Advanced listener copy courtesy of netgalley- This was a book I was really excited to read. I felt very attached to the protagonist. Her struggles to find a rich partner all while struggling through a career in academia, as a child of immigrants felt very real. I thought it was pretty funny too.
The narrator was great too! I liked her voice.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the advanced listening copy of Liquid! Narrated by the author herself, Rahmani brings a personal depth to the story that lingers long after the final words. Her delivery blurs the line between fiction and lived experience, making the protagonist’s journey feel all the more intimate.

At its core, Liquid follows an unnamed protagonist navigating the tension between her Iranian-Indian heritage and American upbringing. In a calculated effort to fulfill her family's expectations, she launches a dating experiment—100 dates by fall semester, with the ultimate goal of marriage. While the premise suggests a chaotic, romcom-style adventure, the book instead takes a more analytical approach. The protagonist remains emotionally detached, treating romance as an academic pursuit rather than a personal journey. When a family crisis pulls her back to Tehran, she is forced into introspection, but her abrupt realization and the book’s conclusion feel more like an intellectual shift than an organic emotional transformation.

While Liquid defies romcom conventions, it offers a compelling exploration of love, culture, and expectation. Readers looking for a heartfelt, character-driven romance may find it lacking in warmth, but those intrigued by the intersection of logic and tradition will appreciate its unique approach.

Some books defy easy categorization, and "Liquid: A Love Story" by Miriam Rahmani is one of them. Part edgy romantic comedy, part introspective drama, this novel takes a hard pivot halfway through—and while that transition is a bit jarring, I ultimately didn't mind it.

The first section drops the reader into the world of modern dating in Los Angeles. The book follows an unnamed half-Iranian woman navigating romance, relationships, and the expectations we collect from the media and society. Then, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, the novel shifts dramatically. The second half takes place in Tehran, where the narrator must focus on family, culture, and identity. It's a bold shift, and while it works in some ways, the abruptness makes the book feel like two different stories pieced together.

As much as I enjoyed the main character's perspective—an observant, sometimes wry, sometimes exasperated narrator—I didn't actually like her all that much. The book's first half meanders without a strong plot, and while I did enjoy the second half significantly more, the ending felt lacking. And not in a "quiet, contemplative" way, but in an "is that it?" kind of way.

That said, Rahmani has a sharp and witty style that often made me laugh, and there were moments that I felt on a very personal level. And the audiobook was a great option for this story. Usually, I'm wary of authors narrating their own work (it's hit-or-miss), but Rahmani gives a smart and believable performance that enhances the overall story.

While "Liquid: A Love Story" didn't entirely win me over, I enjoyed Rahmani's writing enough to want more. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever she does next.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hachette Audio, and Algonquin Books for the advanced reader's copy; all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed this sharp and witty novel. I found the narrator compelling and smart, and I very much appreciated the parallels the novel draws between dating and navigating the academic job market.

I don't know, I understand why some people might like this, but I found it a bit of a struggle.
I am not a spreadsheet girlie, I am not super analytic, I am not a data person, so maybe that is why? The audio production was fine, it was kind of dull to be honest?
High level prose, complicated thoughts on culture, love and death.

Oh I wanted to this to work for me so bad. I thought I understood what was trying to be done with this story but I'm not sure I actually do. I've seen in a few other reviews people say things like "what love story??" and I 100% agree. I cannot find one.

I'll start with the good, because I do have a few very important positives to this one:
-The spreadsheet of dates and traits about them was hilarious. Literally made me laugh out loud
-The insights about growing up Muslim and living in the US amidst the 9/11 crisis and even still to this day was so valuable, heartbreaking, and a perspective that I genuinely hope to read more of in the future. I could tell that the author poured a lot of their heart and soul into writing these things, and it doesn't go unnoticed/unappreciated. It also made me realize an unintentional gap in my reading, as I haven't read many books with characters of similar cultures and upbringings, and I will definitely be seeking out more.
-The audiobook narrator did an excellent job. While I had actually already purchased a physical copy of this book myself, I was provided a copy of the audiobook by the publisher. I almost entirely read this one listening to the audiobook and following along in the physical book, and my reading experience was definitely better for it.
-There were some absolutely beautiful and very thought provoking quotes in here. Many I cannot say due to spoilers, however a few that are early on/spoiler-free:

"There had been a single hiccup in the sentence between me and the handsome stranger, an em dash in a comma's place: he'd paused when I reached to unbutton his jeans. Clearly I wasn't the woman he thought I was, and this was not a woman's place."

