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New Waves
Set in the New York City tech world, a wry and edgy debut novel about a heist gone wrong, a secret online life exposed, and a young man's search for true connection....
Lucas and Margo are fed up. Margo is a brilliant programmer tired of being talked over as the company's sole black employee, and while Lucas is one of many Asians at the firm, he's nearly invisible as a low-paid customer service rep. Together, they decide to steal their tech start-up's user database in an attempt at revenge. The heist takes a sudden turn when Margo dies in a car accident, and Lucas is left reeling, wondering what to do with their secret--and wondering whether her death really was an accident. When Lucas hacks into Margo's computer looking for answers, he is drawn into her secret online life and realizes just how little he knew about his best friend.
With a fresh voice, biting humor, and piercing observations about human nature, Kevin Nguyen brings an insider's knowledge of the tech industry to this imaginative novel. A pitch-perfect exploration of race and start-up culture, secrecy and surveillance, social media and friendship, New Waves asks: How well do we really know each other? And how do we form true intimacy and connection in a tech-obsessed world?
Lucas and Margo are fed up. Margo is a brilliant programmer tired of being talked over as the company's sole black employee, and while Lucas is one of many Asians at the firm, he's nearly invisible as a low-paid customer service rep. Together, they decide to steal their tech start-up's user database in an attempt at revenge. The heist takes a sudden turn when Margo dies in a car accident, and Lucas is left reeling, wondering what to do with their secret--and wondering whether her death really was an accident. When Lucas hacks into Margo's computer looking for answers, he is drawn into her secret online life and realizes just how little he knew about his best friend.
With a fresh voice, biting humor, and piercing observations about human nature, Kevin Nguyen brings an insider's knowledge of the tech industry to this imaginative novel. A pitch-perfect exploration of race and start-up culture, secrecy and surveillance, social media and friendship, New Waves asks: How well do we really know each other? And how do we form true intimacy and connection in a tech-obsessed world?
563 pages, Library Binding
First published March 10, 2020
169 people are currently reading
8267 people want to read
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April 5, 2020
It seemed like a fine title for a book of short stories. Ther are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.
— Neil Gaiman,Fragile Things: Short Ficitons and Wonders
It’s sad, funny, smart, and mundane, not a thriller. I didn’t connect with the book or the characters.
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January 17, 2020
Your experience with the genre of Literary Novel Where Not Much Happens is all about how the book connects with you on a gut level. If it doesn't fully connect, you'll be too annoyed that nothing happens. If it does connect, you'll happily go along through nothing happening because you're enjoying it and you don't think anything really needs to happen anyway. Luckily for me, I was the latter with this book, one that finally hit after I started and abandoned around 10 other books in a short span.
What immediately got me about this book, and what I like most about it, is that it's a Work Novel. We have a ridiculously small number of Work Novels when you consider how much work takes up of our lives (but I suppose this is what happens when the people writing our novels are trying to be full-time novelists). Nguyen may be a books person, but he's worked for a lot of tech and media companies (I follow him on Twitter) and he puts that expertise to good use here. Startup culture in particular is the focus here and while the strokes here occasionally feel a bit too broad, you cannot say startups have any subtlety so it's still relatively accurate.
At its heart, though, this is a book about friendship and grief. Lucas is a relatively unskilled worker, doing menial customer service work at a startup, and Margo is a black woman engineer. They are both almost always the only person of color in the room and they bond over this, ending up spending evenings together in a bar. Margo dies suddenly and Lucas becomes even more obsessed with her, eventually going through her things to find a close friend she had online that he decides to meet in person. This woman, Jill, and Lucas have both known Margo in different ways and the more they mourn her together, the more they are in a kind of competition with each other, and the more they realize maybe neither of them knew her as well as they thought they did.
Lucas is mostly the kind of protagonist you are used to in a Literary Novel Where Nothing Happens. He is aimless and disapassionate. He is not particularly good at anything. He is different because he is of Asian descent and the child of immigrants when these characters are usually white. (His observations on being an unskilled Asian man in tech are some of his best.)
The thing I can't decide how I feel about is that there are some things about Margo that are quite clear to the reader, but Lucas never quite seems to get there. This is where the Nothing Happens element of this kind of novel can be hard. Lucas does change and grow in some ways but not the ways you necessarily want him to. This is part of the deal, right? This kind of book isn't about what would satisfy the reader and you have to let that be the case. But I still would've liked more of the characters grappling with their obsession. (Also there's a bit about stories as sound files that did not work for me at all, enjoyed them as stories but not as device.)
This is the kind of book that you should give 25 pages. If it is resonating with you, keep at it. If it isn't, move along. But for the right reader, it's observant and moving, with a nice twist on the typical aimless young guy in New York narrative.
What immediately got me about this book, and what I like most about it, is that it's a Work Novel. We have a ridiculously small number of Work Novels when you consider how much work takes up of our lives (but I suppose this is what happens when the people writing our novels are trying to be full-time novelists). Nguyen may be a books person, but he's worked for a lot of tech and media companies (I follow him on Twitter) and he puts that expertise to good use here. Startup culture in particular is the focus here and while the strokes here occasionally feel a bit too broad, you cannot say startups have any subtlety so it's still relatively accurate.
At its heart, though, this is a book about friendship and grief. Lucas is a relatively unskilled worker, doing menial customer service work at a startup, and Margo is a black woman engineer. They are both almost always the only person of color in the room and they bond over this, ending up spending evenings together in a bar. Margo dies suddenly and Lucas becomes even more obsessed with her, eventually going through her things to find a close friend she had online that he decides to meet in person. This woman, Jill, and Lucas have both known Margo in different ways and the more they mourn her together, the more they are in a kind of competition with each other, and the more they realize maybe neither of them knew her as well as they thought they did.
Lucas is mostly the kind of protagonist you are used to in a Literary Novel Where Nothing Happens. He is aimless and disapassionate. He is not particularly good at anything. He is different because he is of Asian descent and the child of immigrants when these characters are usually white. (His observations on being an unskilled Asian man in tech are some of his best.)
The thing I can't decide how I feel about is that there are some things about Margo that are quite clear to the reader, but Lucas never quite seems to get there. This is where the Nothing Happens element of this kind of novel can be hard. Lucas does change and grow in some ways but not the ways you necessarily want him to. This is part of the deal, right? This kind of book isn't about what would satisfy the reader and you have to let that be the case. But I still would've liked more of the characters grappling with their obsession. (Also there's a bit about stories as sound files that did not work for me at all, enjoyed them as stories but not as device.)
