Unprecedented Times

A Novel

De: Malavika Kannan

Malavika Kannan establishes herself as an inimitable voice of Gen Z in this piercing coming-of-age debut novel.

Which comes first: experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. A burnt-out youth climate activist, Rishi used to want to save the world, but now she just wants to have gay sex. Her plan is set—she’s going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian American childhood in Florida, study literature, experiment with love, and write all about it. Within a few months, she makes her first best friend, falls in love with her situationship, and promptly gets her heart broken.

What is not a part of Rishi’s plan, however, is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifying place, she increasingly finds solace in the friendships she’s made. Instead of virtual college, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective and grapple with America’s political situation and growing disillusionment—along with sexual tension and responsibility. It’s only when those relationships start fracturing under the stress of careless decisions, unrequited crushes, jealousies, and, yes, unprecedented times, that Rishi begins to question her own story.

Unprecedented Times captures the beauty, humor, pain, and straight-up chaos that exist in relationships between best friends and lovers, mothers and daughters, and between storytellers and themselves. Malavika Kannan’s fresh, arresting novel is a testament to the power of self-narrative for Gen Z American women: of writing oneself into existence where no previous script exists.

Reseñas de la Crítica

One of Debutiful’s Most Anticipated Debut Books of the Year

“I've rarely read a novel so unapologetically situated within the mindset of the earliest years of adulthood, when making your way in the world is as thrilling as it is terrifying, and all of experience feels unprecedented. Malavika Kannan writes with such sharp perceptiveness about the wild confusion of youth — the aimlessness and ambition, the simultaneous desire for independence and for communion — that, night after night while reading this novel, I dreamt of being back there myself. I couldn't put this book down.”
—Vauhini Vara, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Immortal King Rao

“Unprecedented Times holds all the youth and assurance of a fresh new day. Malavika Kannan writes with a rare fearlessness about what the world promises versus what our lives actually turn out to be. A deeply propulsive read, as well as wonderfully insightful and funny. Unprecedented Times is a bright and lovely work.”
—Kristen Arnett, bestselling author of Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One

“Unprecedented Times made me laugh, cry, and rage—often within the same paragraph . . . Kannan’s voice is hilarious and generous, and her incisive portrayal of navigating college as a second-generation immigrant kept me up late into the night. I absolutely could not put this book down.”
—Lamya H, award-winning author of Hijab Butch Blues