REVIEW: Your Driver is Waiting by Priya Guns

Genre: Contemporary Fiction | LGBTQ+ 

Release Date: Expected 02/03/2023

Publisher: Atlantic Books

Until this summer, Damani has been living on auto-pilot, like a background character in her own life. She spends the day driving other people around, trying to make enough money to care for her and her struggling Mother.

But then, she meets Jolene. Beautiful, bold, brave - she's the perfect woman and Damani can't deny the intense connection between them. But despite Jolene's passionate activism and her claim to have love for everyone, she's still a privileged, rich white woman. Damani just doesn't know if her feelings can ever bridge the divide between them, but she's trying. 

Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before Jolene does something that sets the sparks they had on fire, and Damani is left trying to put out the explosion she burns.

"I'm not sure which is worse, being broke or being broken. Being both was definitely the worst, though."

A bold, blindingly powerful novel full of feminine rage, humour and a lot of heart. It's a searing social commentary about the things that divide and connect us in the human experience and the darker sides of humanity that still plague us. Talking about the expectations placed on people to achieve despite the impossibility of the current climate, about environmental danger, about workers rights, about burnout and ultimately about the utter farce that modern life can be sometimes. 

Of course, as a Caucasian woman I can only try and understand Damani's experiences - I can't speak for this character, only speak up for them. And that is something discussed at length with bitingly dry wit - the difference between actually speaking up for someone, and speaking over them to drown out their voices. It contemplates how every person experiences privilege and discrimination differently -  this book shows quite clearly that nothing is ever so simple, each person is the sum of many parts that make us who we are. 

Damani is dryly funny, full of dark, sarcastic wit - almost an antagonistic kind of humour full of scepticism about everyone and everything. I felt her anger and rage, her painful exhaustion - this is delivered brilliantly as Damani speaks directly to the reader in her personal, frank and brutally honest tone that kept me intrigued about her. Every relationship - her loving friends, her tense relationship with her mother, and of course Jolene were perfectly crafted - Jolene was written so well that I almost fell deeply in lust with her too and I loved the way that while their romance was exceptional and intense, it didn't eclipse the story of this powerhouse novel. 

The story moved slowly, letting us see deeper into Damani's mind and observe the turbulent, troubled world around her as it explodes into protests and anger - but still made time for plenty of high-octane, thrilling moments that balance out the quiet seething contemplation. At times, I couldn't quite understand the larger-than-life actions some of the characters did, but as we understand their desperation and despair it all begins to make sense. Eventually, the loud and the quiet merge together into a fever pitch as Damani reaches her limit and we wait to anxiously see where her end destination is. 

Stylistically, this was so intriguing - Damani was a spectacular narrator, sharp and witty, almost nihilistic but understandably so - but then as Jolene enters the tale we see the dark tones shift into painful optimism, almost creating an alienating experience from the jarring change. Watching from the outside as Damani clearly became bewitched was uncomfortable, and I wanted to scream at her - but haven't you ever fallen for someone so deeply that things don't really make sense?

This is a love story, or a story about love anyway. About the complicated love between families in their darkest moments, about the love between real friends, about the love we share with strangers, about finding love in ourselves when the world just doesn't want you to. 

Brutal, bold and brilliant - Priya Guns is a voice that demands to be heard, and one you'll want to hear.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.

cw: sex, death, swearing, violence, police aggression, racism, toxic relationships, debt.