The novel offers a scathing critique of the way stories of struggle and disadvantage are often commodified and exploited for personal gain. Javier's journey highlights the pitfalls of performative actions and the insidious nature of privilege in a society that often fetishizes trauma.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.

This was a fun one to read. It's a satire on identity politics and being performative, and it goes deep into how we concoct these narratives about our lives based on how we want other people to see us. I found it to be quite the compelling read.

This book was unfortunately too long for me and was way too similar to a book I recently read, which unfortunately hindered my reading experience. I liked the idea more than the execution of this one.

What an interesting concept. This book and Yellowface are such interesting criticisms of DEI, performative inclusion, what types of stories are being told and the danger of stretching the truth.

The voice in this is so consistent and compelling, as well as being humorous.

As an audiobook, this worked so well too. The narrator was amazing.

I wish it would have gone a bit further but both yellowface and this novel have such ambiguous endings, which read to me as a criticism of the facade of “being cancelled,” even for morally reprehensible things like both novels lead characters display.

"𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯. 𝘈 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘴. 𝘈 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘬."

Thanks Netgalley and Doubleday for the advanced reader copy! Be prepared to have a Spanish/English dictionary ready if you’re unfamiliar with the language. At first I wasn’t sure but by chapter four I was hooked. Think a Hispanic Yellowface. It’s told by Javier in a post-cancellation memoir and you have to wonder as the story goes on, has he really learned his lesson? Is he even a reliable narrator?

Victim asks a lot of questions about privilege and entitlement, what truly constitutes as racism (does "diversity" count?), and how our socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds can often shape our futures before our lives have begun. It also reminds us of the power of truth, even the smallest morsel of it, and how we can become blind by ambition and desire when we allow those things to control us, despite initial best intentions.

"𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘮 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦."

In a lot of ways the contrast between Javier and his childhood friend Gio goes to show that though they both grew up in the same town, had the same color skin, were around the same people, that there is a difference in one’s core; their character, their motivations, and also who they allow to influence them. For Javier it was his mom and teachers and later on his girlfriend, and for Gio it was the drug dealers on the corner. And later, as Javier has experienced a privileged education and become a literary viral voice while Gio has been incarcerated and released, who really has the better outlook? Who is more honest?

I enjoyed the chapters with Mr Martin, the guidance counselor who really guides Javier into recognizing who he is and his potential; to not settle for anything less than deserved. Initially Javier is naive to the world outside that which he grew up and Anais (his girlfriend) is a bit overzealous in some of her ideologies that she shares with him, resulting in a radically different version of Javier; the one who takes the advice of Mr Martin and the influence of Anais to an extreme and exaggerates his experiences, becoming, frankly, a lying, biased schmuck. But yet, you still are hooked into the story unfolding and on edge to see how far Javier will go, and ultimately will fall.

Warnings include profanity in both languages, drug abuse, gun violence and a child witnesses a murder, teen boys watch porn, and suicide is alluded. I was really blown away by this debut and highly recommend. It’d be great as a book club pick as there is plenty to discuss, important topics that deserve more conversation, even if there may not necessarily be right/wrong answers.

Andrew Boryga’s Victim tells the story of Javi Perez, an aspiring writer and self-proclaimed “hustler” from the Bronx who discovers he can make a career by exaggerating—or sometimes completely fabricating—stories of tragedy and trauma. It begins when he’s applying for college and his white guidance counselor encourages him to pen an admissions essay that stresses how “poor” and “underserved” he and his community are. While Javi doesn’t think of himself in those terms (he and his mom were “poorish” but not poor, he says) the fabricated essay works and he learns a valuable lesson—one that he continues to rely on when writing essays for his college newspaper and, later, for a New Yorker-esque magazine called The Rag. With every viral article, Javi’s Twitter following and view count grows. But eventually his grift catches up to him, putting him at risk of being exposed.
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Victim is ambitious satire—it brought to mind books like Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and RF Kuang’s Yellowface—but I’m not convinced that it delivers fully on its premise. As a genre, satire uses irony, hyperbole, and even absurdity to exaggerate and emphasize a central truth. All of these features are present in Victim—but I had a hard time nailing down the point to which Boryga was drawing our attention. Is Victim skewering the virtue signaling of white liberalism and the sometimes-hollow “diversity initiatives” that merely pay lip service to anti-racism but don’t actually challenge systems of oppression? Is he commenting on the shallow, click-bait-y quest for online celebrity among so-called “social justice influencers”? Or is it something else? These are all possible targets of Boryga’s satire, but his overall point remains vague. And (spoiler alert!) the book’s final few pages try to implicate readers in Javi’s hustle—but this didn’t work at all for me, in part because I never found myself particularly sympathizing with his scheme and because I didn’t think Boryga adequately built toward this kind of conclusion.
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In the end, Victim just didn’t work for me—I don’t think the book accomplished what it set out to do. Even so, Boryga’s writing has a lot of promise and I’m eager to see what he does next!

