I borrowed a hard copy of this book and while it was interesting I felt it lacked depth - still an enjoyable read .

The start-up wife, Asha, marries the man she’s idolised since high school and builds a successful social platform with him all within the first few years of their marriage. As Cyrus’ influence over the internet grows stronger Asha’s view becomes more realistic and cracks start to show. Surrounded by a well-constructed ensemble cast we experience the highs and lows of their marriage along with the struggle to find your place in an ever evolving world.

A slow burn with a predictable conclusion; I must admit I was hoping for more.

This book was so fast passed and such an easy read! Perfect for summer when you’re on the beach! It was so refreshing to read a book about a woman in the technology business!!
Would definitely recommend!

This book is a rare find and it was unexpected delight. It was rich and set against the fascinating backdrop of a tech start up with a well-rounded, three-dimensional and relatable lead character.
Asha's struggles, her relationship, the way that she is dazzled by her husband and loses herself in her marriage and the business that she was pivotal in developing are so raw and honest.
All of the other characters are similarly real and I think that Asha's journey is one that will resonate with many.
I like that the ending is also situated in the current pandemic situation but above all to have a book written by a woman of colour with a woman of colour lead that has a Bangladeshi-Muslim background that just lives and is without a big deal being made of her context is a breath of fresh air.
A must-read!

Why did I love this book?
✨It was easy to read
✨Fast paced
✨Interracial couple
✨A smart, South Asian female character who is smashing the tech industry
✨Getting an insight into how apps are developed

But, when you go beyond the surface, there were a lot more deeper themes explored in the book which can be easy to miss:
✨How much is enough?
✨The lines between morals, ethics and the quest for financial success
✨Ego
✨Being a woman, especially a woman that is not white, in a male dominated industry
✨The complexities of marriage, especially when working with your partner

An unchallenging read, enjoyable from start to finish. Good length, great characters, sense of place, vividly shown. I would say this would be a good book for a holiday or the beach as you can follow the story easily no matter where you are. Thank you.

Asha, Cyrus and Jules have created an app that fosters community and connection. Based around rituals, it's something of a replacement for religion, and they've just got funding from a renowned incubator. The app takes off. Everyone loves it. Surely it won't do any harm?

A true twenty-first century novel, Tahmima Anam's The Startup Wife shows the potential - and potential faults - of technology and social media, and how, for all their glory, they can't quite replicate humanity.

It's a discussion of women in tech and business, of the glass ceiling, and of the sexism and patriarchal systems that they face.

It's an examination of consent in every form, what that means, what we allow and enable without even meaning or wanting to; what happens when we aren't given a real choice to consent or when we refuse, but the situation goes ahead anyway. It's about not being heard. It's about how much women in particular become the background character in their own lives to allow men to shine instead of them.

It's also about race and identity. It's about love, friendship, and family, both good and bad. It's a discussion of the corrupting power of money, fame and success, and the impact this has on these relationships. It's about boundaries and choices and consequences in the most extreme.

It's about preparing for a future, an apocolypse that seems distant and fictional, and what happens when the pandemic makes that real. It's about adapting. It's about trying to survive. And it's about what happens when that goes wrong.

Anam is undoubtedly a fantastic writer. She has crafted an incredibly gripping, poignant novel filled with nuanced, real characters. In so doing, she's reflecting our society at this moment; The Startup Wife is so very timely, relevant and relatable. Just genius.

When Tahmima Anam’s fourth novel, The Startup Wife, was ready to go on submission to publishers, she asked her agent to submit it under a pseudonym because she felt it was so much less serious than her previous trilogy of novels, which dealt with the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence. And it certainly is a weird book, although in some ways it’s the better for it. The blurb signals a novel that’s concerned with the impact of technology on society – Asha and her husband Cyrus launch a new social media platform called WAI (We Are Infinite) that produces tailor-made rituals for users drawn from a wide variety of religious traditions. As WAI takes off, Cyrus’s star rapidly rises, whereas Asha, who coded the platform in the first place, remains in the background. As this indicates, The Startup Wife is also concerned with how brilliant women – especially women of colour – remain unrecognised and overshadowed, and it refuses to denigrate ‘ambition’ in favour of caring duties in the way so many novels of this kind do. Asha discusses what is happening with her sister, Mira, who has just had a baby:

Mira sighs… “Do you think Stevie Wonder changed diapers?” she says… “He has nine children. Do you think he changed their diapers? Do you think he stayed up at night and rocked them to sleep?…”

“No.”

“And would you want him to?”

I can’t pretend anymore that I don’t know what she’s talking about. “No.”

“No. You would want him to write ‘My Cherie Amour.'”

The world would be a dark place without that song. “Yes.”

“Someone else had to do all of that.”

