The Startup Wife: A Novel

asha ray, our main character, is a second generation immigrant from bangladesh. she's intelligent and hard-working, eager to make her immigrant parents proud. like most other immigrant girls, she grew up with frugal parents, going to school with lunches and clothes different from the other white girls, feeling alienated, and falling in love with a boy with a large head of blonde hair and thinking nothing will ever come of it. until they’re both adults and magically run into each other. cyrus is now all grown up, working as a eulogist/non-priest at funeral/ritual events. when the two come together, they fall in love, get married, and decide to create a startup app that can replace rituals and have them online when something like an apocalypse or pandemic hits and people can’t meet in person.⁣

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cyrus wants to emulate for non-believers the sense of community, the sacred, the rituals and traditions that fire religion. the idea is to centre on the power of humanity that will be the foundation, but as soon as their app becomes more famous and popular on social media, they start to pay the dues of the quick fame. it costed more moral problems and complex dilemmas they’d expected.⁣

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i loved asha as a protagonist- i found her to be both fierce and brilliant. cyrus was a less likeable character for me. he was entitled and arrogant, adored by others because of his charm, but completely unable to do anything on his own. anam writes a thought provoking novel on the tech industry, power, race, gender, feminism, marriage and love, about the inner need for faith, ritual, and the spiritual in humans, along with the desire to connect with each other. i found this an engaging read, often times funny, with dating white boys and being an immigrant child jokes. the novel is character driven and incorporates and utilizes the global pandemic, reflecting on many contemporary realities of our world. it’s a very timely read, highly recommended!