Liquid

Rahmani puts a satirical spin on the rom-com with her incisive if predictable debut novel. In 2019 Los Angeles, the unnamed narrator, a queer daughter of immigrants from Iran and India, is two years out of graduate school, struggling to land a tenure-track job in the humanities, and striking out at romance. Still, a friend tells her that she’s “better off than the heroine of a nineteenth-century novel,” thanks to her independence. The narrator decides to take a social science approach to dating: she’ll go on 100 first dates over the course of the summer and take copious notes, with the goal of securing a marriage proposal. What follows is a whirlwind homage to the classic “ridiculous first date” trope: a man takes the narrator to his parents’ house, a woman needs a green card, a married man fails to tell her about his open marriage, and so on. The novel abruptly shifts tone after the narrator learns her father has had a heart attack, prompting her to visit him in Tehran. Rahmani’s attempt to straddle the line between satire, literary fiction, and rom-com doesn’t quite land, though there’s plenty of sharp cultural criticism, particularly on dating and adulthood. Fans of Elif Batuman ought to take note. Agent: Danielle Bukowski, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Mar.)