Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

🕳️ A Hustler’s Descent Through the Algorithmic Abyss

In The Hypebeast, Adnan Khan delivers a razor-sharp, genre-blurring novel that reads like a fever dream of late capitalism, spiritual hunger, and the seductive power of spectacle. It’s a gritty, propulsive story about a small-time con artist who stumbles into a world where faith, fraud, and fame are indistinguishable—and it’s one of the most unsettlingly relevant novels of the year.

🧠 Premise: Scam Culture Meets Spiritual Crisis

Hamid Shaikh is a hustler. Tax fraud, telemarketing scams, government grifts—he’s done it all. But when his girlfriend Natalie disappears and he’s drawn into the orbit of Abdul Mohammad—a former Guantanamo detainee turned social-media imam—Hamid finds himself in a new kind of hustle. Abdul’s organization claims to help ex-detainees reintegrate into society, but beneath the surface lies a murky blend of religious fervor, influencer culture, and capitalist ambition.

As Hamid is pulled deeper into Abdul’s curated world of luxury and redemption, he must confront the question: is he being saved, or sold?

🧬 Themes: Identity, Exploitation, and the Mirage of Meaning

Khan’s novel is a scathing exploration of how identity—especially Muslim identity—is commodified in the digital age. Abdul is both savior and salesman, a man who weaponizes trauma and faith for clicks and capital. Hamid, meanwhile, is a cipher: a man so desperate to belong that he’ll believe in anything that promises transcendence.

The novel also interrogates masculinity, displacement, and the performance of authenticity. It’s a story about the hunger for meaning in a world that rewards spectacle over substance—and how easily that hunger can be manipulated.

🧨 Style: Fragmented, Ferocious, and Fearlessly Contemporary

Khan’s prose is jagged and electric, mirroring Hamid’s fractured psyche. The narrative slips between timelines—childhood trauma, present-day schemes, and surreal interludes that blur the line between memory and hallucination. It’s a risky structure, but Khan pulls it off with confidence, creating a rhythm that feels both chaotic and intentional.

There are echoes of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West and the noir grit of Attica Locke, but Khan’s voice is wholly his own: urgent, unflinching, and deeply attuned to the contradictions of modern life.

👤 Characters: Flawed, Fluid, and Fatally Human

- Hamid Shaikh is a fascinating antihero—equal parts cynic and seeker. His moral compass is broken, but his emotional core is raw and real.
- Abdul Mohammad is a masterfully drawn enigma. Charismatic, dangerous, and disturbingly plausible, he embodies the novel’s central tension: is he a prophet or a predator?
- Natalie Mendoza, though absent for much of the novel, haunts the story like a ghost—her disappearance a catalyst for Hamid’s unraveling.

🧭 Final Thoughts: A Mirror and a Warning

The Hypebeast is not a comfortable read—but it’s a necessary one. It holds a mirror to a world where belief is branded, trauma is monetized, and the line between redemption and exploitation is razor-thin. Khan doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, he offers a story that pulses with urgency, complexity, and a deep, aching humanity.

For readers who crave fiction that challenges, provokes, and refuses to look away, The Hypebeast is a must-read.

This novel takes us into an underbelly I've never seen explored in literature before, a diaporic, criminal underbelly of gauche wealth, scraping for wealthy overlords, and a crime circle that begins with the theft of a jaguar (the hype-beast of the title). It's a really unique precinct, though I did struggle with the protagonist, who I found so irredeemable that I didn't root for him. I'm interested to see what this author writes next but this wasn't my favourite.

This book reminds me of the novels I’d read in high school for literature class or the types of stories that would enter into traditional writing competitions and win. It’s perfectly serviceable but not memorable. I like the way it pays attention to culture and how a group of young people navigate it to find themselves in some way. Gorgeous cover too.

*Thank you A. Khan and Dundurn Press/Rare Machines for, The Hypebeast ARC. My opinions are my own.

I enjoyed aspects of this book, but it predominately felt like a struggle to get through. I kept hoping for something "more" to happen, and although the ending made sense but I wanted a more fulfilling ending, I guess? It just wasn't my cup of tea overall but again, the cultural and historical aspects were enlightening and rounded out the story for me. It was also not the most uplifting story, so that may have impacted the reading as well, but I would like the thank NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this ARC before publication!

While 'The Hypebeast' can be read due to the brilliant portrayal of its protagonist, it fails to connect to the issues it wanted to address with any coherence. The plot, which is overlong and meandering at times, makes it tedious in many parts.

I think it’s always going to be hard to rate a book with such unlikable characters fairly, but I did love the prose!
Even though I was rooting for absolutely no one, I did feel empathy for all. Trauma and wealth disparity is going to make people make questionable decisions. This book was a series of questionable decisions all leading to…..
well, that was the disappointing part to me. I didn’t know what they were trying to say.