“You’re telling me that all greatness happens on the backs of other people… This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

Having said that, however, The Startup Wife doesn’t feel like it’s really about tech or about structural misogyny, although both those themes are strongly present. In some ways, this makes it a better novel, because it isn’t too bogged down in preaching a message about Tech Is Bad or The World Is Sexist and Racist. Indeed, the tech parts of the story are treated with consistent irony rather than portrayed as a threat – as WAI is first taking off, Asha and Cyrus ‘go home, order poke bowls, and watch multiple episodes of Black Mirror.’ Anam is obviously an incredibly intelligent and observant writer, and Asha is such a captivating character. Nevertheless, this lack of focus does let the novel down, and although I haven’t read any of Anam’s other books, I didn’t feel she was really living up to her full potential here. Structurally, The Startup Wife lurches about for most of its length and fizzles out strangely with some shoehorned references to Covid. And although Anam has said that Cyrus was intended to be as mysterious to the readers as he is to Asha, he felt 2D, whereas Asha’s family, who get far less page time, were fully brought to life. I was left feeling that, while this might not be a must-read, Anam is certainly somebody that I want to hear more from. 3.5 stars

The StartUp Wife is just brilliant. Packed full of philosophical conundrums, questions of the future of humanity and with references to the pandemic, it is current and relevant.

Asha is a coder. She codes an Empathy Module which she wants to include in AI to make them more human. But a chance reunion with her high school crush, takes her life in a completely different direction.

Together with friend Jules, Asha and Cyrus create a platform that offers an alternative to religion, a platform that gives meaning back to people and creates a sense of community. It is a success. But success comes at a cost. As Asha begins to lose control of her own destiny, she starts to question herself and everyone around her.

The ideas for new futuristic apps in the book should sound far fetched and in some cases ridiculous. But they are quite possibly closer to reality than feels entirely comfortable.

A really thought provoking plot that would be perfect for book group discussion, I really enjoyed this book.

The Startup Wife follows Asha, Cyrus and Jules who set up a new social networking app to bring people together and to mark the special occasions in their lives with a unique faith experience. Asha, a computer scientist ditches her degree, falls in love with Cyrus, a boy she knew from high-school, and fades into the background as Cyrus takes centre stage.

This was an easy read, refreshing - unique in tone with the inclusion of issues experienced by Asha. The world of tech, but accessible for all.

I would recommend this book if you are a fan of women's fiction, a sucker for a rainbow cover and have hope and ambition for all women in the workplace.

As a current PhD student I really wanted to enjoy this novel about an ambitious woman who is also studying for a doctorate and has a fantastic idea, enabling her to thrive in the man's world of start up companies but something was slightly off for me I'm so sorry.
Perhaps I'm not the target audience as I was hoping for something else from this book, but I found it to be too heavily focused on artificial intelligence and I struggled to read about how Asha was willing to be sidelined by her boyfriend who seems to take all the credit. I do apologise but it's not for me.

This book was a really interesting look into the future and I loved Asha Ray - the start up wife. It was at times exciting and heart-breaking.

I absolutely adored this clever, witty and thought provoking book by Tahmima Anam. It tells the story of talented Asha, who develops an app to satisfy human desire for ritual and connection, and how she, her husband Cyrus and their friend Jules launch it though a tech co called Utopia. This is more than a tech story though, it is about how their invention and subsequent success impacts on their relationship and changes them all in different ways.

It was fascinating to observe the behaviours of each of the characters as success followed and through this explore themes of feminism, the social impact of technology and media and how the corporate world operates. Alongside this is a sweet story of a gifted woman trying to hold everything and everyone together while others receive the plaudits for her brilliance.

The characters were all really well drawn and the complexity of the relationships sensitively unfurled. I found myself rooting for Asha so hard, but also sympathising with every character in some way. This is a very unique novel that combines elements of sci fi, tech, comedy, romance, feminism and many other themes, balancing them in a intriguing and engaging way. Thoroughly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publishers and author for providing me with a free ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

The Startup Wife is the story of Asha Ray, a smart woman who starts a company with her husband and his best friend. That's how this amazing book should be described. What follows is the story of the start up (WAI) as it's accepted into an incubator called Utopia, but also centers on the relationships between the people of WAI, other start up founders in the incubator, and some VCs.

As a woman working in AI and brain-computer interfaces (with a special interest in emotions and the brain), and my own attempt to start a company with a close friend, this book really resonated with me. How do those relationships shift when the co-founders no longer see eye to eye and a decision needs to be made, or when one of them gets a bigger share of the light and the other feels like they're being belittled?

I found the descriptions of the meetings highly accurate, with lots of highly toxic masculinity, and the women groups were thought-provoking (should we lean in, or make ourselves bigger?). This book sheds light on a mainly masculine area and many of its problems. I am very happy that this book exists, and I think lots of people should read it. I could go on and on about it for a long time, and I will certainly press it into quite a few hands this year.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Canongate for this ARC.

“It wasn’t your fault, Cyrus, it was mine. I bigged you up and smalled me down. I shone the light on you. I carried the water and let you drink.”

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.

