THE DEFAULT WORLD

A transgender woman embarks on a quest to exploit the cynical, lavish lives of Silicon Valley’s elite for her own gain.

For years, Jhanvi has made a living working at a co-op grocery store in Sacramento in order to save up for her gender-affirming surgeries. It’s an honest if uneventful way of life, but everything changes when her old friend Henry mentions that he and his laughably oblivious tech-bro buddies spent more than $100,000 creating a fancy sex dungeon in a warehouse basement. Determined to exploit Henry’s money and health care benefits, Jhanvi hatches a plan to marry him. What she doesn’t expect is to be hypnotized by the beautiful and privileged world that awaits her. Kanakia’s novel has a great setup, but the execution doesn’t live up to its potential. It’s clear from the first pages that none of Jhanvi’s friends have accepted her for who she is and don’t intend to. Readers will undoubtedly root for Jhanvi as she tries to navigate the complicated relationship dynamics she faces as well as her own feelings of rejection and dismissal by both of the groups she desperately wants to be a part of—the fire-eaters she’s infiltrated and the transgender community. But while the plot should have had an explosive Robin Hood feel, it ends up spinning its wheels. While Henry and his friends are intentionally vapid and privileged millennials, they’re also flat, making their strategically planned downfall an anticlimax. Even Jhanvi begins to grate as she struggles to keep up with their indulgent lifestyle.

A hedonistic tale of greed that fails to hit its mark.