Damani is young, queer, Sri Lankan, mourning the death of her father, trying to deal with a mother who is falling apart, and employed in the gig economy. Driving through the streets of a town full of protests (I kept getting a Portland vibe), she is just trying to keep her head down, tips up, and make enough each day to support herself and her mom. You can feel the tension in her character. Damani doesn't have the time to deal with all these issues outside of her own family and paying the bills. A bit of a humorous detour is her constant obsession with weight lifting. Her body is the only thing she has control over and she holds it, tightly. Things come to a head when Damani meets Jolene, a young rich entitled white woman who thinks she is doing all the right things and is obviously proud of their interracial relationship. But while Damani is dreaming of weekends at vacation homes (and how she will make up the missed fares), can Jolene move past her performative allyship to form an actual supportive relationship? I didn't read Taxi Driver so I can't offer a comparison. What I read was the convergence of a critique of the gig economy where the people actually doing the work get very little of the profits and are held to incredibly high standards, a city trying to express itself and right some systemic wrongs, and a young woman caught in the middle of all that and trying to find something for herself, even if she doesn't have time to stop and enjoy it. That's a lot.

Damani is doing what she can to keep her head- and her mother's- above water. She's driving a rideshare for as many hours as possible to pay the rent on a basement apartment in a house they once owned as well as to keep the lights on, and she's caring for a mother who won't go outside. Her friends are trying to organize drivers but Damani is really too busy and she's watched all the other protests, led by people carrying expensive coffee and wearing matching designer clothes. And then one day she meets Jo and her life turns upside down. You'll recognize Jo, who is a catalyst for more than she expects. Guns has written a novel with a strong character with a distinctive voice who will make you think. The tiny portraits of her riders are wonderful. If the ending feels a little wild, well, so does Damani's life at times. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's terrific and sly social commentary- and it's also a great read.

I am not the reader for this book. I hope someone is, because the concept is honestly pretty cool: Girl drives for an Uberesque company in a city rocked by social protest, falls in misplaced loves, then falls apart. If the pace had been faster or the writing better, I probably would have been a fan. I don't mind a leisurely traipse through a character's brain as long as that brain is interesting; similarly, I can deal with imperfect characterization if the story spins fast enough. Your Driver Is Waiting takes over 150 pages to reach the central conflict, though, and before that very little actually happens. Damani is sick of driving, sick of caring for her sick mother, sick of being taken advantage of, but also peripheral to the protests and organizing happening around her. Mostly she complains, fantasizes about a love affair that feels doomed from the start, and issues genuinely bizarre comparisons like this one about coffee and cigarettes: "They made love in my mouth like it was New Year's Eve and they had no resolutions." By the end of the book, when Damani and her friends are horribly betrayed, it's hard to marshal sympathy for her or to fathom the emotional logic underlying her response. Your Driver Is Waiting has a thoughtful perspective on race, capitalism, and the gig economy, but ultimately I couldn't get over the awkwardness of the narrative voice.

I did not think I was going to like this book. I wasn't sure about the writing style but once I realized the rhythm and the tone, I couldn't stop reading.

Damani is a driver for a rideshare app, picking up passengers who, for the most part, are terrible people. She is pretty much poor, trying to get as many rides as possible to pay the bills. Her father has died and her mother is still living in her grief. Damani and her mother live in the basement of their former home, the ultimate insult. Protests are pretty much everywhere, with people fighting for equality for so many different reasons. This story could be the real world.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, imo), Damani meets Jolene, a rich white woman who thinks she's an ally. Things seem to be going well until a miscommunication (or overreaction) causes Jolene to do the unthinkable (although if you've been paying attention to the news, not surprising). Damani is confused and devastated, leading her to make some wild choices in her search for answers.

This book is a wild ride. Damani is a very interesting character who makes some very questionable choices, especially after Jolene's betrayal. I am a realist so I wasn't surprised about what Jolene did because women like her do stuff like that all the time in the real world. Jolene's attitude after the betrayal gave me a visceral reaction, and I wanted Damani to take her down somehow. You'll have to read the book to find out if she does.

This is a solid debut by Priya Guns (amazing name) and I definitely look forward to more work by her. I would definitely recommend this book to my readers.

OK, I am obsessed with this book! I had no idea what I was in for when I opened this one up but I really enjoyed every single bit of it. The wry, snarky narrative voice works *so* well and really feels like a full-fleshed character in the book, which can be truly tough to pull off. I love how this book tackles so many timely things at once--race, class, poverty, generational trauma, caretaking, queer community (both inspiring and disappointing!!), etc. I was really, really delighted to see such awesome and nuanced bi rep, including discussions of presenting more masc/butch, weight litfting, etc. I can't wait until everyone reads this one so we can discuss, and frankly I want to see it made into an HBO series too.

I've never seen Taxi Driver, so it's possible that contributed to my lack of enjoyment with this book. The story was just a bit too rushed for me and I had a difficult time picturing certain scenes and characters. While I do think it's a very important topic to write and read about, I just didn't connect with it. I think the right type of reader will really love this one, it just didn't hit home for me.

I am a huge Martin Scorcese fan and (rightfully) believe Taxi Driver is his best film, but Your Driver is Waiting - a gender-flipped ode to the iconic 70s film - may just be better. At the very least, Damani, a brown, queer woman struggling in a gig economy, has a lot more to be angry about than Travis Bickle ever did.

The book covers some dark topics, but still packs plenty of laughs and has a lot to say about the current state of the world - the suffering and the white guilt that does nothing to help. The pacing is tight and I sped through the book in a weekend. Guns has a knack for creating specific characters and relationships that feel worn in an economical amount of time.

