Members Only...is as provocative as it is comedic ... Facing social, professional, personal implosion—all in one week—might seem impossibly overdramatic, but Members Only proves remarkably convincing ... That said, don't expect all doom-and-gloom here: without ever eliding the gravity of serious social issues like racism, privilege and power, Pandya deftly manages to create a tragicomedy of errors driven by surprising wit, irreverent humor and razor-sharp insight.
Pandya skillfully uses elements of the immigrant experience, mid-life crisis, and university life to weave a fictional spell. While the novel confronts serious themes such as racism, academic serfdom and the dark side of viral social media, Pandya balances that weight with humor and irony ... Raj Bhatt is easy to like and I became caught up in his story, experiencing his doubts and fears as well as his joy.
... a timely story about prejudice and white privilege ... In a multi-racial society, race relations are themselves multi-lateral. Pandya bankshots questions that Americans face and ignore every day ... questions and more are smoothly woven into the first person narrative of dilemmas at club and campus ... a thoughtful guide to these issues as they continue to make the news in the US on a daily basis.
This realistic, character-driven novel with multiple, exceptionally well developed, threads of suspense engages contemporary identity politics and what it means to belong—to a club, to a racial group, to a country, and to various cultures and subcultures ... a fast-paced structure akin to Ian McEwan’s Saturday (2005), though both writers manage to slow down enough to offer quiet moments that accentuate the protagonists’ interior lives. Pandya’s writing here is smooth, clear, funny, and often subtly beautiful. Members Only is the thoughtful page-turner we need right now.
... [a] tense, sly debut novel ... The taut, heartrending narrative offers deep insight into the ways the characters are shaped by racism. Pandya’s sympathetic portrait of Raj’s quest for acceptance will resonate with readers.
This first novel from Pandya...aims to skewer both the upper-crust milieu of exclusive country clubs and conservative campus culture, and it partially succeeds ... his depiction of these phenomena is not totally believable. Pandya focuses on website comments, not social media or Reddit (the hubs of online hate today), and Raj’s outraged students feel more like convenient obstacles than real people. Also, while he captures the details of the country-club setting, he doesn't examine the politics of those characters as closely. The novel’s satirical edge might have been more effective if Raj were either more sympathetic or more odious. The novel ultimately sides with him, but he causes many of his problems himself and is irritating enough that it's hard to feel too sorry for him. A readable but frustrating critique of contemporary politics that lacks bite.
