An enjoyable if flawed read.

Let’s start with the good stuff: i loved Rahmani’s fluid, introspective writing, and she gives us a heroine who is as easy to root for as they come. I also loved the protagonist’s discussion of her academic work and how she tried to apply it to her personal life.

Where this book falls a bit short is mostly about the jarring tone shift mid-novel that leaves one feeling like they’ve read two books about the same character written by two different authors with two very different agendas for both message and tone. Instead of a natural progression into heavier material, the book just makes a giant, discordant leap in tone and subject matter, and it doesn’t work as a cohesive story.

The book also isn’t truly funny, which makes the publisher’s summary a bit misleading. The summary also leans heavily on the first half of the book (the superior half, in my opinion), which makes the leap the second half takes even more jarring and inapt.

Still, I love the way Rahmani writes inner monologue, as well as the way she ruminates on the difficulty of squaring disparate cultural values, be they your own, your parents’, or your broader world’s.

This definitely was not for me. I felt like I started a book in the middle and had to figure it all out as I went. Disjointed and boring. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this copy for read and review

Unfortunately, this was not a book for me. I thought that it would be more similar to Elif Batuman's style due to the comp, but I wouldn't agree with that. It's about 50% Batuman, 50% Derrida. I can tolerate a lot of academic jargon, improbably plotting, and unlikable characters, but not all at once. The premise was interesting, but there was a lot of just dumping of family history and half-formed witticisms on selfhood until the main tragedy-- but that occurs SEVENTY percent into the book!! Pacing was off, plotting was thin, and all in all just too predictable. Thank you for letting me read this, though! I'd love to read her in the future.

This was quite the ride. I didn't always like reading this book, but it did make me feel things, and ended up being very immersive. It took me a little to get into -- this is very literary, in a way that I think I haven't read in quite a while and worried I wasn't in the right place for. That, combined with the character being a pretty unlikable mess, I was unsure of what I would end up feeling about this. I'm really glad I stuck with it, though. As other reviews have said, things really change halfway through the book. But, it's not a stark contrast in the sense that it feels like a different character. For me, it's a very natural evolution, and it always feels like the same voice, just a voice under very different circumstances. Things wrapped up in a very un-literary way, which may not suit some readers, but for me it was a welcome payoff. And, she warns you with the subtitle.
This book is also very quotable, and I found myself writing a few things down. At the beginning it felt a little overwritten, but I was won over by the end.

Liquid was an interesting read for me, I thought it was beautifully written with a unique perspective, but it didn’t fully click for me. The themes of identity, capitalism, and fluidity were fascinating, and I appreciated the experimental style, but at times, it felt a bit too abstract for me to fully connect with. Still, there were moments of brilliance, and I can see why it would really resonate with others. A solid 3.5 stars!

• always thinking herself the smartest person in every room, the book’s unnamed narrator decides to go on 100 dates to find herself a rich spouse when she’s unable to create the life she imagined two years after getting her phd. but when tragedy strikes in tehran, she suddenly finds herself in the middle of a familial reckoning, altering every plan she had for herself.
• this book is told in two very distinct parts, that at first felt disjointed, but ultimately i found satisfying paired with the narrator’s voice.
• while the ‘a love story’ subtitle might seem disingenuous at first, i do think this book worked well as a story of a woman seeking ‘love’ to secure financial security, as well as an examination of her parents’ marriage.

This book is good but not what I expected and where I expected a love story ( according to the title ) it was more of a cultural study and self exploration. Certainly an interesting look at cultural identity , love, marriage and sexuality

My rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book was not as strong as I had hoped, but in other ways it soars above the usual literary fiction. The writing was at times quite beautiful and clearly written by someone with great emotional and scholastic intelligence. Other times it lost me and I felt totally removed. I think this is due to the relationship with the protagonist feeling so distant - I never truly knew her, even in the second half where we experience great loss alongside her. I lost a parent recently and felt the topic was not explored well or even used as a tool to help us understand the main character. It mostly served to place her in a situation where she had to choose between LA or Tehran - but we never got her insight into the benefits or challenges of either. It felt like a very passive read, though at times it would deliver a killer line.

Liquid by Mariam Rahmani is the story of an Iranian woman young woman who has recently completed her PhD and is trying to establish a life in Los Angeles. In the first half of the book, she struggles with trying to find stable, meaningful employment and with finding a partner. In the second half of the book she travels to Iran for a family emergency.