This is the kind of book that you should give 25 pages. If it is resonating with you, keep at it. If it isn't, move along. But for the right reader, it's observant and moving, with a nice twist on the typical aimless young guy in New York narrative.
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November 27, 2019In NEW WAVES, a grieving young man dives into the dizzying kaleidoscope of 21st-century online culture, trying to understand his lost friend—and the difference (or is there one?) between our “real” lives and our virtual ones. Kevin Nguyen’s debut is a knowing, witty, and thought-provoking exploration of love, modern isolation, and what it means to exist—especially as a person of color—in our increasingly digital age.
March 11, 2020
I went into this without really any information besides that Celeste Ng liked it. And honestly, that’s enough for me.
I was caught off guard with how much I liked it. New Waves is an engaging story about a young man dealing with grief and a lack of fulfillment. It’s the stuff that a lot of us experience but may not be as good at expressing or even acknowledging. I was able to see parts of myself in not just Lucas, but Margo and Jill as well, despite our very different lives. There’s some shared struggle trying to find space for yourself in a world that seems like it was designed specifically to exclude you.
I read a few other reviews, and I mostly agree with what a lot of them are saying. Jessica’s mentioned that if you don’t like this book within the first several dozen pages, you probably won’t by the end of it either. I can get behind that. I was sucked in right away, but if you don’t connect with the characters then you’re probably not going to be into a character-driven novel about their lives. I don’t know who spread the idea this is a murder mystery—it definitely is not. It feels like so many of the things I’ve read lately have been mismarked as a genre they don’t really fit into. Like one of my criminally underrated favorites of 2020, The Majesties, a lot of complaints have come in by way of readers who haven’t had their misplaced expectations met. Maybe the marketing teams are to blame? I’m not sure, but I do wish the ‘shelving’ feature on Goodreads was more accurate.
If you’re interested in a story about an Asian man in his 20s, struggling at a tech start-up in New York, centered around how he copes with the death of his closest friend and confidant, then I would recommend this book for your very specific stipulations. And if you like well-written, at times biting and personal novels about people just trying to live and get by, you may enjoy this as well.
*Thanks to Random House & Netgalley for an advance copy!
I was caught off guard with how much I liked it. New Waves is an engaging story about a young man dealing with grief and a lack of fulfillment. It’s the stuff that a lot of us experience but may not be as good at expressing or even acknowledging. I was able to see parts of myself in not just Lucas, but Margo and Jill as well, despite our very different lives. There’s some shared struggle trying to find space for yourself in a world that seems like it was designed specifically to exclude you.
I read a few other reviews, and I mostly agree with what a lot of them are saying. Jessica’s mentioned that if you don’t like this book within the first several dozen pages, you probably won’t by the end of it either. I can get behind that. I was sucked in right away, but if you don’t connect with the characters then you’re probably not going to be into a character-driven novel about their lives. I don’t know who spread the idea this is a murder mystery—it definitely is not. It feels like so many of the things I’ve read lately have been mismarked as a genre they don’t really fit into. Like one of my criminally underrated favorites of 2020, The Majesties, a lot of complaints have come in by way of readers who haven’t had their misplaced expectations met. Maybe the marketing teams are to blame? I’m not sure, but I do wish the ‘shelving’ feature on Goodreads was more accurate.
If you’re interested in a story about an Asian man in his 20s, struggling at a tech start-up in New York, centered around how he copes with the death of his closest friend and confidant, then I would recommend this book for your very specific stipulations. And if you like well-written, at times biting and personal novels about people just trying to live and get by, you may enjoy this as well.
*Thanks to Random House & Netgalley for an advance copy!
March 24, 2020
The book made some obvious points about racism and sexism in the workplace and society in general, but I could only make it to about the 28% point of this book. If it was headed anywhere it was taking too long to get there. It also felt padded with nonsensical details. A man who spends all day on a computer asks in a bodega where to find a book store in NY and then “remembers” that there is a big store on Union Square. Seriously, that’s not how we find a store or a book in this century. This short book was too long for me. Perhaps one of my problems was that the blurb suggested techno thriller, when in reality it is a different beast entirely. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
May 12, 2020
It's possible that I just really dislike first-person novels in which the narrator is trying to be my friend. The storytelling artifice of "I'm just a normal guy telling you my story" is very hard to pull off for 300+ pages unless you have a wildly charismatic person telling you his/her story. If not, I start to feel like I'm stuck at a company party with someone who won't stop talking so I can excuse myself.
January 25, 2020
New Waves is a killer title incorporating many double entendres. Despite being Asian and the only son, Lucas is not a cliched millenial in that he is not exactly tech savvy or booksmart, and is performing at the lowest possible level for a startup. With only a community college education, he leaves his parents' home (a cosy east Oregon B&B), believing he can make a fresh start in Manhattan. Kevin Nguyen has crafted a truly original picture of millenial life, amazingly assured for a debut. There is so much to digest in this fast moving page turner, which deals with startups and toxic work places, intimacy in this age of screens, the effect of grief in that it can both pull people together as well as force them apart, and most importantly the eternal power of music in all forms. Thus the first meaning of new waves being bossa nova, the lush sounds that rose out of 1960's Brazil and the haunting history behind its most famous song as The Girl From Ipanema weaves her way to the shore. There is also insider's observations on the dopamine release of addictive game apps, why Japanese is considered the most premiere of cuisines and a side bar on the genesis of Benihana Restaurants. And much more. The only reason for a 4 instead of a 5 is there are interspersed transcriptions of stories supposedly written by a character who has died that really didn't work for me. They slowed the forward momentum and weren't necessary. It may have been preferable to include them at the end in an epilogue.
November 29, 2020
I can boil New Waves basically down to conversations about technology, grief, and race. And that is really all there is to it, but it didn't stop me from loving it.
Before you go and read the synopsis, just know you're probably going to be misled. What I was expecting was a murder disguised as an accident over some valuable customer information, but that is insanely far from what you'll be reading. While there might be a slight twist here and there, the novel really just focuses on how we grieve someone in this new technological age. Where do their social media accounts go and how do we tell their online friends goodbye?
I don't have a lot to say, considering that very little does end up happening. The characters all have their good and bad points, the writing and dialogue all feel very current and realistic, you'll find yourself jumping from different topic to topic a lot of the time. I'd recommend (if you can read a sample online or in-person anywhere) read about 15 pages of New Waves and decide whether if you want to buy it.
