All Our Evenings by Ruthvika Rao
Love can lead to unusual habits, such as picking up your partner’s phrases or changing your style to impress them. In friendships, love becomes a different territory, where connection is built on shared interests. In Arjun and Ganesh’s friendship, cricket is not their only common interest; their friend Ruhee is, too. In ALL OUR EVENINGS, Ruthvika Rao explores the complexities of friendship, gendered expectations in India, gender-based violence, and parental bonds.
Arjun, the eldest child in his family, remains single into his late 30s. Working at the local municipal water service, Arjun isn’t exactly thrilled with this current stage of his life. Living under his mother’s roof, Arjun comes home from work on a hot summer day, only to be prodded by his mother about his childhood best friend, Ruhee, whom she recently saw. Impressed by Ruhee’s current career as a doctor, she is the picture-perfect daughter-in-law that any mother could ever imagine. Yet, not everything is what it seems.
Told in non-linear timelines centered on Arjun, Rao unfolds the entangled pasts of Arjun, Ganesh, and Ruhee. Arjun and Ganesh’s friendship budded during long games of cricket at their local gymkhana, but is put to the test when Ruhee enters the picture. With Arjun acting as Ganesh’s supposed ‘wingman,’ Arjun is forced to suppress his long-time feelings for Ruhee. As Ganesh and Ruhee’s relationship blossoms, Arjun and Ganesh’s friendship deepens, and their bond is fortified. Yet, we soon realize that Ganesh is reticent about his personal life, especially towards Arjun. Without being currently enrolled in school, caring for a brother who really isn’t his ‘brother,’ and more secrets that Ganesh refuses to reveal, Arjun’s intentions toward Ganesh grow more ill by the second.
Struggling to manage his emotions as an adolescent, Arjun also faces predicaments and emotional burdens when his father, a teacher, becomes involved with a co-worker, Gita Miss, at the very school Arjun attends. By setting the story in 1990s India, Rao exposes the misogyny that women face through Gita Miss. The separation of Arjun’s parents places the blame solely on the women, with Gita Miss repeatedly being slut-shamed and Arjun’s mom facing societal stigma as a mother whose husband left her for a younger woman. At the center of the novel, Rao speaks volumes about what women endure under a patriarchal structure, and what it means to be the child in between it all. When both women exemplify strong character, Arjun quickly learns that pitting women against each other brings forth nothing but bitterness for both (though the man is always spared).
As a first-time reader of Ruthvika Rao’s work, I’m thoroughly impressed by the depth that Rao packed into the ~192-page novel. Throughout the whole novel, I was constantly on the edge of my seat, wondering what part of the plot Rao would suddenly reveal. There is a constant urge to travel through the past and present timelines of the situation the characters find themselves in, especially given how past decisions lead to the broken and incomplete friendship that Arjun, Ganesh, and Ruhee experience. Rao not only does a great job of condensing such a rich story into a short length, but also brings to light the complexities that women in India face in relationships. I’d highly recommend ALL OUR EVENINGS to readers who are searching for a deeply layered yet quick read that will leave you thinking about the barriers the characters face and their friendships for a while.
Thank you so much to Flatiron Books for sending a digital galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
ALL OUR EVENINGS by Ruthvika Rao was published on September 1, 2026, by Flatiron Books.
Review written by Akira Park and edited by Hannah Martian.
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