The Start Up Wife- Review

 

Publisher: Canon Gate 

Publishing Date: 3rd June 2021 

Author: Tahmima Anam 

A physical copy kindly sent by the publishing team. Many Thanks

Blurb

Halfway through her PhD and already dreaming of running her own lab, computer scientist Asha has her future all mapped out. Then a chance meeting and whirlwind romance with her old high-school crush, Cyrus, changes everything.

Dreaming big, together with their friend Jules they come up with a revolutionary idea: to build a social networking app that could bring meaning to millions of lives. While Asha creates an ingenious algorithm, Cyrus' charismatic appeal throws him into the spotlight.

When the app explodes into the next big thing, Asha should be happy, shouldn't she? But why does she feel invisible in the boardroom of her own company? Why are decisions being made without her? Gripping, witty and razor-sharp, The Startup Wife is a blistering novel about big ambitions, speaking out and standing up for what you believe in.

My Thoughts 

If you think this book is fluffy and will be full of romance, you are mistaken. It does have them elements but touches on so much more especially for a short novel. We read about the challenges of roles, gender, relationships and being a person of colour in both personal and professional setting. 

I liked how the first few chapters we get to find out about Asha and Cyrus and their background and who they are and have accomplished. Asha and her sister Mira's conversation are just the best, they had me laughing out loud especially when Asha tells Mira about her wedding to Cyrus. We get to go on the journey of this app idea from start to finish. It is set in NYC and when reading the book you feel like you're on set on a movie, you know the one with the nerdy computer office but ever so elaborate. Such as yoga/garden rooms, quirky names and swimming pools in the office spaces. And lets be honest pizza-bagel appreciation day should be every day! But nonetheless the office environment acknowledges the hardships that women and more so WOC have to face to even be recognised for their achievements or goals. 

I was a bit wary about the tones of a muslim representative girl and I felt a bit more could have been spoken about this or taken out completely as it just missed the mark for me. But even with what we have and very early on we learn that Asha, seems to be true to her bengali roots and appears to be proud of her identity which rounded the read nicely. 

The ending  took a different turn and I was nearly in tears but also proud of Asha and her resilience to move forward and being/feeing empowered. I really hope we get a second book as I really want to know how Asha moves forward. There were a few chapters towards the end where the team find themselves in the midst of a pandemic and everyone has to make a change and it was very fitting to what it currently happening.

It is a short  book so I don't want to give much away as it will spoil it but I enjoyed reading it and was prefect coffee shop take out book. It had lots of funny elements. and leaves you pondering a few questions. 

Thank you once again to the author and publishing team for my copy. 

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