Before you go and read the synopsis, just know you're probably going to be misled. What I was expecting was a murder disguised as an accident over some valuable customer information, but that is insanely far from what you'll be reading. While there might be a slight twist here and there, the novel really just focuses on how we grieve someone in this new technological age. Where do their social media accounts go and how do we tell their online friends goodbye?
I don't have a lot to say, considering that very little does end up happening. The characters all have their good and bad points, the writing and dialogue all feel very current and realistic, you'll find yourself jumping from different topic to topic a lot of the time. I'd recommend (if you can read a sample online or in-person anywhere) read about 15 pages of New Waves and decide whether if you want to buy it.
March 24, 2020
That’s what racism in the workplace looked like. You could feel it everywhere- in your brain, in your heart, in your bones- but you could never prove it.
In Kevin Nguyen’s debut novel New Wave we meet two friends- Margo and Lucas who are both working for a technology company. Margo is a top programmer at the company but is also the token black girl who is constantly pointing out misogyny and racism. Lucas is at the bottom of the company’s structure, a lowly paid customer service representative who is can hardly make ends meet. Margo is Lucas only friend, they work together and they both feel let down by the company they work for. One evening while getting drunk Margo comes up with this idea of stealing all the data of the company’s users, as a means of revenge. Their theft goes undetected but Lucas does not feel good about it. A few weeks after Margo dies in an accident… but was it actually an accident? What will Lucas do with the information he stole?
Margo’s mother asks Lucas for his help in deleting Margo’s Facebook account. It is through that interaction Lucas stole Margo’s laptop and was introduced to who Margo really is.
This debut novel started off strong. I loved the premise of stolen data, possible murder and mystery- I thought I was in for a thrilling ride. There were some high moments but generally there was a smoothing lull throughout. I liked getting a look into the start-up culture it was great hearing about the pitches to investors but generally I was not floored.
I can safely say that I will be reading more from Kevin Nyugen in the future. This was a great attempt at a debut, and I did enjoy the read.
What this book taught me:
The longest record for running a marathon is 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds
Over 140,000 people died in the Great Kanto earthquake
In Kevin Nguyen’s debut novel New Wave we meet two friends- Margo and Lucas who are both working for a technology company. Margo is a top programmer at the company but is also the token black girl who is constantly pointing out misogyny and racism. Lucas is at the bottom of the company’s structure, a lowly paid customer service representative who is can hardly make ends meet. Margo is Lucas only friend, they work together and they both feel let down by the company they work for. One evening while getting drunk Margo comes up with this idea of stealing all the data of the company’s users, as a means of revenge. Their theft goes undetected but Lucas does not feel good about it. A few weeks after Margo dies in an accident… but was it actually an accident? What will Lucas do with the information he stole?
Margo’s mother asks Lucas for his help in deleting Margo’s Facebook account. It is through that interaction Lucas stole Margo’s laptop and was introduced to who Margo really is.
This debut novel started off strong. I loved the premise of stolen data, possible murder and mystery- I thought I was in for a thrilling ride. There were some high moments but generally there was a smoothing lull throughout. I liked getting a look into the start-up culture it was great hearing about the pitches to investors but generally I was not floored.
I can safely say that I will be reading more from Kevin Nyugen in the future. This was a great attempt at a debut, and I did enjoy the read.
What this book taught me:
The longest record for running a marathon is 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds
Over 140,000 people died in the Great Kanto earthquake
March 5, 2020
I feel like "New Waves" by Kevin Nguyen is being marketed as suspense fiction, when in reality it's more of a contemporary novel with a dash of sci-fi and computer geek thrown in for good measure. I was completely hooked after the first chapter. I thought the writing was sharp, funny, and vibrant. It's kind of hard to believe this is the author's debut novel. Of course it's not a perfect, flawless one, it's close though. I did feel like something was missing. You think the plot is going to focus mainly on Lucas and Margo's illegal crime against the tech company they previously worked for, but it's more of a character study of a man's descent into alcoholism and grief.
The strength of "New Waves" were the characters. The main protagonist, Lucas was a dynamic character. I liked that one minute you despise him and the next minute you're rooting for him. I wholeheartedly believed in Lucas and Margo's geek-fantastic friendship. Their friendship jumped off the page right from the start, which is impressive since you learn early on that Margo is killed walking home drunk by a speeding cab. Most of their friendship is told in flashbacks. I thought the addition of the character Jill was interesting. She added some dimension to Lucas' sad little life. She was another character that had good and bad qualities. There's also frank discussions of race and discrimination in the workplace. Part of this story did feel uneven, I wanted more. With that being said, it was a breeze to get through. Quick-witted, engaging, and entertaining. This one took me by surprise. It had so much personality and spunk.
Thank you, Netgalley and Random House for the digital ARC.
Release date: March 10, 2020
The strength of "New Waves" were the characters. The main protagonist, Lucas was a dynamic character. I liked that one minute you despise him and the next minute you're rooting for him. I wholeheartedly believed in Lucas and Margo's geek-fantastic friendship. Their friendship jumped off the page right from the start, which is impressive since you learn early on that Margo is killed walking home drunk by a speeding cab. Most of their friendship is told in flashbacks. I thought the addition of the character Jill was interesting. She added some dimension to Lucas' sad little life. She was another character that had good and bad qualities. There's also frank discussions of race and discrimination in the workplace. Part of this story did feel uneven, I wanted more. With that being said, it was a breeze to get through. Quick-witted, engaging, and entertaining. This one took me by surprise. It had so much personality and spunk.
Thank you, Netgalley and Random House for the digital ARC.
Release date: March 10, 2020
December 4, 2020
QUICK TAKE: I think this one was a case of bad marketing. I loved the initial premise (Silicon Valley murder mystery), but it was not that at all (looking back, I'm not even sure the author solved the overarching mystery of "who killed the only interesting character"). Again, I blame this partly on how the book was marketed, as this is much more a story that explores the idea of "how well do we know the people in our lives?" as well as an acerbic look at the dark underbelly of Silicon Valley, in particular racism and toxic masculinity.
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March 10, 2020AMERIE'S BOOK CLUB | MARCH 2020 SELECTION
A poignant meditation on race, class, and grief as they intersect with technology, New Waves had me questioning who we are, who we think we are, and what we leave behind. How do we grieve someone whose online footprint looms large? And really, can any of us live up to the terrifying hyper-optimism of tech culture (and this is coming from an extreme optimist)? Pick up New Waves by Kevin Nguyen @knguyen (just dropped today!) and join us on the IGlive chat at the end of the month, where we'll talk all things life, art, love, and grief in the time of technology!