i’m envisioning a college course where Victim by Andrew Boryga and Yellowface by R.F. Kuang are taught within the same curriculum and i’m jealous of the students who will get to read these books and dissect them together.

this was such an excellent debut novel and satire about performative ally ship, trauma porn, virtue signaling, and so much more. Boryga wrote this is in such a way that i was pulled in from the start and just waiting to see when and how Javi would get caught for being a fraud.

i love the formatting of how this was written, as Javi’s post cancellation memoir and it leaves you wondering, how reliable is the whole narrative? did he really truly give up fabricating stories?

Thank you for this ARC!

I really enjoyed this book! I thought that the plot was fascinating and I am really looking forward to reading more by this author.

Javi comes from a family of hustlers in the Bronx. His dad dies, his mom dishes out tough love, and his childhood best friend, Gio, goes to prison. ⁣
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When Javi finds opportunities for personal gains through diversity initiatives at college then beyond, he jumps on them. He embellishes as needed to make his points and gain traction with audiences. Javi writes an essay that goes viral and it propels him into the public eye, creating more writing opportunities. He builds on this momentum and when Gio is released, Javi asks him to participate in an interview but Gio is resistant. Everyone has a price though, right? ⁣
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Satire doesn’t always work for me — I usually find myself wanting to enjoy it more than I actually do — but it worked well in Victim. The book starts off a little slow, but still held my interest. It’s a modern story with elements of social commentary, the digital landscape, and pushing boundaries. While I didn’t necessarily like the characters, I really enjoyed reading their antics

This clever satire explores the various ways people play “the victim,” in particular Javi Perez. While going to high school in the Bronx, Javi is encouraged by a white professor to exaggerate his experience living in the city. When Javi’s embellished college essay gets him a full ride to an elite university, his continued used of “victimhood” begins.

From that description, it might sound like Javi is the example here. That he isn’t, is the genius of this novel. Almost everyone—from Javi, to his professors, to his girlfriend, to his girlfriend’s father, etc.—uses victimhood in one way or another to get ahead. The one person who seems to be the decent, honest one in Javi’s world is Gio, his childhood friend who ends up in jail for selling drugs. Boryga’s astute observations about cancel culture, campus life, and racism are expertly woven into this engaging plot. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, thinking, “When is Javi going to be found out?” If you loved Yellowface, you’ll love this one, too.

A book that drew me in kept me.racing. through the pages.Really well written satirical with Yellowface undertones.An author I will be following.#netgalley #doubleday.

The story of Javi, who dreams of being a writer. However, when he learns that bending the truth gets him more success, this leads him down a dangerous path.

I liked the writing style here, but I feel like not much happened until the last third of the book. When I got to the end and realized he (the character) was “writing” the book as his almost memoir it made sense. However, it made the first two thirds, before the true writing scandal begins, more underwhelming. If the book had expanded upon the last third more, I think I would have enjoyed it more.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Javier Perez is a good student with dreams of becoming a writer. When he meets with a school counselor to discuss college plans, he realizes that he has the kind of life that is exactly what elite schools are looking for. He is a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, his dad was a drug dealer who was murdered, his mom is a single mother living paycheck to paycheck, and his best friend is locked up for gang activity. His dreams become reality at Donlon, a prestigious, primarily white school where Javi joins the LTC, a group for minority students to discuss the racism and injustices they face on campus. Javi quickly realizes that he can weaponize the information he learns in these meetings to play up his victim hood and garner sympathy from white audiences. He writes almost entirely fabricated stories about his life for the school paper and continues to do so as a freelance writer after college. A viral essay earns Javi a job with a major magazine, but the spotlight leads to people fact checking his stories, and ultimately his downfall.