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’s charismatic appeal throws him into the spotlight.

When the app explodes into the next big thing, Asha should be happy. But why does she feel invisible in the boardroom of her own company?...

I find there are plenty of books categorised under women’s fiction but nowhere near enough under women in STEM and an even smaller percentage around women in tech.

Tahmima Anam’s gripping novel is a step in the right direction with a female protagonist traversing the roads of startups and partnerships, navigating patriarchy, while keeping to her feminist ideals.

Where Anam catches your attention is in portraying the balance of Asha’s professional and personal life. Through Asha, Anam explores women’s ambition in the face of love, marriage, gender, race, colour, power, faith and religion. The question remains, when you’ve already given up your rights voluntarily, is it at all possible to fight to win them back?

A thoughtful insight into the eternal dilemma of whether women can have it all, you will find yourself wholly engaged with this humourously geeky narrative bursting with feminism.

This ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Canongate.

If you’re looking for a contemporary story about a nerdy millennial woman seeking a balance between love, marriage, family, friendships, work, ambition, and identity with some zeitgeist references, all set against the vibrating background that only New York can be, look no longer. 'The Startup Wife' is a truly binge-able read, a bold tale of a woman in a man's world, which manages to tackle a lot of issues in parallel - gender, race, global tech, religion, community, relationships, capitalism, the environmental crisis, and feminism.

Asha Ray has a bad time in high school – she’s clever but she doesn’t fit in socially, and feels set apart by her Bangladeshi background. She also has a crush on the poised and unconventional Cyrus, until he disappears suddenly one day.

Years later, she has moved on. She has found her tribe at university, made friends, and her expertise in IT has earned her a place on a prestigious postgraduate programme. She feels secure with the support of her liberal, spiky parents and sister.

Then Cyrus comes back into her life. She is bowled over by his looks, his curiosity and his fascination with the world’s religions. He is convinced he can give people connection and ritual that fits with their contemporary, secular lifestyle.

Along with his best friend, Jules, a privileged but unhappy guy who has already built one startup, they decide to start a website using Asha’s coding skills, Cyrus’s vision and Jules marketing smarts. But success leads to pressure in Asha’s marriage, as Cyrus’s charisma overshadows her hard work.

The Startup Wife is a book about the ethical implications of tech in the same way that Dallas is a drama about oil. Whether you think that’s a good or a bad thing depends on where your interests lie. If you’re looking for a contemporary story about a nerdy, unconfident woman negotiating marriage, family and friendships, with some nice zeitgeisty references, then you’ll probably enjoy this.

There is some fun and perceptive skewering of tech bros, venture capitalists and the eccentric people who are determined to upend every assumption and norm but in doing so, can’t help establishing new conventions of their own. The female entrepreneurs provide an interesting counterpoint, with their different focuses and the way they negotiate an overwhelmingly male world.

However, I didn’t find the frenzy around Asha and Cyrus’s business convincing. The suggestion is that she will use her background in researching empathy to create an artificial intelligence that could understand your deepest emotional and spiritual needs. What they have instead is a fairly standard recommendation engine – you answer a few questions and it pulls together a ritual based on your answers.

I was also unconvinced that people in large numbers would become devoted to the site and stick around to form groups. If you want a cool naming ceremony for your baby, once the naming’s done wouldn’t you move on to the next thing (and post the pictures to your existing networks rather than engaging in a new one)?

We see the way Cyrus is able to charm and manipulate the people who are close to him, and how their behaviour mirrors that of the site’s fans, although I’m still not sure what was so compelling about him to so many people. The people who fall under his spell via the site are largely in the background of the novel so we don’t get to know what makes them susceptible.

The Startup Wife is an enjoyable enough novel but it feels like it didn’t deliver on its original promise of examining why people are drawn to ritual in a secular world and how tech can both fulfil and exploit human needs.

This novel totally took me by surprise. I was compelled by the mix of satire Anam creates about technology and the relatable humanity of the novel right from the start.

It was fast paced, reflective and written with clear foreshadowing narrative that helped drive the plot forward.

The enigmatic Cyrus in this novel is a slow building perfect storm of a disaster waiting to happen and the pacing of this unravelling is absolutely perfect.

I feel like if the end of the novel wasn't brought so up-to-date I would have been able to distend my belief a little more, and thus brought it off-piste for me.

Thanks Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this novel for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I enjoyed the way that Anam challenges the normal narrative of the male tech messiah in this novel. Asha is a great character and her introspection about her relationship with Cyrus and the way it affects her stake in the company is fascinating. The idea of Utopia itself is worryingly realistic and probably exists somewhere already. The plot borrows somewhat from Black Mirror (though Anam acknowledges that) and will definitely appeal to fans of the show. The discussion of religion is also pretty nuanced. An interesting read.

An interesting read that is so timely. It really promotes woman's rights by illustrating how a woman's opinions can be wrongly overruled by men. I really felt for Asha and came to despise Cyrus.