I generally like this genre that includes coming of age, identity and learning about different cultures. I had a hard time getting immersed into this book. I finished it, but was never really engaged with the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book. The cover is immaculate, and I'm always down for a debut novel. However, this one just didn't land for me. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

The narrator, frustrated with life in academia, vows to go on 100 dates over the summer and secure a marriage proposal by the fall semester. Her best friend Adam, in the midst of getting over a breakup, is along for the ride and obviously in love with her.

The beginning of this book has promise. I really liked the idea of breaking the story up by each date, but that format didn't last long. In fact, I felt only about ten percent of the book focused on the 100 dates storyline, which was disappointing. I genuinely love intellectual novels about academia, but that wasn't what I was expecting from this. There were certain paragraphs where the narrator talks about her research or something similar and it lost me completely. However, there were several pieces of this book that I enjoyed, mainly regarding the narrator's escapades with her dates and Adam, so I will still give it 3/5 stars.

💕Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani📊

✨Release Date: March 11th✨

This will easily be one of my favorite books of the year! It’s not only witty and scathing and satirical, but also filled with gorgeous insights about modern dating, family, grief and belonging.

From the first page, I loved the main character and was completely locked in for her all her ill-advised (mis)adventures.

The novel follows a recent PhD graduate who is (reasonably) frustrated by her career prospects and decides to focus on marrying rich instead. She fills her summer with 100 dates across genders, continents & socioeconomic statuses, tracking it all in a handy excel spreadsheet (which my ex-private equity analyst self could not help but mentally format for her).

Her sexcapades are at times laugh-out-loud funny, but also offer a sharp critique of the capitalist hellscape we all participate in & the sacrifices that requires. One of the funniest moments to me was when, after about twenty dates, the narrator realizes that marrying rich will require abandoning her class politics.

On a more personal note, I was very happy to see so many references to Armenian food, culture & neighborhoods in this book. It’s very rare & special!

I also thought the narrator’s PhD research about the differing views on the role of marriage in Eastern and Western cultures was masterfully and accessibly woven through the plot to add depth & context to her journey of self-discovery. And I was dying at her love-hate relationship with the friends-to-lovers trope in film & her (true to form) refusal to admit what had been right in front of her all along.

I could keep going, but ill spare you. The stunning cover should be enough to convince you to pick this one up all on your own!

A touching story of love, loss, and dual citizenship. The protagonist moves across continents as she tries to find her place in the world, almost liquid how she ebbs and flows, looking for a place to settle. Really lovely, lyrical writing and a compelling story of postdoc malaise.

As career and romance prospects dry up for the unnamed narrator of “Liquid,” the 31-year-old decides to marry rich. The narrator uniquely understands the benefits of “refreshingly clear terms: my time, his money” since her Ph.D. dissertation critiqued modern marriages based on feelings, as opposed to traditional Western and Islamic marriages treated as contracts. She tasks herself with going on 100 dates that summer with the academic rigor of a research project. This rom-com infused with sharp literary prose muses on the ridiculous indignities of modern courtship, the nuances of Persian literature, and the thoughtful contrast between the narrator’s despondent (yet hopeful) descent into American independence and her parents’ hard-won career paths as Iranian and Indian immigrants. Author Mariam Rahmani serves on the faculty at Bennington College.

READ IF YOU LIKE...
• Scholarly and academic insightfulness
• Finding your way from rock bottom
• Dating adventures

I THOUGHT IT WAS...
A novel of unexpected depth that I greatly appreciated. Two years after earning her Ph.D., our unnamed Iranian-Indian American protagonist is on the verge of broke, living in L.A. with no teaching or publishing prospects. When her best friend jokingly suggests she just marry rich, she decides to give it an earnest shot, creating a plan, a spreadsheet, and a goal to go on 100 dates before hopefully being engaged by fall.

There are two major parts to this novel and the biggest thing that stuck out to me was how different they are from each other. I think overall I liked the tone and writing shift -- especially since it became a catalyst for the protagonist's character development -- but there's something about it that also nags at me. Perhaps the change was too abrupt, right on the edge of out-of-character for the protagonist we'd gotten to know so far.

The first part reads like what you'd expect for a novel about a girl who decides to date rich people in L.A., with all the usual deprecating humor albeit sometimes elevated through an academic's haughty, critical gaze. While interesting, the second part of the novel is where it truly shines, exploring concepts with more gravitas like cultural identity, Third vs. First World countries, belonging, and family legacy.