I loved this story because even though Javi is not a great person in so many ways, I was rooting for him for most of the novel. This is satire that plays on prevalent topics in today’s society such as “wokeness” and “cancel culture.” There are times it goes overboard, almost moving from satire to a caricature, but Boryga does a great job of demonstrating how quick society is to build someone up only to relish in tearing them down even faster. I thought framing the book as Javi’s memoir was a nice touch, and it leaves the reader wondering how much is true. Thanks to NetGalley, Doubleday, and Andrew Boryga for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Published by Doubleday on March 12, 2024

Victim is a novel that takes the form of a memoir. Javier Perez admits that he was a slacker who learned to game the system by portraying himself as a victim until his dishonesty was discovered. By telling his story in Victim, Javier is attempting to atone by being honest with himself and with the world. The novel is a nuanced look at the risks people take when they abandon intellectual honesty under the pretense of telling a larger truth.

Javier has had a tough life, but he is used to his life so he doesn’t regard it as particularly difficult. He grew up in the Bronx with a mother who worked hard and made sure he had enough to eat. He lived in a sketchy neighborhood but he learned to read the warning signs and knew when crossing the street (or running) would keep him safe. His dad was a drug dealer who was gunned down in front of Javier on one of Javier’s visits to Puerto Rico, but Javier wasn’t surprised by his father’s fate. To Javier, his life is just the way life is. He has nothing to complain about.

Unlike his friend Gio Meija, Javier is a reasonably good student. Gio clowns around in classes, insults teachers, hangs with drug dealers, drops out, and ends up in prison. Javier has a nerdish reputation because he enjoys reading. He does enough in classes to stand out in comparison to students who don’t try at all. He wants to become a famous writer and “make bank” although he hasn’t tried to write anything.

Javier attracts the attention of a roving guidance counselor who tells him how to exploit his background in an a college admissions essay. On the strength of an essay that exaggerates the hardships he has endured, Javier is given a free ride to a prestigious university in upstate New York.

Javier takes advantage of his ethnicity in college. He scores points with professors for having an authentic underprivileged experience. He milks the fact that his best friend is in prison. He meets a Latina student who is a year ahead of him. She introduces him to a campus organization for students of Latin heritage. Javier relies on his “street” experience to make it seem that he has overcome more barriers than his peers. His Latina friend begins to supplement his college education with information about systemic racism, white privilege, and America’s oppressive power structure. Javier doesn’t know many white people and those he knows have been good to him, but he parrots her teachings because he wants to get in her pants. After he also accepts her lessons about feminism, she sleeps with him and they become a couple.

Javier begins to write a column for the student newspaper. His classes have taught him about the importance of research and discipline, but that seems like too much work to Javier. His columns are superficial but are published in the interest of allowing diverse voices to be heard. To publish more, Javier begins to embellish his personal experiences. He claims that instructors have confronted him with racist attitudes. He describes a benign encounter with the police as if it were threatening.

Javier’s columns play well with his white liberal audience. He justifies his lies by telling himself he’s exposing injustices that actually exist, even if they aren’t part of his own experience. Javier thinks of himself as taking shortcuts rather than telling lies. He thinks he is exercising an artistic license to tell greater truths.

After graduation, Javier gets a job writing for a magazine. He again faces criticism for producing superficial work until he again embellishes his experiences. After Gio is released from prison, Gio calls out Javier for the lies he tells. Gio knows that Javier didn’t grow up eating unhealthy fast food that capitalists sell to exploit the poor — an article Javier’s editor assigned after a story broke that portrayed the Bronx as a third-world community where healthy food was unavailable. Gio knows that Javier’s mother served rice and beans with fresh food — her meals were “the bomb.”

Javier ultimately alienates both Gio and his college girlfriend by portraying them in articles with half-truths. Gio knows that Javier was never recruited to join a gang — Javier is too soft. Gio knows that he did not have an epiphany about being a victim because of his post-prison talks with Javier. Gio has never seen himself as a victim. He knows that people who define themselves as victims make their whole life about victimization. Gio doesn’t want any part of such a confining identity. He regards it as “just another trap,” no better than prison.