There was a lot about this book that I really liked. I liked the reflection on trauma and how differently people can react to it. I liked the learning I got from this book, specifi ally about India's Muslim history. I liked the main character, despite his many faults and questionable decisions. I'm still unsure why I liked him, but I did....maybe it was because of his pursuit of love amongst all else.

It was very violent-big TW around torture and murder.

The myth of wealth at all costs leaves no way out, especially if you are the son of Indian immigrants in Canada, who to survive had to do the most menial jobs, those that they would never have done in their own country, relegated to a servitude that is very similar to slavery. Hamid Shaikh learns this the hard way, first becoming the stooge of another Indian man's stooge, this time a really rich one, and then getting lost following a strange character, a former Guantanamo prisoner turned social media imam, who he somehow holds responsible for his girlfriend leaving him. Breaking free from these shackles is difficult, and perhaps requires a skill in crime that he doesn't have. A really interesting novel, which tells of the difficulties of young immigrants suspended between a tradition they no longer understand, and which has marked them with its mannerisms and prejudices, and a new life they still don't understand, complicated by the devastating effects of the attack on the Twin Towers.

ARC kindly provided by NetGalley. 4.5 ⭐️

In THE HYPEBEAST, Adnan Khan imagines a world where everyone is engaged in a con: long, short, self-serving, for the sake of “community.” In so doing, he shows us how gaining leverage over one another frames life as a constant and anxiety-ridden game.

Each of the characters in the book are despicable in their own right. From our protagonist (who we stay with for almost the entire story) to the woman he falls in love with, to his best friend, to their business partner, all the way up to the charismatic figure he finds himself tied up with, have their own motivations that feel true and fleshed out. But I wasn’t really rooting for anyone but Bagheera (the big cat on the cover).

I found the ending to be quite satisfying, but this isn’t a book that has an overt message, rather one that has to be sussed out for a bit. Which feels appropriate: was the whole thing a Camus-style (a-la characters being named by their ethnicity, i.e. “The Arab”) cerebral sort of journey, or was it all a con?

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the advanced copy before publication!

This book was so easy to read. The characters were all imperfect, complex people within crazy circumstances that make you never want to put it down. I felt like this book was fun and definitely unique. After reading this, I plan to go back and read the author's previous book to see if it's as good. I would reccommend this book to a friend.

This book was captivating the whole way through and I found it difficult to put down. Every character in this book is unlikeable, but it makes you want to know more about them. This book follows Hamid, a salesman turned scammer who gets caught up in a crazy situation with a social media imam.
I've never read anything like this book, it felt like a dark thriller/action movie. You just know shit is going to hit the fan over and over again. Even though the people in the book are awful, you empathize with them and want to know more about why they are the way they are. I was drawn to this writing style, you feel very much in Hamid's head space but also disconnected at times. This book is dark and intense! I could see this booking turning into a movie or tv series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the advanced copy!

This book was very much out of my comfort zone - I chose it for that very reason - and by the end of it I really enjoyed it and got some good meaning out of it.
The narration is interesting - poetic and melodic at times, disconnected and pointed at others. I realise this is an advanced reader copy, but the spacing of the paragraphs and chapters were irregular, making for a jagged reading experience, many times I couldn't tell who was speaking and characters' responses to one another felt irrelevant, like they weren't partaking in the same conversation. This improved very much throughout the book, but some lines still stood out here and there, so I wonder what the final print will look like and whether this was completely intentional. If so, I wonder why - the story itself, I feel, made its point.
The Hypebeast started rather abruptly and the first chapter is a blur to me. I struggled to find a thread to follow and started to get worried about what I had gotten myself into, but it's almost as if the style of narration changed and grew with the character, so I am glad I continued reading.
The MC and other characters' introductions throughout about the first 10 chapters were confusing, but I got a handle on them as I went. I liked that bits and pieces of characters and their appearances were dropped throughout interactions - you don't quite get a complete view upfront.
Though I was a bit confused at first, the story really fleshed out during parts 2 and 3, and part 4 brought everything home. The ending is poetic and rather satisfying, though this is one of the few books where I didn't like the MC at all.
And this might be about making-money-quick-schemes; the greed for money and the power that it brings, but I enjoyed the perspective on wrongful incarceration (oh, the irony), generational trauma and religion.
It was a completely new perspective for me; challenging and enlightening.

Thank you very much for this ARC for my honest review!

I gotta say this book gave me anxiety in the best way possible. The characters in this book are fast-talking, and just waiting to rip you off. The story follows Hamid. A small-time crook in Canada. He’s always looking to make a quick buck.

He eventually gets caught up with Abdul. A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, who is now a social media celebrity. Hamid gets sucked into his orbit, and things quickly start spiraling.

I couldn’t put this down. The author writes with intensity. The descriptions used to describe Hamid’s surroundings are top notch. You really feel like you’re along for this ride. I can’t say enough good things any this book. I don’t think it would be my cup of tea, but it was just tense. And there is also some real depth to it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the advanced copy of this! Awesome stuff!