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Liquid

Author Mariam Rahmani
Narrator Mariam Rahmani
Publisher Transworld
Run Time 9 hours and 3 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Love and relationships.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

‘My career had gone nowhere. My love life was non-existent. And as for s*x – here I was, home alone on a Saturday night with a chick flick playing on my laptop because I didn’t own a TV. You can draw your own conclusions.’

Our protagonist always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. But a couple of years on from earning a fancy PhD, she’s still broke, single and stuck in a job going nowhere. One option remains: marry rich.

Her summer becomes a whirlwind of dating: martinis with a lazy heir, board games with a butch producer and a Venmo request from a ‘socialist’ trust-fund babe. However, when some unexpected and tragic news takes her – and her project – to Tehran she is forced to ask and answer some overdue questions about family, connection and, terrifyingly, her own purpose in life and in love.

A riveting spin on a classic romantic comedy, Liquid delivers a modern tale of romance, loss and belonging in a gorgeous high-wire voice that explodes off the page with wit, verve and originality.

'Sexy, sly, daring' Justin Torres, National Book Award-winning author of Blackouts

'The smoothest, smartest book I’ve read in quite some time' Paul Beatty, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout

'Loving, cutting, mournful, and hilarious' Bryan Washington award-winning author of Family Meal and Memorial

© Mariam Rahmani 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

Hirsute, heuristic, and humorous, Liquid is an electric read. From Los Angeles to Tehran, past to present, academia to the bedsheets, Rahmani navigates these journeys with undeniable verve, serious street-smarts, and a glowing charismatic cool. The smoothest, smartest book I’ve read in quite some time and the dawning of a literary force.

Paul Beatty, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout

Brainy, swift, naughty, constantly surprising, and slyly political—a transgressive tour de force of cultural criticism hidden inside a careening, and deftly comic, logic proof of love.

Heidi Julavits, author of Directions to Myself and The Vanishers

Provocative, intelligent and bold, Liquid is a novel that lingers. Rahmani’s ability to access humor at the perfect moment, and her keen understanding of the power and perils of vulnerability make her the best kind of observer—an honest one.

Angela Flournoy, author of the National Book Award Finalist The Turner House

Heady and intellectual yet sexy and deeply felt in its explorations of loss, identity, and relationships, this is fiction that brings theory into practice in a romantic comedy of sorts that will leave readers thinking about much more than Jane Austen’s truth universal.

Library Journal, Starred Review

Incisive . . . a whirlwind homage to the classic ‘ridiculous first date’ trope . . . sharp cultural criticism, particularly on dating and adulthood. Fans of Elif Batuman ought to take note.

Publishers Weekly

Rahmani’s debut novel joins a canon of what I’ve called the millennial midlife crisis novel . . . Though unsparing and wry like its bedfellows, Liquid is also pleasingly buoyant . . . Rahmani’s romance invokes Jane Austen arithmetic.

Literary Hub

Erudite . . . Rahmani’s debut novel is a sharply observed, cleverly composed examination of modern love

Booklist

An Iranian Indian American adjunct studying marriage plots and seeking middle-class comfort (permanent health care) makes a strategic plan to marry rich in Mariam Rahmani’s smart, addictive debut novel.

Vanity Fair

This one’s for the Elif Batuman heads, but make it post-doc . . . Rahmani’s highbrow humor will draw you in, but make sure you stay for the back half — a poetic and yearning contemplation of Iran, belonging, family, and love that is both as enlightening as it is genuinely rare. Buy.

The Cut

Bitterly funny . . . [a] stylishly arch literary debut

Vogue

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