litterature and a touch of sci-fi/fantastic... What a brilliant idea and what a gorgeous book.
On top of that: the book is a present from your daughter and comes straight from Birmingham where it has been locally edited. And it's -unfairly- currently flying under the radar.
You navigate through one of the path and get to one of the endings. Go back. 5 times. And then you're a little lost and need to map this thing. And it's a new pleasure going back, re-reading.
And every path, every ending adds to the experience and to the story.
And at some point you realize something very peculiar with the story as it is written... Well, that's new! And it shouldn't be... And it tells you something about our litterature.
Very few books make good litterature this entertaining. Well done Kwan-Ann Tan! And thank you Alix for this wonderwul present!

[Valerie (Pate) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to *love* choose-your-own-adventure stories and collected quite a few of them as a kid. Tan's interactive story, set in a not-too-distant dystopian London, takes me back to those afternoons I spent with my adventure books, trying over and over to achieve the best ending.
This volume is clever, from concept through to execution. Its imaginative tale takes you on an unexpected journey into the peculiar and sublime.

Loved it.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely INHALED this (similarly to how the maws behave I guess) in a day because it was just that good. I’ve never read anything like this before and I want my review to do it justice so I’m gonna *ruminate* and come back to this

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the concept was kind of cool. The first time I read it through, I thought it was neat, but as I followed different paths, I found that some of the plotlines dragged a bit. The problem with this type of novel compared to a regular book is that nothing is every really resolved. We don't understand the maws - when you end up in one, they can behave quite differently. I found the meeting with L to be a little underwhelming. The endings are sudden, and kind of inconclusive. And where did the old lady suddenly get a baseball bat? I think that's something you would have noticed when she showed up. It made me laugh when she suddenly hits the protagonist with a baseball bat. Also, it's set in London, England. How easy is it to lay your hands on a baseball bat? Something more concealable might have made m0re sense - a wrench? Something like that.

I does make me wonder how I would feel now about those old choose-your-own-adventure books from back in the day. I loved them when I was young, but I wonder if I would now find them underwritten in the same way I find this one. If this is successful, maybe there'll be more in the future, and the quality will improve. Again, cool concept, but I found the world-building and the plotlines a little thin.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

The structure is fun, I enjoyed following all the pathways and the use of second person, and wished it was longer so that I could get deeper into the world building. There’s some very inventive moments, and I liked the sinister presence of the maw seeping into every moment. I wanted to love this.

However, I think there’s an issue of style over substance here. I wanted so much more from the narrative. I understand that the waiter is a cog in a capitalist machine in a rapidly deteriorating world and is pulled from one thing or another with little agency, but I needed more characterisation - there was nothing about them to latch onto - good or bad - and unfortunately, I simply didn’t care about the bleak things that we are told happens to them/us. I wondered whether this was a way for the writer to make a larger point about capitalism/climate change/class/the cruelty of the gig economy, and so on, and the reader putting themselves in this place through the use of second person, but I struggle to see this depth evidenced on the page.

The concept of this novel is a lived reality for many, many people. And has been for some time. I wonder if this book would hit harder for readers who haven't experienced what the writer explores here?

[Tzi Yin · Rating 5 out of 5]

i never write reviews... but special authors call for exceptions to be made. the last time i picked up an interactive book was in primary school, about 14 years ago. i had completely forgotten how much fun these are!!

i took my time w this book, only allowing myself one or two endings a day. wow, the journeys ive been on... the intermingling of all my parallel lives in this book... the world building... twists and turns youd never expect.

this was a joy to read!!

[Sara Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first dip into choose your own adventure fiction, but finding it really addictive. I have only followed three pathways through so far, but with each new pathway a bit more of Kwan-Ann’s wonderful world building is revealed and you feel a little bit more connected to the waiter.

[Tobi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm maybe 2.5 ⭐️. I appreciate the ambitiousness of this novel and I usually enjoy authors not being afraid to be experimental with form - but the interactive nature of The Waiter didn’t fully work for me. I think if there had been 4 or 5 different endings, that could have been much more effective but the 11 endings were too much and I no longer really cared about the other outcomes after the 6th or 7th ending - plus, it was sooo frustrating having to constantly flick through the pages to know if I had fully finished the book.

I did think the dystopian world and ‘story’ were an interesting way to reflect capitalism, inequality, consumerism, the surveillance state and more - but I wish it did more to delve into them or say something more profound. There were a couple of narratives/endings that resonated with me - particularly the more weird ones, and those have stuck with me - but a number of the endings did feel a bit like throwaway ones, just there for the sake of it. And overall, the writing was pretty straightforward and read a bit like a YA novel - I think I would have loved this as a teenager but it landed it a bit flat for me as an adult. It was a super quick read though, so if you’re even slightly interested, you might as well give it a go!

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

like nothing i’ve ever read before! i loved this

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a cool concept so masterfully delivered. I will look forward to the author’s next project. Interactive novels are back baby!

[Yen Zi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun concept!! Made my hour long commutes feel like 2 minutes. And it was such an interesting way to slowly unveil the details of this new dystopian world. Love love love

[Tina-Maree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spannend wie kurz ein Buch sein kann, wenn man die falschen Entscheidungen trifft. - Ending 7

[Arianna Petrelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do ever read a book that so unexpectedly and unironically changes your life? Not to be dramatic, but I fear this is one of those. Substack WILL be hearing about this (consider this a threat).

[Jododds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Totally different from anything I have read or would normally read. Extremely thought provoking.

[jq · Rating 5 out of 5]

how lucky we are to live in a world that has kwan ann tan and THE WAITER - a story of, about, and wielding agency, spreading across space and time, with tenderness, anger, boredom, exhaustion, grief, and heartbreak, and also humour. a book like no other.

[Summer Wick-Featonby (summerkathleenreads) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was curious but unsure about this book going into it, knowing in advance it was a choose your own adventure kind of story. And personally, I can say that it simply didn’t work 🙃

I wasn’t enjoying this book by the time I got 60 pages in and to be honest contemplated DNF’ing it were it not for it being such a short book. That is also half the problem with this book - the pacing is completely off and moves too quickly with the reader choosing what direction the book takes, and in a blink, it’s over. It made the book feel pointless and I wondered what the author was trying to do with this - the choose your own adventure genre can be fun and clever when done right, but in this instance the book felt underdeveloped and not properly fleshed out. There was no character development, no solid plot line, no world building, nothing 🤨

The book was so short, and so messy with all the different endings, it was completely all over the place. I finished the book in less than an hour, and genuinely thought, what did I just read? I do not recommend this at all. A 1 ⭐️ flop for me 😩

Thanks to @theemmapress for sending me this one in exchange for an honest review.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

So unique, so fun, the structure is not gimmicky and adds a lot to the story. Highly recommend