"Know thyself. It seemed to me now that this, if anything, had been whispered in Eve's ear at Eden, this had caused humanity's fall. Each day on earth this edict drove us, self-knowledge an asymptote that only death would collapse."

"In my dissertation--in what, against increasingly bad odds, a part of me still hoped would be my first book--I had waged a critique of what scholars called "companionate marriage," aka the modern concept of liking the person you marry. Of being both friends and lovers. Before that, marriage was a contract. In both the West and the Islamic world, you traded goods, not feelings. Women offered sex and off-spring: men, food and shelter. (At least in theory. When the woman was the wealthy, the guy was just--around.)"


Now for the negatives:
-I don't understand the goal of this book or what story exactly was trying to be told. My first sit down to read this book I read the first ~120 pages, and when I stepped away my fiancé asked me what my book was about. My response? "I... am honestly not really sure." The second half had a bit more of a clear storyline, and I enjoyed it quite a bit more for that.
-The tone shift between the different sections of the story really threw off the flow and the pacing to me.
-I never did feel attached to any single character, probably as a result of the above.
-I feel like the "A Love Story" part of the title is unbelievably misleading and pretty much there to draw people in. And obviously I get wanting to draw people in... but I do feel like there also has to be some truth to it.
-The writing in this was bizarrely casual to the point of trying too hard. Multiple times things were described in a way that threw something very casual/oversharing into it, or the main character would have a thought but it would be said that she had this thought while using the bathroom. Literally. For example:

"Wiping my ass, I contemplated whether he hadn't been planning to propose to Julia tonight"

"It clung to me like the sand that stuck to my pubes for days, materializing on clean sheets and the wet shower floor."

It read like oversharing-with-your-bestie narration, except I didn't feel like we were besties. I just felt annoyed and confused about why this was necessary. 😅

I'm really intrigued to read more reviews as they come in on this one, as I'm still not fully sure what to make of it. For me for now: 2.5 stars rounded down.

Thanks so much to Hachette Audio | Algonquin Books and NetGalley for the ALC in exchange for an honest review!

I ordered a print copy and immediately requested the audio arc from NetGalley. Truly, I adore doing a dual read and I am so thankful to experience the audio portion.

This won't be a book for everyone. I enjoyed it. Thoroughly. Our MFC is unlikeable, unrelateable. I don't care.

This book is a firm two part. Part one describes our Iranian-American protaganist (She is unnamed throughout the book.) Her PhD defense conveys the disparity between Eastern and Western marriages. And, as a struggles post doc academic, she creates a pact with her best friend, Adam, that she attempt to marry rich in 100 dates or by end of summer. Our protagonist dates both men and women--hoping for a match. This plays as a romcom but is self indulgent in a way only a twenty something determined to marry in a short period can.

When a family tragedy strikes, our girl has to leave for Tehran for an indeterminate period of time. I adored seeing the break in literary styles as she moved to more serious matters. Her estranged dad. The marriage of her parents that was strained.

Reviews are mixed on this one, I loved it. I learned a lot. The writing was really pretty. And, the narration from the author was dope.

As an adjunct professor, I sympathized with the protagonist’s precarious career and search for financial security, but the first half of Liquid dragged for me. The way she intellectualized everything made it feel more like an abstract thought experiment than a novel. However, the second half was like a completely different book—sharper, more engaging, and full of momentum. Rahmani’s critique of digital capitalism is incisive, and her experimental style is bold, but the uneven pacing kept me from fully loving it. I’d rate it 3.5/4 stars—worth reading, but patience is required.