📚
#AmeriesBookClub #ReadwithAmerie #ABC #NewWaves @ameriesbookclub
A poignant meditation on race, class, and grief as they intersect with technology, New Waves had me questioning who we are, who we think we are, and what we leave behind. How do we grieve someone whose online footprint looms large? And really, can any of us live up to the terrifying hyper-optimism of tech culture (and this is coming from an extreme optimist)? Pick up New Waves by Kevin Nguyen @knguyen (just dropped today!) and join us on the IGlive chat at the end of the month, where we'll talk all things life, art, love, and grief in the time of technology!
📚
#AmeriesBookClub #ReadwithAmerie #ABC #NewWaves @ameriesbookclub
September 2, 2020
More like 4.5 stars. A really compelling examination of grief, the tech industry, and how much men are trash! really thoroughly enjoyed this read
January 21, 2020
Narratively and structurally, Kevin Nguyen's debut reminds me of Douglas Coupland's Microserfs for the VC era, but instead of all that "defining an emotionally stunted generation of rich boy man-babies" stuff (which is not intended to be the slam against Coupland it sounds like, but also accurate), its primary insights come in discussing what it is like to be a person of color in a space designed by and built for white people, and for those reasons, it is very much worth reading. Less so for the main character's meandering emotional journey and the intermittent insertion of sci-fi short stories, which don't work quite as well.
March 17, 2020
5+ out of 5.
I didn't quite know what to expect from this book. A thriller? A tech book? A heist-comedy?
It is none of those things, albeit with tiny elements of each. It's a meditation on grief and race and technology and connection in the 21st Century. It pulls off the same trick that FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE leans too far into (of the possibility that this whole thing has been written by one of the characters in the book). It is beautifully heartfelt, it IS very funny, it is also mundane in its way. In a good way. One of my favorite books of the year so far, absolutely.
I didn't quite know what to expect from this book. A thriller? A tech book? A heist-comedy?
It is none of those things, albeit with tiny elements of each. It's a meditation on grief and race and technology and connection in the 21st Century. It pulls off the same trick that FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE leans too far into (of the possibility that this whole thing has been written by one of the characters in the book). It is beautifully heartfelt, it IS very funny, it is also mundane in its way. In a good way. One of my favorite books of the year so far, absolutely.
January 23, 2020
Feeling conflicted about my feelings on NEW WAVES. It’s a good debut novel, but found it somewhat unremarkable. It felt a bit unrefined, the writing predictable and forgettable for literary fiction. I read it fast though, I wanted to know what would happen and the story was unique. I love books set in the early 2010s in NYC, which is when I first moved to the city, and am always intrigued by books about the Internet and online relationships. I wouldn’t whole heartedly recommend this one though.
Lucas, the main character, is unlikable. He only has one friend, Margo, who dies early in the book. He drinks too much, is bad at his job at a start-up, and doesn’t have much of a backbone. He is Asian American, and this fact (along with Margo being a black women) pushes the theme of race to the forefront of the novel — how race and technology intersect, and how gender affects how you interact with the Internet. There is a lot presented in the book all at once, and it is sometimes hard to parse though. The themes the author wants you to recognize are not subtle, and this can often take you out of the book. I think this is due to the writing being a bit subpar — it may think it’s slightly smarter than it actually is.
Lucas, the main character, is unlikable. He only has one friend, Margo, who dies early in the book. He drinks too much, is bad at his job at a start-up, and doesn’t have much of a backbone. He is Asian American, and this fact (along with Margo being a black women) pushes the theme of race to the forefront of the novel — how race and technology intersect, and how gender affects how you interact with the Internet. There is a lot presented in the book all at once, and it is sometimes hard to parse though. The themes the author wants you to recognize are not subtle, and this can often take you out of the book. I think this is due to the writing being a bit subpar — it may think it’s slightly smarter than it actually is.
May 28, 2021
New Waves was unexpected for me. I'm not sure why so many people thought this was going to be a thriller but it most definitely is not so please don't go into this with that misconception. What we get is a novel about tech start ups, racism, grief, the intimacy of social media/internet forum relationships and just wanting to fit in and make a connection.
Normally this type of book that is more character study where you follow along day to day with certain insights but isn't necessarily plot driven can be an absolute miss for me. However, with NEW WAVES, it just works for me. I could relate to Lucas on so many levels. I especially liked his relationship with Margo - while they can commiserate about their own bouts of racism within and outside the work place, they also realize they still experience it completely different from each other as well. I think the author did extremely well in showing this dynamic.
I also appreciate an Asian book that deals with more of the contemporary POC experience over the stories we are used to reading (i.e. immigration/assimilation stories). And I smiled at Lucas's journey from Astoria to Manhattan on the subway because that's exactly what I do. Really though readers, this is a story about friendship and grief and finding your space in life. "Grief isn't just the act of coping with a loss. It's reckoning with the realization that you'll never discover something new about a person ever again." We don't get answers to problems here, we get a very human experience.
Normally this type of book that is more character study where you follow along day to day with certain insights but isn't necessarily plot driven can be an absolute miss for me. However, with NEW WAVES, it just works for me. I could relate to Lucas on so many levels. I especially liked his relationship with Margo - while they can commiserate about their own bouts of racism within and outside the work place, they also realize they still experience it completely different from each other as well. I think the author did extremely well in showing this dynamic.
I also appreciate an Asian book that deals with more of the contemporary POC experience over the stories we are used to reading (i.e. immigration/assimilation stories). And I smiled at Lucas's journey from Astoria to Manhattan on the subway because that's exactly what I do. Really though readers, this is a story about friendship and grief and finding your space in life. "Grief isn't just the act of coping with a loss. It's reckoning with the realization that you'll never discover something new about a person ever again." We don't get answers to problems here, we get a very human experience.
March 30, 2020
Hint to aspiring writers: never kill off your most interesting character in the first chapter. Okay, that was a little harsh. Let me rephrase it so it's extremely harsh: never kill off your ONLY interesting character in the first chapter. Margo, a borderline alcoholic genius programmer who just happens to be an aspiring science fiction author, isn't the most believable character in literary history, but her myriad complexities might at least be entertaining. However, Margo gets hit by a cab somewhere around page 20 and we spend the entire book with Lucas, who has a Bret Easton Ellis-like knack for for explaining the obvious ("his eyebrow shot up, as if what I had just said had taken him by surprise"), and to make everything worse, Lucas hooks up with Margo's online pal Jill, who speaks in tired aphorisms that are supposed to be clever ("a bar is not a place or even the people who go there, it's just an assortment of liquor bottles"). As if these two weren't boring enough, half the action takes place at a tech startup that's dedicated to recycling every exhausted trope about tech startups, from the ping pong tables to the phony idealism.