Yet Javier doesn’t want to embrace Gio’s demand for honesty. Unsurprisingly, Javier eventually learns a lesson when his dishonesty blows up his life.

There have been well-publicized incidents of journalists falsifying sources or fabricating facts to make a larger point. While the point may have merit, supporting it with lies only undermines the truth the journalist is trying to prove. The social justice issues that Javier writes about have merit, but his lack of intellectual rigor and his reliance on fabrications only harms his cause. Victim makes that point effectively.

An equally important point is that people gain attention and sympathy by portraying themselves as victims or by exaggerating their victimization. This is true across the spectrum of race and political beliefs. That the media crave stories about victims only encourages people to self-identify as victims rather than working to overcome any harm they experienced. People too often use the label “victim” as an excuse for their failure to do their best — at work, in school, in relationships. Javier’s life might have been difficult compared to more affluent students at his university, but he never thinks of himself as a victim until he realizes that playing the victim card attracts attention, sympathy, and opportunities he hasn’t earned.

Even if Victim is viewed as satire, Javier’s story might be a bit simplistic or heavy-handed. Still, fiction can use exaggeration to expose truth even if journalism can’t. The novel is not written in an elegant style, although that might be a function of Javier's voice. Javier doesn't come across as a writer who would take the time to polish his prose. Victim is engaging and it addresses issues surrounding the exploitation of victimization that are too rarely explored. Those are good reasons to read the novel.

RECOMMENDED

A hilarious, poignant, sharp romp that gets at something very topical and real. I loved this book, it's characters. Andrew Boryga is the real deal. Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley.

Victim was a great exploration of what diversity means and how it can be manipulated to make someone more "worthy". I liked the writing overall and it kept me engaged

Fans of Yellowface, this 5 star debut novel is your next read! Our main character, Javi, grew up in the Bronx in a single mother household (his Dad was a drug dealer who was murdered) with a best friend who fell in with the wrong crowd. Javi discovers at a young age that he can take advantage of his disadvantaged background to get ahead…both in his education and in his writing career after college. So, he does just that by exaggerating and outright lying in his work to disastrous results. It’s juicy, discussable, and Boryga's writing pulls you right in. Boryga, himself from the Bronx, says this is a story about the commoditization of people from marginalized backgrounds, but it’s also about tokenism and the giant chasm between online life and real life. I loved the combination of satirical humor, biting social commentary, and heart, which softened the somewhat dislikable protagonist.

A funny and propulsive satire about the commodification of identity; in conversation with *Yellowface* and *American Fiction/Erasure*.

I like that Victim and American Fiction portray a POC main character recognizing the weird system of weaponized identity politics and playing it because it implicitly asks the white lib audiences who eat up trauma porn why they love it so much. This is a different conflict than the one *Yellowface* deals with—a white person co-opting another identity.

It’s a nuanced issue which Boryga shines light on and it’s nice that it’s acknowledged that there isn’t an easy answer. So much of this book and so many of its characters had me going, “Well… yes, but also *no,*” the whole time I was reading which was sometimes hilarious and sometimes painful (in a good way).

It also feels very modern in how much Javi’s grift had to do with the attention economy—clicks, tweets, shares, etc—and this pervasive (inaccurate) idea that the conversations happening on twitter are necessarily representative of the real world and its issues.

The ending was such a fun note to leave us with. Javi revealing the purpose of this book calls into question how truthful he’s really was, especially since he just spent a whole novel detailing his willingness to lie.

Very fun, very thoughtful, recommend.

Went into this one not knowing what to expect and enjoyed it so much more than I could have known. I loved the Yellowface-like vibes and the very now therms and concept. Really well done.

Pacing and voice are two things I often think authors struggle with and Andrew Boryga, a debut author, hits it out of the park on both fronts. I immediately believed Javi's story (which is ironic considering the choices the character makes later) and I never once felt bored. The character development was very well-done. I love when you don't understand a cover picture going in and half way through the story it makes complete sense. Thank you to Net Galley and Doubleday Books for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I will be on the lookout for other work by Boryga in the future.