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queenluaThe setup for this novel is deliciously fun: Jhanvi, a trans woman working a dead-end job in Sacramento, decides to foist herself upon her college-buddy-slash-sexting-partner Henry, who lives in one of those Burning-Man-y polycule-y group houses in San Francisco. The plan: Jhanvi will show up on their doorstep, invite herself into their lives, manipulate Henry into marrying her, and then use those sweet sweet healthcare benefits he gets from his BigTech employer to pay for all the feminization surgeries she's interested in.
You'd expect this to be a perfect setup for some good satirical skewering of the Burning-Man-y polycule-y group house, and you'd be right (there's a really funny running bit where Katie, the ardent police abolitionist, is determined to figure out who's been calling the cops on the street-harasser guy near their house; Jhanvi knows it's the townie bartender at a place down the road, but sure isn't telling Katie because who needs a self-righteous Burning Man person giving her shit; also, the dynamics of Who Ferries The Drugs Around For Our Outdoor Naked Party Weekend had me in absolute stitches).
But Jhavni's absolutely relentless cynicism does start to wear after a while—an intended effect, I think. Yeah, the group house people are kinda shallow and willfully naive, but Jhanvi is trying to worm her way into their circle, and she thinks and acts in some pretty appalling ways to that end. It helps that she's pretty self-aware about what she's doing—there's a particularly delicious bit where Jhanvi rolls into Katie's room and we get a blow-by-blow account of "here's how I'm going to manipulate this chick in exactly this specific way"—but, still. Doesn't feel right to use people that way so relentlessly, right? and they do have some virtues of their own, right?
(There's a specific mode of thought Jhanvi has, an absolute dogged realism-bordering-on-reductionism, which means she's often the person speaking up to the effect of, "Look, let's be real, this party is not about ~*~liberation and justice~*~, it's about hot rich people having sex"—seeing through layers of bullshit to get to the heart of a matter. I know plenty of people like this IRL, and I'm lucky enough to call some of them my friends—that clarity of thought is an intensely admirable thing, and rare and hard to find! But there's a flipside to it—they can become very determined that their read is the 100% correct one, and become pretty dismissive of nuance or alternate perspectives in cases where they may be warranted. It's not the main thing Jhanvi's going on, but I thought I'd mention it specifically here, since I'm not sure I've seen this specific style-of-thought so vividly portrayed in fiction before, and I'd be really curious to see how other readers responded to it / what they thought about it; I found it really interesting!)
So you've got Jhanvi's gradual turnaround, from grifter-we're-cheering-for to grifter-we're-still-cheering-for-but-girl-can-you-tamp-down-on-the-grifting-just-a-little-bit. The book has a final arc and conclusion in which Jhanvi does have a change of heart, does something sudden and altruistic and selfless that's meant to stand for a larger shift in her character—but the stakes of that decision feel too low, almost abstract, and the payoff feels rushed in a way that didn't quite make me buy that shift.
I suspect if Kanakia had leaned all the way into the overthinking-social-class-dynamics-in-every-single-conversation angle, Death Note/Yukio Mishima/battle-anime-where-some-sidekick-character-is-overthinking-every-punch-aloud style, with even more excruciating detail, I could've bought that shift more readily, because I'd be agonizingly familiar with the contours of Jhanvi's mind. Or, if that final arc had a little bit more buildup/denouement/heft to it, I might've appreciated it a little more. As the book stands, it sort of awkwardly in-between those poles, so it ended up falling a little flat for me as a whole, even though I really enjoyed all the component pieces.
I would definitely read the next book by this author, though. It read very breezily and was a lot of fun and there's some interesting layers I'm still chewing on.
(Oh, shouts to Roshie, the weird, earnest, unsexy, way-too-good-at-her-job nerd who lives upstairs. It's kinda obvious Kanakia loves her too much, and you know what? So do I.)
You'd expect this to be a perfect setup for some good satirical skewering of the Burning-Man-y polycule-y group house, and you'd be right (there's a really funny running bit where Katie, the ardent police abolitionist, is determined to figure out who's been calling the cops on the street-harasser guy near their house; Jhanvi knows it's the townie bartender at a place down the road, but sure isn't telling Katie because who needs a self-righteous Burning Man person giving her shit; also, the dynamics of Who Ferries The Drugs Around For Our Outdoor Naked Party Weekend had me in absolute stitches).
But Jhavni's absolutely relentless cynicism does start to wear after a while—an intended effect, I think. Yeah, the group house people are kinda shallow and willfully naive, but Jhanvi is trying to worm her way into their circle, and she thinks and acts in some pretty appalling ways to that end. It helps that she's pretty self-aware about what she's doing—there's a particularly delicious bit where Jhanvi rolls into Katie's room and we get a blow-by-blow account of "here's how I'm going to manipulate this chick in exactly this specific way"—but, still. Doesn't feel right to use people that way so relentlessly, right? and they do have some virtues of their own, right?
(There's a specific mode of thought Jhanvi has, an absolute dogged realism-bordering-on-reductionism, which means she's often the person speaking up to the effect of, "Look, let's be real, this party is not about ~*~liberation and justice~*~, it's about hot rich people having sex"—seeing through layers of bullshit to get to the heart of a matter. I know plenty of people like this IRL, and I'm lucky enough to call some of them my friends—that clarity of thought is an intensely admirable thing, and rare and hard to find! But there's a flipside to it—they can become very determined that their read is the 100% correct one, and become pretty dismissive of nuance or alternate perspectives in cases where they may be warranted. It's not the main thing Jhanvi's going on, but I thought I'd mention it specifically here, since I'm not sure I've seen this specific style-of-thought so vividly portrayed in fiction before, and I'd be really curious to see how other readers responded to it / what they thought about it; I found it really interesting!)
So you've got Jhanvi's gradual turnaround, from grifter-we're-cheering-for to grifter-we're-still-cheering-for-but-girl-can-you-tamp-down-on-the-grifting-just-a-little-bit. The book has a final arc and conclusion in which Jhanvi does have a change of heart, does something sudden and altruistic and selfless that's meant to stand for a larger shift in her character—but the stakes of that decision feel too low, almost abstract, and the payoff feels rushed in a way that didn't quite make me buy that shift.
I suspect if Kanakia had leaned all the way into the overthinking-social-class-dynamics-in-every-single-conversation angle, Death Note/Yukio Mishima/battle-anime-where-some-sidekick-character-is-overthinking-every-punch-aloud style, with even more excruciating detail, I could've bought that shift more readily, because I'd be agonizingly familiar with the contours of Jhanvi's mind. Or, if that final arc had a little bit more buildup/denouement/heft to it, I might've appreciated it a little more. As the book stands, it sort of awkwardly in-between those poles, so it ended up falling a little flat for me as a whole, even though I really enjoyed all the component pieces.
I would definitely read the next book by this author, though. It read very breezily and was a lot of fun and there's some interesting layers I'm still chewing on.
(Oh, shouts to Roshie, the weird, earnest, unsexy, way-too-good-at-her-job nerd who lives upstairs. It's kinda obvious Kanakia loves her too much, and you know what? So do I.)