There seems to be a competition among young authors to create the dullest work of "autofic" ever published. Don't know who's winning, but I can sure as hell tell you who's losing.
There seems to be a competition among young authors to create the dullest work of "autofic" ever published. Don't know who's winning, but I can sure as hell tell you who's losing.
February 12, 2020
It's time I make a proclamation: I don't like literary fiction about Nothing Really Happening. Maybe that illustrates that I'm not a deep person or maybe I'm coming to the same conclusion that many others do that literary fiction is overrated. I don't know why I do this to myself, but here we are.
New Waves reminded me of a cross between the television show Black Mirror and John Green's acclaimed young adult novel Paper Towns. (And ironically, both Kevin Nguyen and John Green's central Interesting and Mysterious Woman™ characters are named Margo.)
There were some poignant observations about the intersections of racism and technology in this novel, but some were kind of obvious for anyone who's remotely involved in the tech world or reads about the state of tech in our lives. Lucas was a purposely bland character grieving the death of his Interesting and Mysterious Woman™, but we never really got answers to the questions sprawled out about her life, either. Some would say that that's the point, but I would counter with, is it really?
I really wanted to love this book since I'd seen some hype around it, but a lot of it just felt a little too on-the-nose for me.
New Waves reminded me of a cross between the television show Black Mirror and John Green's acclaimed young adult novel Paper Towns. (And ironically, both Kevin Nguyen and John Green's central Interesting and Mysterious Woman™ characters are named Margo.)
There were some poignant observations about the intersections of racism and technology in this novel, but some were kind of obvious for anyone who's remotely involved in the tech world or reads about the state of tech in our lives. Lucas was a purposely bland character grieving the death of his Interesting and Mysterious Woman™, but we never really got answers to the questions sprawled out about her life, either. Some would say that that's the point, but I would counter with, is it really?
I really wanted to love this book since I'd seen some hype around it, but a lot of it just felt a little too on-the-nose for me.
April 27, 2020
I found this to be a very addictive read! I loved the nostalgia of the early 2000s internet where people spent a huge chunk of their time creating and building and connecting around a shared passion just for fun.
I also was drawn to how this novel was about seeing different sides to people and trying to take the pieces of the puzzle and see how they fit what you thought the puzzle was supposed to look like. Margo trying to share herself with Lucas and getting frustrated when it felt like things weren’t connecting was such a realistic moment.
There’s a lot to chew on. To name a few: the tech startup world, Lucas’ conversations about race with Margo and Jill, and Lucas’ grief.
My only qualm was the way the heist is framed in the summary made it seem like that was going to be a bigger thing.
This novel felt like a sandbox game- less about the end result and more about spending time with a set of characters and the world they’re placed in.
I also was drawn to how this novel was about seeing different sides to people and trying to take the pieces of the puzzle and see how they fit what you thought the puzzle was supposed to look like. Margo trying to share herself with Lucas and getting frustrated when it felt like things weren’t connecting was such a realistic moment.
There’s a lot to chew on. To name a few: the tech startup world, Lucas’ conversations about race with Margo and Jill, and Lucas’ grief.
My only qualm was the way the heist is framed in the summary made it seem like that was going to be a bigger thing.
This novel felt like a sandbox game- less about the end result and more about spending time with a set of characters and the world they’re placed in.
April 17, 2020
Bless Kevin Nguyen. I have been in a hard reading slump all year and this book was a balm.
A lot of the synopses I've seen do not do this book justice - this is not a thriller/mystery, nor is it a veiled treatise on race. It's plot driven until it's not, which feels a lot like life. There is a lot said (and left in the spaces in between) about race, the tech world, and gender. Although the book has also been touted as a larger discussion of intimacy on the internet, I came away feeling like relationships are more similar to 25 years ago than we think.
There was a lot left to think about and I'm always grateful for that.
A lot of the synopses I've seen do not do this book justice - this is not a thriller/mystery, nor is it a veiled treatise on race. It's plot driven until it's not, which feels a lot like life. There is a lot said (and left in the spaces in between) about race, the tech world, and gender. Although the book has also been touted as a larger discussion of intimacy on the internet, I came away feeling like relationships are more similar to 25 years ago than we think.
There was a lot left to think about and I'm always grateful for that.
July 30, 2021
About 3/4 of the way through this book I realized that it feels like watching one of the "ripped from the headlines" episodes of law and order, except its about tech startups and there is no murder. Watching those episodes always gives me that uncanny feeling of a staff of writers trying to wink at me over news stories that are always 2 or 3 months out of date. Nguyen manages this too, talking around news around tech and race from the last 5-7 years but never going so far as to actually write about those events. Characters read articles about academic studies that populated real-world articles and react - though these reactions are stunningly devoid of analysis. This careful avoidance of confronting the world is at it's most grating when Nguyen attempts to describe Google without naming Google. I don't understand his insistence on fictionalizing these events in this way. When presented as bullet points without the shorthand of our understanding of these stories, their fictional counterparts lose their consequences and nuance.
To throw Law and Order under the bus some more with this comparison, the show manages an even amount of smart and dynamic writing and absolutely not thought through plotlines and throwaway dialogue full of redundancies. New Waves does the same. Structurally it does a lot of good work, chugging you along with a fair amount of energy, and then sometimes you get writing like this: "His eyebrow shot up, as if what I had just said had taken him by surprise" and you can't help but put it down and go for a walk.
It is not a good sign when I would have preferred to read the book written by a character in a book than the book itself.
To throw Law and Order under the bus some more with this comparison, the show manages an even amount of smart and dynamic writing and absolutely not thought through plotlines and throwaway dialogue full of redundancies. New Waves does the same. Structurally it does a lot of good work, chugging you along with a fair amount of energy, and then sometimes you get writing like this: "His eyebrow shot up, as if what I had just said had taken him by surprise" and you can't help but put it down and go for a walk.
It is not a good sign when I would have preferred to read the book written by a character in a book than the book itself.
May 21, 2020
“Margo always said that technology was made for sad white boys.”