Read if you like: Taxi Driver (duh), white tears, sweating, complicated mother/daughter dynamics

YOUR DRIVER IS WAITING is TAXI DRIVER for the gig economy, and it ratchets up all the desperation, all the fury, and all the despair of Scorsese's masterpiece while telling a boldly original story. Priya Guns balances a devastating story about those barely getting by at the margins of late capitalism with equally devastating humor. The writing here is a marvel, and Guns is a voice from whom I can't wait to see more.

3.5/5
Your Driver is Waiting is a fresh social satire. I enjoyed the premise of the book and the inclusion of today's "hot topics." I do not think I went into this book with the right mindset. I have never seen Taxi Driver, so I do not know if that would have helped me understand more of where the book was headed or not. Labeled as "funny" I was expecting more humor. I didn't really find it funny per se, but I did enjoy the interactions among the characters and the very realistic descriptions of everyday life for these characters. This book is dark and a little hard to read at times, but I think has a very powerful message about today's society.

Such an incredible voice. Stylistic, but not difficult to read, which made an already super fast-paced book even more of a page-turner. Guns is also excellent at creating a deep sense of dread. I found myself anxious the whole time I was reading this, and then of course the story starts to take turns that are both frustrating and thrilling.

I wish the book had been a tad less claustrophobic. It has so much to say about fake-allyship and white women who use people of color for cred and then do them irreparable harm, but I think the insular focus on Damani’s wish for an answer and the obsession that sort of made the book feel too narrow at the end there. At least for me. I really appreciate the author deciding to focus single-handedly on this queer woman of color, but I guess the set-up was so effective I was expecting a more explosive, satisfying end. Still a great debut, and I can’t wait to see what Guns writes next.

Not at all what I expected, but I’m also not familiar with the media this book is compared to. An important commentary not only on the h sustainability of gig work, but also the oft-shallowness of allyship, protesting for “cred,” and so many other very real and current topics. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

This novel while being based on the movie Taxi Driver felt entirely unique.

You really feel the stress and desperation that the main character Damani feels as the plot progresses and you go on that journey with her; even though you know it can’t turn out well.

I definitely recommend to one to anyone loving books with unreliable main characters or thought-provoking fiction critiquing our society as a whole.

This has a decent premise, but I just wasn’t engaged by the book. It seemed to want to balance grit with comedy, and I don’t think it did it in a way that worked for me.

Damani is a Sri Lankan rideshare driver in the city, struggling to make ends meet and being crushed under the weight of late stage capitalism. She's exhausted and jaded, but manages to put on a happy face to her passengers for the sake of her 5 star driver rating. When she meets Jolene, a well meaning socialite, she finds herself enraptured and completely taken in by Jo's charm. Jo offers Damani an escape from the stressors of her life and in return, Damani is willing to put some red flags to the side for Jo. But when Jolene does something Damani can't forgive, an explosive chain of events unfolds

I thought this was great and really thought provoking, though it did take me a bit to get a feel for Damani as far as who she was as a person at her core. As a woman of color, the reader gets a feel for how she is required to code switch between each of her personal relationships as well as her rideshare customers. It gives a very real look at living in poverty or close to it, white saviorism, and "woke" activism. My one critique is that there was a lot of emphasis placed on this one "big event" that happens, and in truth it doesn't occur until pretty far into the book. However, the writing was solid and the plot was interesting and off-beat.

Thanks so much to Doubleday Books as well as Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book ahead of its March 2023 release in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Damani, a driver on one of the rideshare apps, is struggling. Not only is her life offtrack- her bills are piling up, her mother is still reeling after the loss of her husband and is stuck in a depressive Episode that keeps her locked inside their dingy basement apartment, and her employer is exploiting her and her fellow drivers- but after meeting a mysterious woman she completely falls for , she must reconcile her attraction to her while pushing the rights of those in the fringe of society forward.


I found this book entertaining and read through it fairly quickly which is why I gave it 4/5. There was a good amount of social commentary mainly about white privilege and corporations exploiting minorities. I also liked that it had some lesbian/bi representation which is something I’m looking forward to in the books I read in 2023. If you enjoyed MY SISTER THE SERIAL KILLER And THE OTHER BLACK GIRL, this book is for you! Out 2/28/23 !

Full of gripping social commentary, Your Driver Is Waiting is far less thriller than it is an internal dialogue of that particular anger you get when the world is so clearly stacked against you. It's a look into how dangerous it can be to help people when you have no idea about their situations and experiences. It's a big reminder that even the best intentions can have dire consequences if you stop listening first.

I found myself completely lost in the commentary, this is a story told in tangents and biting metaphors. Somehow all wrapped together to make a cohesive story. Delightful!

This one was just ok! A re-telling of TAXI DRIVER for the Uber generation, perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had actually seen the source material. It's a very interestingly written novel by Priya Guns. It takes some time to get into the flow of the writing, and to understand what our heroine Damani is all about. It's a tough book - Damani is stuck driving for a ride-share app similar to Uber, but also in a futuristic/other worldly time where protests are happening constantly in this un-named city. She is also trying to keep her life afloat, as well as taking care of her disabled Mother shortly after her Father's death. It's a mood read, as there isn't too much plot, but the book does pick up once she meets Jolene and starts a brief but ultimately doomed affair with this passenger of hers (that she first meets after hitting her with her car). Off-beat and different, this book isn't for everyone but your patience may be rewarding if it speaks to you.

Intense, gritty, and fast-paced. Loved all the side stories of her passengers. Such an interesting format. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it and think it had important and relevant representation that needs to be shared.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Your Driver is Waiting!
This story is about Damani, who is a ride sharing driver and her adventures with the passengers.
There were topics discussing social and political issues that were touched on and brought a powerful meaning to the novel.
I loved the sense of humor in this book, had me cracking up!

I did not finish this book. Ultimately, I think that this book wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy the humor, and the pacing was meandering.