The Startup Wife

This novel is unique and feels contemporary. So contemporary, in fact, that it even includes COVID-19! Overall I enjoyed this novel and think it weaves in multiple storylines well: we have the intersection of race and sex, tech start-ups, marriage and friendship in your 20s, as well as self-esteem and identity. There's nice pacing and good humor, and the plot is truly original. This is a personal taste issue, but I did find myself craving more direct action from the narrator in the middle of the book in terms of her acting on her frustrations or questions about Cyrus and his behavior. Overall, though, I still enjoyed the novel and definitely recommend it.

I throughly enjoyed this authors first book and eagerly devoured this offering. A contemporary novel, in every sense that tackles our current lives in the midst of this pandemic and how we connect with ourselves and each other. Brimming with dry wit, I couldn’t put this book down. Read this immediately.

Asha is a computer whiz and has the capability to create a program that can really blow the world away. She has a friend that is supportive and a husband that breathes life into her plan. This is where everything falls apart for her.

I could not put the book down. I was interested in every page and every bit of the story. I hated that she was so forgiving of her husband and that his friend was so supportive. I didn't hate the writing - in fact, the author really made sure that you understood each step of the story, but also made the reader have a lot of emotions.

In the end, I felt like the story tidied up well, however, I think what kept me involved was how irritated I was, at parts. I have definitely told friends to put this book on their list for 2021.

I absolutely loved this book! As a recent startup founder I found the dialogue and scenarios to be fairly accurate and quite humorous. Tahmima does a great job of establishing the characters and I felt I was able to connect and resonate with them. Her style of writing captivated me and kept me reading well past bedtime. The character of Asha demonstrates how men can easily wind up railroading women, even if that woman happens to be a spouse. There were many unexpected turns in this novel and I was seriously satisfied with how the story wrapped up. 5 out of 5 stars, great book!

"The Startup Wife" follows the story of three friend, Asha, Cyrus and Jules, who have developed an app based on AI using Cyrus's aptitude for creating specifically personal rituals. As the app becomes more well known, the three friends face moral and emotional dilemmas they could not have imagined.

From the beginning, I found this book extremely engaging and enjoyable. It picked up quickly and by the time I was half-way through, I could not put it down. As far as main characters go, Asha was multi-dimensional and very likable. I also enjoyed seeing her progression as she grew older and more mature. As a side note: this book reminded me a lot of "An Absolutely Remarkable Thing" by Hank Green--if you have read and enjoyed that book you will most likely enjoy this book as well!

Wow! Warning before reading this book: you won’t want to put it down. The Startup Wife combines the emotions that come with first marriage with startup culture, providing a fresh perspective into a world that all too often focuses on single white men.

This book is simply brilliant, insightful, clever, and unlike anything I have ever read before.

The premise of The Startup Wife pulled me in right away - two old high school friends, Asha and Cyrus, falling in love and starting a successful and revolutionary app that replaces religious rituals. Now not only are they facing the pressure of living and working together, but something much more; Asha had quit her PhD program to devote herself to this venture, but now Cyrus is seen by the world as the new messiah. 

This book is about the struggles of a changing love relationship in the world of startups, high-flying careers and fame. It's about modern technology replacing tradition in the digital era. It's about power struggles in marriage and in business.

I flew through this book and still can't stop thinking about it. 5 stars.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Quick synopsis: The Startup Wife follows Asha Ray, a smart, driven woman in STEM. She is working on how to make Artificial Intelligence more empathetic when she reunites with her crush from high school, Cyrus Jones, and his friend Jules. Cyrus is charismatic and spiritual, curating rituals such as weddings and funerals perfectly tailored to the people involved. As Asha and Cyrus fall in love, Asha gets an idea for a whole new type of social media. The three characters collectively build a platform called WAI from the ground up. WAI analyzes what matters most to you based on your likes and personality traits, and spits out a ritual you request. It also connects you to a community of people who feel the same way you do. Asha codes the platform, Jules does the business, and Cyrus is the face of the company. As the platform grows exponentially, Asha experiences the consequences of mixing business with pleasure. 