You might recognize the name Kevin Nguyen from his Twitter presence and his work at The Verge as their Features Editor. New Waves, his first novel published in March, is set from 2009-2011 at a tech start-up called Phantom based out of New York City. The story is an insightful and surprisingly funny look at friendship, modern workplaces, structural racism and grief. It's marketed somewhat as a tech thriller/heist, but it's really more of a true-to-life story about being a millennial minority under late capitalism.
I read about a third of it over a few days, and then suddenly finished the rest of the book in 24 hours because I couldn't put it down. There are quite a few bad-to-average reviews of this here, which was honestly really surprising to me. I think people just get mad when an author makes interesting and experimental POV choices/time jumps and refuses to hold their hand in the process. Also people get mad when an author points out how ingrained structural racism in our world, so that is probably also it.
STOP FORCING YOUR EXPECTATIONS ON A TEXT/COMING TO A STORY WITH CRITIQUE IN MIND AND LET THE NARRATIVE JUST WASH OVER YOU, PEOPLE!!!
You might recognize the name Kevin Nguyen from his Twitter presence and his work at The Verge as their Features Editor. New Waves, his first novel published in March, is set from 2009-2011 at a tech start-up called Phantom based out of New York City. The story is an insightful and surprisingly funny look at friendship, modern workplaces, structural racism and grief. It's marketed somewhat as a tech thriller/heist, but it's really more of a true-to-life story about being a millennial minority under late capitalism.
I read about a third of it over a few days, and then suddenly finished the rest of the book in 24 hours because I couldn't put it down. There are quite a few bad-to-average reviews of this here, which was honestly really surprising to me. I think people just get mad when an author makes interesting and experimental POV choices/time jumps and refuses to hold their hand in the process. Also people get mad when an author points out how ingrained structural racism in our world, so that is probably also it.
STOP FORCING YOUR EXPECTATIONS ON A TEXT/COMING TO A STORY WITH CRITIQUE IN MIND AND LET THE NARRATIVE JUST WASH OVER YOU, PEOPLE!!!
December 16, 2019
I thank Random House for this ARC. "New Waves" refers to bossa nova, a music style that the main characters, Margo and Lucas, have in common.
Lucas' parents almost named him Kevin but didn't when they learned his cousin had the name--a cousin Lucas has never met. And this is an example of the humor in this book. Kevin, the author, possibly or opaquely refers to himself and just as readily dismisses the guy.
Much later, Lucas mentions another Kevin, Kevin from "Wonder Years," and critiques his egocentric way of comforting a grieving Winnie.
I won't recount the general story as it's amply available. For two days, I enjoyed the ride filled with chuckles and uh-huh's to his spot-on commentary on race, gender, etc. I was not satisfied with the climax but that could be the most subjective part of the reading experience. From reading this book, I would definitely read more of his writing.
This book has a combination of wit, keen social observation and ample reference of social media. Social media binds the reader to the story because we can so relate to it: the dynamics of using it as well as the strangely palatable dangers within it (hacking, being manipulated, undergoing facial recognition, etc.). The arrogance of social media executives/founders features prominently here and, for better or worse, we readers recognize their inflated sense of themselves and their work. (As an aside, I would suggest that their misguided notions and our earlier acceptance of such led us to tolerate the current foolishness and danger of the orange dunce and his so-called Administration.)
Several quotes:
"She could disassemble and reassemble anything, including the hubris of men."
"To be black is the most terrestrial form of being, the lowest level of Earthling in the eyes of other people. (Margo)"..."At least you're American," I said. Maybe it was a weak attempt to get her to change direction. Maybe I just wanted her to see me as equal. "You see black people on TV, in music, in politics, in some form every day. Asians are foreign, alien, otherworldly. We might as well be invisible.(Lucas)"
"Science fiction makes me nostalgic for the future," Margo used to say, cryptically, but here the evidence was everywhere. Her futures were informed by the past.
The music was good, but it had a higher currency: obscurity.
There is, instead, a mutual callousness among New Yorkers. Sometimes we see that hardened self in others, and we mistake that recognition for compassion.
...she explained that white people spent an exorbitant amount of their energy saying racist things to prove they weren't racist.
"What does it mean that the world's most popular devices have been designed by and for the elite white men in Silicon Valley? Is this the new colonialism, a modern form of oppression that imposes the values and perspectives of white men on the world?"
...The strangest part of being Asian in America is that you never have to prove how hardworking you are. People just assume you were born with a great work ethic, or that your stoic, disciplinarian parents beat it into you at a young age....
...The service they (white men) had created was being used primarily by people (African American/black) who did not look like them. It became clear that this was seen as a negative. It was a problem, and they were struggling to find the language to express why.
That's what racism in the workplace looked like. You could feel it everywhere--in your brain, in your heart, in your bones--but you could never prove it....
...New York was a great place to be alone because there were so many people....
Daniel was put on a Performance Improvement Plan, playfully called PIP. The document laid out a long list of thing that we would have to do in order to keep his job. Many of the instructions were vague and involved things like having a better attitude and showing more collaboration with team members. But you couldn't measure that. So, of course, there were numbers associated with it....
Venture capitalists were never interested in revenue--they were interested in the potential of revenue....
Like all argument between angry men in a workplace, the disagreement became circular, then personal, then unresolvable....
"...But so many of the conversations we had were about systems of oppression; and rebelling against them. How could we not talk about that stuff all the time? We were surrounded by it."
There are days I hate New York, and then I go to a bodega and completely change my mind...Bodegas represent New York's sweet spot between chaos and convenience--dollar stores by way of foodstuffs.
So we had a New York goodbye, which was always logistical: Which train are you taking?
It crossed my mind that Emil might notice something was amiss once his algorithm's accuracy plummeted. But it was more likely he would blame himself than the data. Unlike people, data was neutral; data was infallible; the raw numbers were never self-interested.
"...Unlike any other kind of Asian food, be it Chinese or Korean or Vietnamese, Japanese food was seen as a high-end cuisine. It was respected, revered. You could charge real money for it too. What what was more American than that?"
"...Jeremy's compliments kept coming. They were aggressive, disingenuous. A sales tactic. It seemed, but I wasn't sure what he was selling."
"We take no responsibility for users on Phantom anymore. We produce the platform, the technology that people use. We're not accountable for how people use it."
"Writing never came easier to me than when I was lying to my agent."
"...This seem to be the plotting of every American show: someone named Kevin trying to win the heart of a girl by being the nicest guy possible, pursuing her with unrelenting kindness and incessant affection. Exert yourself enough and you can have everything you've ever wanted. Perhaps that was the greatest fiction of TV, that hearts could be won over with enough hard work, that romance followed the same ideals as capitalism."
