Kismet: A Novel - Hardcover

Tredget, Luke

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316418293 ISBN 13: 9780316418294

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2018

Synopsis

Black Mirror meets Bridget Jones in this whip-smart debut set in a world where the ultimate matchmaking app has redefined romance.

Twenty-nine-year-old Anna is smart, vivacious, and in the midst of a complete existential meltdown. Sure, from the outside everything in her life seems to be going just fine: She has a decent job, a devoted BFF, and a lovely boyfriend named Pete with whom she is exactly 70% compatible, according to Kismet, the matchmaking app that everyone in Anna's world uses to find love. Still...isn't there supposed to be more to life than this? Should she settle for a secure and predictable existence with Pete, or risk everything for a life of passion and adventure?

With true adulthood (the dreaded thirty) just weeks away, Anna secretly re-joins Kismet, and soon encounters Geoff, a dashing, forty-something journalist with whom she has a shockingly high compatibility score of 81. How can she not at least see where this goes...?

A funny and propulsive love story for our over-networked age, KISMET challenges us to take stock of how technology shapes our desires and what it means to "settle."

About this title

About the Author

Luke Tredget works in international development, primarily for the Red Cross. His journalism has been published in The Guardian, and he completed the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA in 2015. He lives in London.

Review

"The ennui of the modern-day privileged class has rarely been captured as poignantly as in Luke Tredget's Kismet, a deeply felt reflection of the ways in which technology that was supposed to bring people closer together often only serves to isolate them (and occasionally drive them mad). And as Tredget's complicated, often frustrating, but eminently relatable protagonist shows, the truest human connection occurs when we put our phones away."―Doree Shafrir, author of Startup

"Tredget writes a funny, timely story, with flawed and relatable characters, about how technology affects our desires and what it means to 'settle.' Though he satirizes modern dating and the idea of perfection in a relationship, he writes with an engaging warmth and lightness. Readers will surely enjoy this witty modern love story."―Booklist

"A sharply written and heartfelt story about the connections between us, technological or otherwise. Luke Tredget has created a protagonist so lovable that you won't be able to stop reading until you know her fate."―Leslie Cohen, author of This Love Story Will Self-Destruct

"Sharp, witty and full of tension...an intelligent and highly readable novel."―Irish Times

"Tredget's trenchant, entertaining debut traces how big data and social media have become an obstacle for healthy relationships...An incisive view of the uncertainties of contemporary adulthood."―Publishers Weekly

"Kismet is compelling for more than its unflinching study of the infiltration of romance by technology and algorithms. At its heart this novel is about what endures in spite of all that; a modern love story of exceptional warmth, intelligence and humanity."―Luke Kennard, author of The Transition

it "[a] perceptive debut novel...[a] fast-moving and witty love story for the digital age."―Shelf-Awareness

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0316418293
• ISBN 13: 9780316418294
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400