My takes on the book: This book really pulled me in and kept things interesting from the get go. Asha is extremely likable & I could really understand her thinking behind most decisions she made. The dialogue was extremely realistic, I felt like I was listening to friends of mine have conversations, which is rare for me as I can easily be put off by cheesy dialogue. Watching Cyrus’ slow slip from being a reluctant participant in WAI, to being depicted as an “Internet Messiah” and absolutely eating it up was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, that Anam crafted beautifully. This book tackled topics like AI, coding, and business, topics that I am less than familiar with, in a way that was interesting and easily understood. The reason I gave this book a 4 instead of a 5 is that sometimes I felt as though I was being told information about the characters instead of being shown. For example, towards the middle of the book Asha is going back and forth about how she feels about who Cyrus is becoming as WAI picks up steam, and what you see is Asha’s thoughts, not what Cyrus is doing to prompt them. I also felt like I wasn’t adequately introduced to some secondary characters in the Utopia, so I was sometimes confusing people. This book seemed all at once topical (even touching on the rise of COVID-19 towards the end of the book) & futuristic. The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam is definitely a book I would re-read one day and am sure I would catch nitty gritty details a second time around, and thoroughly enjoyed my time with. This book would be perfect for fans of the show Black Mirror.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available July 13th!

Darkly humorous, Tahmima Anam's "The Startup Wife" is an interesting experiment with social media. When self conscious and sarcastic Asha Ray meets Cyrus, she can hardly predict the journey they will take together. Inspired by Cyrus's fascination with religion (think Pi from Life of Pi taken to the extreme), Ray designs a new social media platform, WAI, that tries to give others meaning to their lives. As WAI expands rapidly, Ray is confronted with the ultimate question - what is the meaning of her life?

In some ways, "The Startup Wife" is a departure from Tahmima Anam's usual stories about life in Bangladesh. In other ways, though, the novel still features strong female protagonists, blistering social commentary and memorable dialogues. Reminiscent of Dave Egger's "The Circle," Anam's newest novel leaves the reader with a deep sense of unease about our growing technological dependence.

This was an interesting take on tech culture.  The main character is a PhD at a very competitive program.  She re-encounters her high school crush, Cyrus, and they quickly get married.  Together with Cyrus's best friend, they decide to create a new tech company centered around rituals to feel spiritual needs in people's lives.  After their company is accepted into an exclusive incubator, the company takes off -- with unexpected impacts on society and their own relationships.   The relationship among the three main characters, and how they changed over time, was really interesting, and the way the author grappled with issues related to technology and social media kept me engaged.  Recommended!

Most of The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam is set in Utopia. Utopia isn’t heaven. It is a place for startup companies to develop and become successful. Asha Ray sees her high school crush, Cyrus Jones. They begin a whirlwind romance, get married and develop an app based on an idea that Cyrus had about personalizing rituals.

Asha is a brilliant coder and is the force behind the app. Cyrus is the face of the company. At first, he doesn’t have much involvement and then he has too much power. Cyrus publicly takes all of the credit for the app. Understandably, Asha feels betrayed when Cyrus excludes her from the company.

Asha knows that Cyrus is not the mastermind behind the company and definitely not the messiah. She put so much faith in him and not enough faith in herself. She does everything to keep the company afloat in the beginning stages. Then Cyrus betrays her in such a harsh way. Will their marriage survive mixing business with their relationship?

My favorite character is Destiny. She meets Asha and Cyrus at Utopia. Her company doesn’t have the same success that Asha’s company does. Destiny comes to work for Asha. They become really close friends. Destiny supports Asha through all of the problems. I imagine her as a RiotGrrrl, a punk rock feminist. I love her so much.

Asha follows Cyrus’s dreams and leaves her plans behind. I think she learns that one person cannot be everything to another person. She learns about boundaries. She loves Cyrus but starts to question if he is the best person for her.

If you are looking for a book about feminism and technology, then you might enjoy this book.

If you think feminism is for suckers, then maybe you will learn something by reading this book.
* I received this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own. Obviously.
* Amazon affiliate link included in this post.