Read as part of CBR15Bingo: Guide. Damani is a ride share driver guiding folks to their destinations and also a guide through her messed up city and life.
Had to sit on this review for a few days because the book blew me away but I wasn’t sure what to write about it when I was done. Without question, it’s one of the best things I read this year.
Yes, it’s definitely a riff on Taxi Driver. Your mileage may vary as to whether or not it’s a good thing (car puns regarding a book about ridesharing, hoorah!). But Priya Guns, a confident first-time writer, has created a character in Damiani so thoroughly human and flawed and beautiful and imperfect that I couldn’t help but be drawn into her story. It is very much a horror story in that there are no monsters except income inequality and no boogeymen except racism. And it feels like a ride, an anxiety-fueled romp that rocketed me from start to finish.
It’s tough to describe this book. It’s a bit of a crime novel but not really. It’s somewhat of a romance but that’s not it. It’s a story of survival really but that’s not the only theme because again, Priya Guns writes Damiani in such a three dimensional way.
I don’t have anything to compare it to except it really is like its premise: a nightmare drive with a tortured soul trying to make her way as the world burns around her. Go along for this ride, you won’t regret it.
