All This Could Be Different

Best Books of 2022

Discover the books that made our 2022 list.

2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

"One of the buzziest, most human novels of the year...breathless, dizzying, and completely beautiful." — Vogue

"Dazzling and wholly original... written with such mordant wit, insight, and specificity, it feels like watching a new literary star being born in real time." — Entertainment Weekly

From a brilliant new voice comes an electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself--a warm, dazzling, and profound saga of queer love, friendship, work, and precarity in twenty-first century America

Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She's moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, grueling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women — soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.

But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It's then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.

A beautiful and capacious novel rendered in singular, unforgettable prose, All This Could Be Different is a wise, tender, and riveting group portrait of young people forging love and community amidst struggle, and a moving story of one immigrant's journey to make her home in the world.

"[A] bildungsroman, an immigrant story, a hero's journey not to be missed." — Lit Hub

"Beautifully written, lusciously felt, and marvelously envisioned. Resplendent with intelligence, wit, and feeling." — Kirkus (Starred Review)

"Sneha is a magnetic teller of her tale of finding love, growing up, and summoning the power to change--and choose--her life. Kindred to Brandon Taylor's stellar Real Life, this novel burrows deep." — Booklist (Starred Review)

"Mathews has a big heart and a sharp tongue...[and] a wonderful eye for the things that make friendship and community just as valuable as romance." — The New York Times Book Review

Sarah Thankam Mathews grew up between Oman and India, immigrating to the United States at seventeen. Her work has been published in Best American Short Stories and she is a recipient of fellowships from the Asian American Writers' Workshop and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 2020, she founded the mutual aid group Bed-Stuy Strong. All This Could Be Different is her first novel.