Mariam Rahmani’s Liquid is a thought-provoking and introspective novel that delves deep into cultural expectations, identity, and personal struggle. While the story unfolds at a slower pace, it allows readers to fully immerse themselves in the protagonist’s emotional world and the weight of societal pressures she faces.

Rahmani’s writing is richly detailed, offering a deeply personal and raw perspective on the character’s journey. The novel’s strength lies in its ability to capture the protagonist’s inner turmoil, making her experiences feel vivid and relatable. Certain moments in the story stand out for their emotional impact, particularly in how the character navigates challenges with resilience and self-awareness.

While the pacing may not be for everyone, those who appreciate literary fiction with layered themes will find Liquid a compelling read. Rahmani crafts a narrative that is both intimate and universal, shedding light on the complexities of cultural identity in a way that lingers long after the final page.

A young Muslim adjunct professor finds herself somewhat stuck in her life. She is unsure if she will have a job in the Autumn, she lives alone in LA and is no longer sure about what she wants for the future. She decides maybe she should give up on academia and marry rich . Commiting herself to 100 dates over the course of the Summer, the first half of this book was entertaining, funny and I enjoyed the tone and perspective of our unnamed narrator.
Her summer plans swerve when she has to travel to Tehran when her father becomes unwell. The tone of the book switches at this point as our main character spends time in Tehran. This section of the book was fascinating, I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the area, food, climate and the changing perspective of the character.
Overall there is a lot to love in this book. The main character is fascinating, her conflicts, attitude , personality and circumstances make for an engaging read and the dual location works well. The writing is polished, sharp and I enjoyed the social commentary, yet something held me back from fully falling for this book.
The audio is decent, the author narrates the book herself which for me , very much worked for the parts of the book set in the US but maybe lacked a tiny bit of emotion in the parts of the book that required it. I think I possibly would have enjoyed this one more had I read rather than listened.
Nonetheless, it is a decent read and one I would very much recommend. Entertaining, informative, funny and sharp.

3.5- 4

Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for an advanced listening copy of Liquid! Narrated by the author herself, Rahmani relays the story of our unnamed protagonist in a way that no one else could. I'm not sure how much of this story has been borrowed from Rahmani's own life and experiences, but her narration provided a depth and resonance that still lingers long after the last sentence has been read.

Stuck at the intersectionality of her Iranian-Indian heritage and American upbringing, our protagonist decides to put her academic background to good use and conduct a dating experiment to satisfy her parents' desire to her to settle down and start a family. What happens when you set a deadline for the beginning of fall semester with the goal of 100 dates & a successful marriage proposal? A slightly manic, slightly chaotic love life ensures.

I will say, the plot of this book was not what I expected. I went in thinking this would be a fun and light romcom, with some elements of humor tied to the vast number of dates and people that the unnamed narrator would enlist in her experiment. This ended up being a much more academic pursuit by the narrator, who remained quite emotionally detached from the experience, with very little humor or traditional romcom tropes.

She becomes much more introspective when her father's health crisis takes her back to Tehran, but her epiphany and the way the story ultimately ended didn't feel even slightly organic. It might've been different had the protagonist created any sense of emotional attachment or resonance throughout the rest of the story, but she remained so aloof and removed from her own love life that her abrupt 180 at the very end of the book felt forced.

Characters - 2.5/5
Plot - 3/5
Setting - 3/5
Themes - 3.5/5
Writing Style - 3.5/5

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.

Messy girls doing messy things are usually my jam, but I just couldn’t connect with this particular main character. Something about her felt a little flat, and I found myself struggling to stay engaged with her choices and motivations. That said, I can see how others might resonate with her story—especially if they relate to the chaos she’s navigating. This one just wasn’t for me, but I’m sure it’ll hit harder for the right reader!

what a complicated book for me to review. i want to start out by saying i don’t think this book was bad at all i just don’t think i was the intended target audience.

there were a couple of things i didn’t quite enjoy though. for example i found the plot to be a bit confusing at times and it felt incomplete. the blurb advertised that it would take a 180 after something happened to the main characters life, but it lost the original plot all together.

