{"id":13170,"date":"2026-01-27T18:18:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T17:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:23:25","slug":"tony-tulathimutte-rejection-reviewed-by-devarya-singhania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170","title":{"rendered":"Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection, reviewed by Devarya Singhania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rejection provides in-depth case studies of performative males, cuckolding, finance bros, and LLMs, while leaving it to the reader, much like the internet, to make their own interpretations<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tony Tulathimutte | Rejection<\/em>| Fourth Estate: \u00a316.99
<\/span>Reviewed by Devarya Singhania<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his second novel (or novel-in-stories as it has been referred to in some places), Tony Tualathimutte complicates what it means to live on and live for the internet. You might expect the characters, much like his debut novel Private Citizens<\/em>, to be graduates of the tech world. In Rejection<\/em>, there is no singular \u2018tech-bro\u2019 but rather an amalgamation of \u2018regular\u2019 people simultaneously haunted and seduced by contemporary technology, and sex as it pertains to it. Rejection<\/em> provides in-depth case studies of performative males, cuckolding, finance bros, and LLMs, while leaving it to the reader, much like the internet, to make their own interpretations of these distant, parasocial relationships.<\/p>\n

While Private Citizens<\/em> was considered a \u2018millennial\u2019 novel, Rejection<\/em>, inherently is a gen-z one. Even though the characters that exist in the novel belong to the millennial era (none of them are born post 1997 if you consider 2025, the year of its publication, as the year it is set), they emulate, in my opinion, gen-z issues.<\/p>\n

In the introductory story, \u201cThe Feminist,\u201d Tulathimutte presents a hyper-activist male, who even knows \u201chis sadness\u201d due to a lack of sex is \u201ca symptom of his entitlement.\u201d How charming. He knows that comparing his female friends to actresses is insensitive even though he\u2019s \u201cdemarcat[ed] fantasy from reality\u201d and is thus, in his own admission, sensitive. The protagonist expects his self-awareness, his \u201cprincipled feminism\u201d to result in at least one of the \u201cbillions\u201d of girls being attracted to him. No one is. Not even those he initially regarded as peers, way back when, in his all-girls school. He was one of the only boys there. His frustration at his lack of charm, the futility of demonstrating his \u201cunselfish\u201d feminist thoughts towards the end, is what ultimately gives life to the story.<\/p>\n

The protagonist resorts to violence (implied by the cliffhanger ending) due to said anger. He effectively ends his performance. What Tulathimutte does agonisingly well with this protagonist is that he blurs the line between feminism, misogyny and misandry. To the protagonist, the way he acts around men and women, is always with the intention to have sex with women. He majors in Gender Studies where he notices an advantage of there being a \u201cpaucity\u201d of men in the course. While he reports his male coworkers for offering \u201cunsolicited\u201d dating advice, he verifies that advice by consulting his female friends. He even masturbates to the images of his female friends, after they\u2019ve \u2018rejected\u2019 him. It can be argued that him consulting his female friends about the \u2018dating advice\u2019 that she says cannot be universally applied to \u201cevery woman\u201d is considerate. That he is not assuming any authority over a woman, and in fact, deems his female friends to have the same authority as his male coworkers (should be obvious, I know, but he wanted praise). He didn\u2019t enjoy Gender Studies (there\u2019s certainly no indication of it) but did so, just to get the female students\u2019 attention. Why must they only exist for your gaze? Where is feminism, now? And of course, the petulant masturbation speaks for itself.<\/p>\n

The reason I fixate so much on this story is not because it is some beyond-imagination perfection. Tulathimutte uses a similar template across the other stories.<\/p>\n

We see another sexually repressed protagonist in \u201cPics.\u201d Alison, in her late twenties (enters her thirties as the story progresses), has \u201cnever been in love.\u201d Given the lack of success she\u2019s had dating wise, she has sex with her best-friend, Neil, to whom she\u2019s not at all his type \u201cphysically.\u201d He even takes a picture of her during a blowjob for the thrill. Across the story, Alison turns to her online friend group for validation of her actions\u2013while going on bad dates, having bad sex, and trying to find better options through the myriad of awful profiles on dating apps. Her friends are very supportive of her hook-up with Neil, loving it for their \u201ckween.\u201d Once Neil abandons her and goes after someone of a different \u201crace\u201d (the most noticeable detail Alison remembers), and the boys on the apps do not satisfy her, Alison\u2019s frustration boils out and she lashes out with the friends, over-text, and ends the support. Much like the protagonist of \u201cThe Feminist\u201d losing his feminist principles, the protagonist here too, loses their main community keeping them functioning.<\/p>\n

Even in the stories \u201cAhegao, or the Ballad of Sexual Repression,\u201d \u201cOur Dope Future,\u201d and \u201cMain Character\u201d the protagonists, severely obsessed with their body image, de-aging and cultural assimilation respectively, begin to lose control of their lives due to a lack of sex. In \u201cAhegao,\u201d the protagonist, Kant, wrestles with his sexuality, eventually resorting towards, in the horniest and most debilitating way possible, sending a detailed script for a BDSM porn video to a male pornstar. Only to send that script to a list of family and friends. In \u201cOur Dope Future,\u201d the \u201c37m\u201d protagonist offers a misogynist lecture on dating women, after dating Alison from \u201cPics.\u201d He also has trouble forming a family, and only offers Alison disappointing sex.<\/p>\n

While it is revealed in \u201cMain Character\u201d that the posts were all LLM generated, and hence the content of the racism against Bee (the protagonist) in university may or may not have happened, it is also revealed that the LLM posts earliest version was rooted in some<\/em> fact. Bee, also, does not understand the sexualisation of the \u201cminor-coded\u201d Timothee Chalamet.<\/p>\n

The central question remains: can a lack of sex or even just bad sex, ruin lives? Through slightly hyperbolic but not unrealistic possibilities, Tulathimutte in his novel-in-stories leaves the reader in desperate need for sex. It warns us with an \u2018or else\u2019 probe. While sex in this novel too, is \u2018real\u2019 the stories integrate the changed definition of a relationship due to tech. Through this entire facade of what we must seem like online, we forget to satisfy those we see in reality.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Devarya Singhania<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rejection provides in-depth case studies of performative males, cuckolding, finance bros, and LLMs, while leaving it to the reader, much like the internet, to make their own interpretations Tony Tulathimutte | Rejection| Fourth Estate: \u00a316.99Reviewed by Devarya Singhania In his second novel (or novel-in-stories as it has been referred to in some places), Tony Tualathimutte […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nTony Tulathimutte, Rejection, reviewed by Devarya Singhania - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection, reviewed by Devarya Singhania - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rejection provides in-depth case studies of performative males, cuckolding, finance bros, and LLMs, while leaving it to the reader, much like the internet, to make their own interpretations Tony Tulathimutte | Rejection| Fourth Estate: \u00a316.99Reviewed by Devarya Singhania In his second novel (or novel-in-stories as it has been referred to in some places), Tony Tualathimutte […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-27T17:18:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-27T18:23:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screenshot-2026-01-27-at-17.13.07.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170\",\"name\":\"Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection, reviewed by Devarya Singhania - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-27T17:18:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-27T18:23:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/e6deb0374609919f6e86f6ee1defe8cc\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13170#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection, reviewed by Devarya Singhania\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/e6deb0374609919f6e86f6ee1defe8cc\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"The Manchester Review\"},\"description\":\"The Manchester Review was founded in 2008 and is published by the Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester. 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