Because this section was so rich, the ending felt weak as the author attempted to reconnect it with the dating project in part one. But, among all the novels out there about young women trying to find themselves, I think this one stands out for its depth and uniqueness.

Liquid by Mariam Rahmani follows an Iranian-Indian American adjunct professor in Los Angeles who, frustrated by the instability of academia, embarks on a bold experiment: going on 100 dates in a single summer with the goal of marrying rich. As she navigates a series of absurd and revealing encounters, her plan is upended by a tragedy in Tehran and a long-overdue reckoning with her own identity, forcing her to reconsider what she truly wants. Blending sharp satire with a modern romantic comedy, the novel explores ambition, privilege, and belonging with wit and originality.

I had high expectations for Liquid—it promised a fresh, sharp take on the modern love story, blending romance elements (like the friends to lovers trope) with an intellectual exploration of marriage, privilege and the immigrant experience. The premise felt new and exciting, and I was eager to see how Mariam Rahmani would weave these ideas together.

However, once I got into the book, I found myself a bit frustrated. While the novel does introduce some thought-provoking ideas about marriage, class, and ambition, they never fully develop into anything meaningful. Instead, the main character spends much of the book preaching, caught in an endless loop of self-analysis that doesn’t lead to any real transformation. Her sharp observations could have been compelling, but without character growth or a satisfying resolution to her internal conflicts, they started to feel repetitive.

By the end, I was left feeling like Liquid had all the ingredients for something great—a unique premise, a sharp voice—but ultimately, it didn’t follow through. The novel remains stuck in its own ideas without ever taking them anywhere, making for a read that felt more stagnant than satisfying.

I did not expect this book to be so sad! I came in hoping for some light-hearted dating adventures and found a story about a protagonist steeped in the conflict and confusion over what to do with her life post-PhD and find meaningful traction in her life. The idea of finding a marriage to secure her standing in life was funny, a little weird, but also relatable and I loved how this book considered different ideas of marriage, the way money does play a role for so many, and the exploration of Indian/Iranian identity. The storytelling was a bit shaky in parts and I’m not sure all the ideas blended as well as they could’ve, but I still really enjoyed this. I thought the ending was really great.

this was a really good book! I actually loved the concept, it was so entertaining! the themes of love, loss, betrayal, and heartbreak and falling in love were all so good! I think it was a well written book, and it definitely kept me entertained!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Liquid is a brainy romantic comedy, which follows an un-named PhD grad who in lieu of finding a teaching job, decides to marry rich instead. We follow the narrator on an odyssey of 100 dates -- she goes out with men and women in LA and Tehran. Rahmani is perspicacious and incisive with her humor; in Liquid, she does a great job nailing the nuances of both straight and queer dating in the twenty-first century. I often found myself laughing and nodding along with the narrator on her dates. Rahmani also a shrewd critic of place, taking both LA and Iran to task in a way that felt both familiar and fresh.

Liquid's narrator is incredibly witty in an academic sense; she always with a tragicomic quip on hand to respond to any situation. After a while, though I did find that this grew a bit grating. The writing was maximalist -- a simple sentence was never chosen if a joke could be inserted instead -- and I found this fatiguing, especially in the middle of the novel. The narrator doesn't change at all until all of a sudden her life is upended unexpectedly, which did add some life to the final third of the book.

I also found the plotting of the novel to be quite clunky in places. The 100 dates premise, though very promising, seems like a wild goose chase when there is never any doubt who the narrator will end up with -- her best friend -- which is evident from the first chapter. The book also seems to be split between a romance arc and a story of self-discovery, particularly when she returns to Tehran. While I love a story that interrogates cross-cultural identity and a good love story, I felt like the balance here was off, which left Liquid feeling as though it was trying to be both but accomplished neither.

Still, I found this to be a fun read and would encourage anyone to pick it up if a story that interrogates modern love with academic humor is up your alley. There's a lot in here to love, even if sometimes for my taste, there was just a little too much.

Super unexpected, the twists this took! Not in a bad way at all, though. I especially loved the first half, and how Rahmani captured the specific hell that is dating (or even just relating with other people) in Los Angeles.

The juicy synopsis captured me into picking up Liquid: A Love Story but after reading it I think it was misrepresented. Going in I was expecting a sensual romp through LA, which delivered in the first part of the book, but the story takes a turn in a way that contrasts far from the original idea of going on 100 dates that I almost feel like it was meant to be two different books. The latter part book was more reflective and centered on grief. The writing and the characters navigation of being biracial stepping between cultures were what I enjoyed about the book.