the main character starts this book looking for love and trying to get married. then something happens and she has to go back to the country her family is from to help. she kind of keeps looking for love, but like not really? and then the ending just felt super rushed.

i think the message was supposed to be that love doesn’t always have to be romantic? but idk

also to go back to me not being the target audience, this book talked a lot about sciency math, romance, and countries i’m not super familiar with. i enjoyed learning about these new things, but sometimes i also did find that it made me bored because i didn’t quite understand.

i will say however though, that i listened to the audiobook version of this book and i found the narration to be super smooth. i enjoyed my time listening even if i did get lost in the plot sometimes.

i would say that i recommend this book to select people and am curious to see how other people rate it. i just personally found it a little forgettable unfortunately. i am so so so happy though that i got the chance to read and review this book for netgalley and Hachette Audio! thank you so much for the opportunity!

I enjoyed this quite a bit. The writing is sharp and sparse in the best way, and the main character is interesting to follow. I especially appreciated seeing her in Tehran reflecting on her relationship with her parents and figuring out where she felt at home. And I loved the premise of a PhD student using a spreadsheet to find the person she wants to marry and...I won't spoil the ending but it was perfect.

I am having a hard time knowing what to make of this book! It's subtitle is "A Love Story." I know now that this is being used in a different sense than what one might think to begin with. I expected this book to be about all her dates trying to marry rich and not have to worry about her own job providing for her any more. While she did go on the 100 dates, they were very glossed over and seemed to be a lot more about hook-ups than looking for a relationship (thank goodness it is not explicit!)
I think the story was suppose to get more deep when she goes back to Iran with her mother to her father's deathbed, but it just wasn't enough for me. In the end, I feel like overall this was a missed opportunity to take an interesting premise that we could all connect to, but instead it just skimmed the surface.
Thank you to #NetGalley and @HatchettAudio for my ARC audio of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was very excited about this one, and enjoyed the first half. I felt like this became an entirely different book halfway through. I don't know how fitting 100 dates into 320 pages managed to feel slow. I couldn't get as invested in the MC's relationship to her mom, or frankly, the romantic interest that takes up the second half. It also ended very abruptly. On the whole, I'll look for more from Rahmani, but this one didn't quite get there for me.

An American woman with Iranian and Indian parents dedicates her life to going on a 100 dates after, Adam, her best friend suggest she marries rich, since she is not seeing the success in academics she was hoping for.

This book was a lot! While being a contemporary novel, it felt very auto-fiction at times, the way it jumped around from humor, to spontaneous anthropological, cultural, and political academic critique, to healing deep emotional wounds. It felt personally unique experience, and I appreciate that a lot. The reading experience was quite jumbled and lacked a certain focus. I felt a little like being tossed around to too many places, and I left the book not feeling quite sure of what my take away was.

Reading it through audiobook was not the right choice for me with this one. While I always adore the author reading their own work, the flow didn't sound right. When the narrator's more thought provoking reflections came up, I didn't take them in the same way I would have, being able to read it physically. Which definitely affected my overall enjoyment of this book.

Our MC is quite bitter, cold and sarcastic and I found myself enjoying the book more, as she was getting more inspired and aligning herself with her values and truth towards the end of the book. The last chapter in Tehran was so lovely and I wish the book would have ended there. When the last chapter of the book finished I just went "Urgh!" as the foreshadowing throughout the book had been so obvious, and I couldn't believe the story was actually going there.

I can't wait to flip through the book physically and reread some parts around the more academic thoughts and lived experiences of the main character, as there were some incredible nuggets that I found fascinating. If your lived experience of cultural background is similar to the main characters, I think this book could be quite powerful.

Thank you to Netgalley, Hachette Audio, & Algonquin Books for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

• 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.

I love self-aware pretentiousness in a narrator. It reminded me in that way of The Idiot or Bunny but also totally unique from those. A bi, Muslim woman, in the wake of losing out on a job and the recent Muslim ban announcement, decides to give up on making a career with her PhD in Literature and focus on marrying rich. I'm still trying to figure out why it's called Liquid, though. I also forgot it was a love story for most of it.