What Might Female Readers Get Out of The Wake of Expectations?

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Wake of Expectations, including major plot developments and character arcs.

In a previous post, I talked about what The Wake of Expectations offers men—especially young men. It’s a snapshot of male friendship, desire, and identity in a pre-digital world. A world where relationships happened in person, where misunderstandings played out face-to-face, not through the cold filter of a screen, and where male intimacy wasn’t reduced to irony or one-line group chats. The book depicts friendships that are talkative, obsessive, emotionally intense—and in many ways, surprisingly earnest.

That post focused on what the book offers to men. But what about women?

Why might women read The Wake of Expectations?

One answer is obvious: for some insight into the way boys thought—and still think—about girls, about themselves, and about the space in between. But that makes it sound like the book is a sociological artifact, some kind of emotional time capsule. It’s more than that. What the book offers is a portrayal of emotional need and confusion in young men that’s often flattened or stylized in both fiction and life.

Take Dani, for example. She offers Calvin kindness—thoughtfulness, connection, genuine friendship—and he immediately perceives it as interest. Their bond deepens, but so does the confusion. Calvin begins to long for romance, and as they miscommunicate, things get messy. On the surface, maybe Calvin just looks like another horny teenage boy. But the book doesn’t treat him that way. What it depicts is a kind of confused sincerity that’s more typical than many people realize. His desire isn’t just about wanting her—it’s about wanting to matter to her. And he does. Just not in the way he wants. Not as her chosen partner, but as a fellow passenger. A friend. That gap between how much you do mean to someone and how you wish you meant something different—that’s where the ache lives.

Or look at Ilse, who tells Calvin she wants to see other people. She offers him the same freedom, but he doesn’t want it. He wants to commit, to stay. And when she later tries to come back, Calvin—who would have given anything to stay with her before—can’t accept. Even though part of him still wants to. And this isn’t pride. It’s injury. It’s what happens when a young man builds his entire emotional sense of self around being “enough” for someone, and then isn’t. The trope of the unfeeling, wandering male falls apart here. This is a young man who stayed, and broke anyway.

Then there’s Tall Alyssa, who genuinely wants to be friends with Calvin, and doesn’t understand why that isn’t enough. She finds his brief fling with Maria “stupid.” What she doesn’t see—and what the book tries to show—is how deeply Calvin’s sense of self-worth is tied up in his desirability. The fling isn’t just about conquest. It’s about relief. For a moment, he feels wanted. For a moment, he doesn’t feel like a failure.

Mira, on the other hand, wants emotional attention that Calvin only knows how to give in a romantic context. He’s not withholding it out of cruelty—he’s confused. He thinks she’s expecting things from him that don’t match the boundaries of their relationship. And it’s never stated outright, but the book leaves open the possibility that Calvin might have given her what she wanted—if she’d wanted it his way. But that kind of emotional contract was never negotiated. They miss each other completely.

Of course, we only see these women through Calvin’s eyes—and like real life, that view is limited, imperfect, and often wrong. The novel doesn’t claim to tell their stories in full. But it does capture the emotional aftershocks they leave behind. Their needs matter just as much—but this is Calvin’s account, and part of what the book asks readers to consider is how often people speak past each other, even when both sides are trying.

What links all of these stories is the emotional impact that female responses have on the male psyche, especially at a formative age. That’s not to say women are responsible for men’s self-worth—but it is to say that many young men learn to measure their worth through female attention, approval, and affection (or at least, they used to). That isn’t healthy. But it is real. And the book doesn’t preach about it. It just shows it—for those who are curious.

So what might women get from reading The Wake of Expectations?

Maybe a deeper understanding of how men don’t talk about what hurts them—and how those unspoken wounds still shape their lives. Maybe a more compassionate lens through which to reconsider past relationships, or current ones. Maybe just a clearer sense of what the male interior life looks like when it’s allowed to be unfiltered—when it’s not sanded down into a likable or safe package.

This isn’t a book that flatters men. But it does humanize them.
And yes—some readers may bristle at that idea. Why do men need to be humanized? Haven’t they had the mic long enough?

Fair question. But the book doesn’t ask whether men deserve that lens. It just offers it. Because that’s the only perspective I, as an author, have to offer. And because emotional confusion, unmet longing, and quiet heartbreak aren’t gendered—they’re human.

And for women who are curious—about how men break, long, misread, misfire, and still try—there may be more to discover in Calvin’s story than expected.

Not because he’s exceptional.
But because he’s emotionally honest in a world that didn’t always reward that—and sometimes, still doesn’t.

Javier

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