Lucas' parents almost named him Kevin but didn't when they learned his cousin had the name--a cousin Lucas has never met. And this is an example of the humor in this book. Kevin, the author, possibly or opaquely refers to himself and just as readily dismisses the guy.
Much later, Lucas mentions another Kevin, Kevin from "Wonder Years," and critiques his egocentric way of comforting a grieving Winnie.
I won't recount the general story as it's amply available. For two days, I enjoyed the ride filled with chuckles and uh-huh's to his spot-on commentary on race, gender, etc. I was not satisfied with the climax but that could be the most subjective part of the reading experience. From reading this book, I would definitely read more of his writing.
This book has a combination of wit, keen social observation and ample reference of social media. Social media binds the reader to the story because we can so relate to it: the dynamics of using it as well as the strangely palatable dangers within it (hacking, being manipulated, undergoing facial recognition, etc.). The arrogance of social media executives/founders features prominently here and, for better or worse, we readers recognize their inflated sense of themselves and their work. (As an aside, I would suggest that their misguided notions and our earlier acceptance of such led us to tolerate the current foolishness and danger of the orange dunce and his so-called Administration.)
Several quotes:
"She could disassemble and reassemble anything, including the hubris of men."
"To be black is the most terrestrial form of being, the lowest level of Earthling in the eyes of other people. (Margo)"..."At least you're American," I said. Maybe it was a weak attempt to get her to change direction. Maybe I just wanted her to see me as equal. "You see black people on TV, in music, in politics, in some form every day. Asians are foreign, alien, otherworldly. We might as well be invisible.(Lucas)"
"Science fiction makes me nostalgic for the future," Margo used to say, cryptically, but here the evidence was everywhere. Her futures were informed by the past.
The music was good, but it had a higher currency: obscurity.
There is, instead, a mutual callousness among New Yorkers. Sometimes we see that hardened self in others, and we mistake that recognition for compassion.
...she explained that white people spent an exorbitant amount of their energy saying racist things to prove they weren't racist.
"What does it mean that the world's most popular devices have been designed by and for the elite white men in Silicon Valley? Is this the new colonialism, a modern form of oppression that imposes the values and perspectives of white men on the world?"
...The strangest part of being Asian in America is that you never have to prove how hardworking you are. People just assume you were born with a great work ethic, or that your stoic, disciplinarian parents beat it into you at a young age....
...The service they (white men) had created was being used primarily by people (African American/black) who did not look like them. It became clear that this was seen as a negative. It was a problem, and they were struggling to find the language to express why.
That's what racism in the workplace looked like. You could feel it everywhere--in your brain, in your heart, in your bones--but you could never prove it....
...New York was a great place to be alone because there were so many people....
Daniel was put on a Performance Improvement Plan, playfully called PIP. The document laid out a long list of thing that we would have to do in order to keep his job. Many of the instructions were vague and involved things like having a better attitude and showing more collaboration with team members. But you couldn't measure that. So, of course, there were numbers associated with it....
Venture capitalists were never interested in revenue--they were interested in the potential of revenue....
Like all argument between angry men in a workplace, the disagreement became circular, then personal, then unresolvable....
"...But so many of the conversations we had were about systems of oppression; and rebelling against them. How could we not talk about that stuff all the time? We were surrounded by it."
There are days I hate New York, and then I go to a bodega and completely change my mind...Bodegas represent New York's sweet spot between chaos and convenience--dollar stores by way of foodstuffs.
So we had a New York goodbye, which was always logistical: Which train are you taking?
It crossed my mind that Emil might notice something was amiss once his algorithm's accuracy plummeted. But it was more likely he would blame himself than the data. Unlike people, data was neutral; data was infallible; the raw numbers were never self-interested.
"...Unlike any other kind of Asian food, be it Chinese or Korean or Vietnamese, Japanese food was seen as a high-end cuisine. It was respected, revered. You could charge real money for it too. What what was more American than that?"
"...Jeremy's compliments kept coming. They were aggressive, disingenuous. A sales tactic. It seemed, but I wasn't sure what he was selling."
"We take no responsibility for users on Phantom anymore. We produce the platform, the technology that people use. We're not accountable for how people use it."
"Writing never came easier to me than when I was lying to my agent."
"...This seem to be the plotting of every American show: someone named Kevin trying to win the heart of a girl by being the nicest guy possible, pursuing her with unrelenting kindness and incessant affection. Exert yourself enough and you can have everything you've ever wanted. Perhaps that was the greatest fiction of TV, that hearts could be won over with enough hard work, that romance followed the same ideals as capitalism."
January 28, 2023
It's risky business telling a story with a principal character who's dead by the end of the first chapter. Kevin Nguyen does it phenomenally. There are no ghosts here, no romanticized notions about the meaning of death, no heroes, really, and certainly no villains. The narrative structure is not overly reliant of flashbacks. What's here is just an honest look at grief -- about how we move on but can't move on, about the details we remember and the ones we desperately long for but will never find.
Nguyen's writing felt a bit flat at first, but loosened up as the book progressed. He experiments with storytelling format in ways that are largely clever and serviceable to the narrative rather than gimmicky. One of the last chapters is so well done, so incredibly fresh. Maybe it's just incredible.
Along with grief, New Waves offers some thoughtful comments about race, gender, science, the tech industry, alcohol, art, capitalism, and certainly other stuff and things. Given the title, I hoped there'd at least be a sentence or two about Talking Heads, but alas. 4 stars.
Nguyen's writing felt a bit flat at first, but loosened up as the book progressed. He experiments with storytelling format in ways that are largely clever and serviceable to the narrative rather than gimmicky. One of the last chapters is so well done, so incredibly fresh. Maybe it's just incredible.
Along with grief, New Waves offers some thoughtful comments about race, gender, science, the tech industry, alcohol, art, capitalism, and certainly other stuff and things. Given the title, I hoped there'd at least be a sentence or two about Talking Heads, but alas. 4 stars.
Read
December 8, 2024Ending was good! I usually don’t like endings bc it feels drawn out but this wasn’t the case for new waves.
July 31, 2022
so so so good!!! good commentary about working in tech/at a startup and race. i liked the little details which make the narrative very realistic n relatable
March 30, 2020
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of
New Waves.
I was intrigued by the premise, and because the author is Vietnamese and I'm looking to read more books by authors of color.
