If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

This book reads so very differently from Umrigar's The Space Between Us (2005), which to me means she writes with versatility.  Check out this critique of U.S. mainstream consumerism and media that appears in the book:

...even the American Dream was beginning to lose its sheen, to look a bit tarnished. All of America was now beginning to feel like a reality show, a Hollywood production. It was no longer enough it seemed, for its citizens to be Joe Blow or Sorab Sethna [the character's name].  Now everybody had to be Tina Brown or Tom Cruise or Steve Jobs. Everything was cutting edge.  Everyone needed an extreme makeover. Everything was now available 24/7; everybody was wired and Bluetoothed; everyone was an American Idol.  It was no longer enough to live your life; now you had to be a Survivor. (Umrigar, 2008, pp. 68-69)

After a difficult interaction at his work, Sorab is thinking to himself that life only gets more obsessive and lacks belonging and also brings out the worst in people while they attempt to be the best, because of  the forms that capitalism is taking.  What is similar to The Space Between Us is the presence of hidden critiques of economics.

Reference

Umrigar, T. (2005). The space between us. NY: Harper Perrennial.

Umrigar, T. (2008). If today be sweet. NY: Harper Perennial.