Book of the Month is a monthly book subscription box. Each month, their editorial team picks out their favorite new hardcover books, and you can choose which one you want to receive on the first of the month for $17.99/month. You can also add up to two additional books for only $9.99 each. (This box was named one of the best subscriptions for avid readers in the 2025 Subscription Box Awards.).
This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the editorial guidelines to learn more about how we review boxes.)
My BOTM Pick for March: Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani; Retail $26.10
Back of Book Summary:
The unnamed Iranian-Indian American narrator of Liquid has always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. And from an early age, she and her best friend—a poet-turned-marketer named Adam—have turned their noses up at other peoples’ riches. But two years after earning a PhD from UCLA, the narrator is no closer to the middle-class comfort promised to her by the prestige of her fancy, scholarship-funded education and the successes of her immigrant parents. Jokingly, Adam suggests she just “marry rich.”
But our protagonist, whose PhD thesis compared Eastern and Western views of marriage in film and literature, takes the idea seriously. She makes a spreadsheet and outlines a goal: 100 dates with people of all genders and a marriage proposal in hand by the official start of the fall semester. What follows is a whirlwind summer packed with dating: martinis sans vermouth with the lazy scion of an Eastside construction empire; board games with a butch producer who owns a house in the hills and a newly dented Porsche; a Venmo request from a “socialist” trust fund babe; and an evening spent dodging the halitosis of a maxillofacial surgeon from Orange County.
Only a tragedy in Tehran and an overdue familial reckoning can alter the narrator’s increasingly manic trajectory and force her to confront the contradictions of her life in Los Angeles. And as doubts begin to creep in about her marriage project, it suddenly seems possible that the eligible prospect she’s been looking for has been beneath her nose the entire time.
My Summary
What's the best way to marry rich? If you're the unnamed narrator of Liquid: A Love Story, you start a spreadsheet and you start dating.
It's been two years since our heroine graduated from UCLA with her PhD, and not much has changed. She's still broke, still single, and despite the fact that adjunct professors usually have their course plans for fall by now, she hasn't heard a word from the college. So when her best friend jokes that she should give up on academia and marry rich, she's got nothing to lose.
Raised by an Indian mom and Iranian dad (one Shia parent and one Sunni parent), whose marriage worked best when they were apart, our narrator carries both the weight of cultural expectations and childhood experience with her as she ventures out on date after excruciating date. Add in the research that spawned her PhD thesis comparing Eastern and Western views of marriage in film and literature, and our protagonist's search for love is, in a word, complicated.
But when she makes a possibly friendship-ending mistake and an unplanned trip to Tehran disrupts her search for marriage material, she's forced to re-evaluate her plans and her place in the world.
The Verdict
Each month, the BOTM Club provides six books to choose from, and some months it's harder to make that choice than others. March 2025 was one of the hard months, thanks to an array of solid picks; from a memoir about life in the restaurant business (Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever) to an intriguing novel about a family living on an island off of Antarctica (Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy).
Liquid: A Love Story comes from Mariam Rahmani, a Bennington College professor and first-time author. The latter fact is what helped make my final choice, and is another piece of the BOTM Club magic — they often introduce brand-new authors who you might otherwise not encounter.
Truth be told, based purely on its premise, I expected Liquid to be a bit of escapist literature. Woman builds a spreadsheet to find a spouse and marry rich? That sounds like it will be simple fun, doesn't it?
To be clear, this would not have been a knock on the novel. Escapist reads are often some of my very favorites, serving their purpose well. But it was a pleasant surprise to find so much more within the pages of Liquid.
As a Muslim American writing about being a Muslim American, Rahmani manages to provide hilarity alongside a thoughtful dissection of her protagonist's experience as a biracial American, as the child of parents from two different sects of the Muslim faith, and as a Muslim American facing Orientalism both in LA and in Iran.
Value — Was This Box Worth It?
Now for the big question: Was the March 2025 BOTM Club subscription worth it?
This was one of those months that really proved the value of having a subscription. Everyone who has achieved BFF status (at least 12 months of membership) was eligible to receive not just their March book, of choice but an extra hardcover!
Choices for the extra hardcover came from the five finalists in the brand's Book of the Year competition, which crowned The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (my July 2024 book choice and one of my favorite reads of the year) as the winner of the annual Lolly award. Because I'd already read the winner, I chose another novel I've been wanting to read for quite a while — The Wedding People by Alison Espach — which currently retails for $18.37 on Amazon.
Now for the math: The BOTM Club starts at $17.99, depending on your chosen subscription (the first month of a subscription is currently $9.99). I had already saved $8 over retail with my choice of Liquid: A Love Story, but when you add in my second book, I saved nearly $27 this month!
The Cost: $9.99 (This price is only for your first month).
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this book if you sign up today? Yes! But you will need to order it as an add-on.
What do you think of the Book of the Month subscription? Let us know below with your own review!
Please do not enter your email address in the Name field or in the comment content. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *. Remember to post with kindness and respect. Comments with offensive language, cruelness to others, etc will not be approved. See our full comment policy here.