Lucas and Margo are friends; he is an underachieving Asian slaving away at customer service, she is the one of the few African American female computer programmers.
Together, they are old souls, bonded by their race, gender and societal expectations.
And, together, they concoct a scheme to get back at their unfair employer.
Revenge has never tasted so sweet.
But, when Margo dies in a tragic accident, Lucas is left floundering; no friend, hating his job and unsure of his next steps in life, wondering, "Where do I go from here?"
To be honest, I thought New Waves was a murder mystery, but it was something more, something deeper, perhaps too philosophical for what I was really looking for.
It was hard to like Lucas. I didn't hate him, but I didn't like him; not because he was an underachiever, but because he lacked ambition.
He didn't seem to want to do anything or demonstrate skills or talent in anything.
He spent most of his time in a dead end job, drinking himself senseless (more so after Margo's death), and just living, not thriving.
There are many themes in this book, not the least being race, companionship, how technology has made society less communicative and sociable, not more; the pros and cons of social media, grief, sorrow and feeling like an outsider in a society that has you typecast a certain mold just because of your gender and race.
The writing is great, and the short sci-fi stories that pop up remind the reader the type of person Margo was, though the appearance of the stories could be distracting to some readers, throwing them out of the main narrative.
I felt the characters lacked individuality; in fact, they sounded hollow, especially Lucas.
Why should I care about him when he barely cares about himself?
I wasn't sure what the author was trying to say; there are a lot of themes and each get lost in the shuffle.
I enjoyed the writing, and the author clearly had a lot to say, but there was a lot of heavy topics and none of them were fully fleshed out.
This was an ambitious debut and I look forward to the author's next book.
I was intrigued by the premise, and because the author is Vietnamese and I'm looking to read more books by authors of color.
Lucas and Margo are friends; he is an underachieving Asian slaving away at customer service, she is the one of the few African American female computer programmers.
Together, they are old souls, bonded by their race, gender and societal expectations.
And, together, they concoct a scheme to get back at their unfair employer.
Revenge has never tasted so sweet.
But, when Margo dies in a tragic accident, Lucas is left floundering; no friend, hating his job and unsure of his next steps in life, wondering, "Where do I go from here?"
To be honest, I thought New Waves was a murder mystery, but it was something more, something deeper, perhaps too philosophical for what I was really looking for.
It was hard to like Lucas. I didn't hate him, but I didn't like him; not because he was an underachiever, but because he lacked ambition.
He didn't seem to want to do anything or demonstrate skills or talent in anything.
He spent most of his time in a dead end job, drinking himself senseless (more so after Margo's death), and just living, not thriving.
There are many themes in this book, not the least being race, companionship, how technology has made society less communicative and sociable, not more; the pros and cons of social media, grief, sorrow and feeling like an outsider in a society that has you typecast a certain mold just because of your gender and race.
The writing is great, and the short sci-fi stories that pop up remind the reader the type of person Margo was, though the appearance of the stories could be distracting to some readers, throwing them out of the main narrative.
I felt the characters lacked individuality; in fact, they sounded hollow, especially Lucas.
Why should I care about him when he barely cares about himself?
I wasn't sure what the author was trying to say; there are a lot of themes and each get lost in the shuffle.
I enjoyed the writing, and the author clearly had a lot to say, but there was a lot of heavy topics and none of them were fully fleshed out.
This was an ambitious debut and I look forward to the author's next book.
May 15, 2020
*** Note: I received e-copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to PRHGlobal for free copy. ***
New Waves was general fiction that revolved around two friends Margo and Lucas, Lucas discovering more about Margo after her death, and coping with grief and loss. It was about technology and start up tech companies in 2000s, music, work and living in New York, and mainly friendship, loss and grief, racism at workplace and in society.
Writing was crisp and intriguing, both serious and witty at some point while trivial on another. It felt like I was reading documentary. Now from synopsis I guessed this might be a mystery, a techno thriller, (who tagged it mystery on Goodreads!) I thought Margo died because of data they stole or to keep Lucas safe or something. But that’s misleading. There is no mystery in this book, not anything like thriller. So don’t just get the book thinking you will have a mystery to solve. It is a pretty simple fiction about loss and grief and companionship.
There were many layers in this book– technology and startup tech companies, misuse of internet and social media (This part was both serious and entertaining); Asian-American culture and discrimination they faced, gender inequality and companionship.
Overall, New Waves was different read than usual. Some things I like, some I didn’t but definitely very observant fiction. This can be hit or miss so read excerpt first.
Read full review on my book blog by following link- https://booksteacupnreviews.com/2020/...
New Waves was general fiction that revolved around two friends Margo and Lucas, Lucas discovering more about Margo after her death, and coping with grief and loss. It was about technology and start up tech companies in 2000s, music, work and living in New York, and mainly friendship, loss and grief, racism at workplace and in society.
Writing was crisp and intriguing, both serious and witty at some point while trivial on another. It felt like I was reading documentary. Now from synopsis I guessed this might be a mystery, a techno thriller, (who tagged it mystery on Goodreads!) I thought Margo died because of data they stole or to keep Lucas safe or something. But that’s misleading. There is no mystery in this book, not anything like thriller. So don’t just get the book thinking you will have a mystery to solve. It is a pretty simple fiction about loss and grief and companionship.
There were many layers in this book– technology and startup tech companies, misuse of internet and social media (This part was both serious and entertaining); Asian-American culture and discrimination they faced, gender inequality and companionship.
Overall, New Waves was different read than usual. Some things I like, some I didn’t but definitely very observant fiction. This can be hit or miss so read excerpt first.
Read full review on my book blog by following link- https://booksteacupnreviews.com/2020/...
July 13, 2020
Marketing this one as a “heist novel” does it a huge disservice. Yes, there is a heist at its beginning, but this is much more a story of grief excavation (following the narrator as he learns about his dead friend by going through her computer), and transference of that grief into a crappy relationship, and early 2010s startup culture, and race. I really enjoyed it and looked forward to picking it up again whenever I had to put it down to do other life things. But I was NOT in any way propelled by a mystery or by action; rather, from enjoying the time spent with these characters in the startup world. It makes me sad that readers looking for mystery or crime driven plot will (rightly) be disappointed to not find that, because this book is great in its own right.
One nitpick I had: the narrator, Lucas, works in customer support for a messaging platform that erases messages after a short amount of time to protect user privacy.
One nitpick I had: the narrator, Lucas, works in customer support for a messaging platform that erases messages after a short amount of time to protect user privacy.
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