Amanda Pellegrino

At least a hundred pages could have been cut, namely those of the flashbacks to the Xtian college. Cut them down to paragraphs and place them in the pages examining the present. It makes for something more organic, interesting, and maintains the emotional effect. There was no foreshadowing. I skimmed as the book went on. The author would make her point, and then -keep going-, and repeated themes or even dialogue often. She may have been trying to pad out her word count. It dragged down the quality of the book immensely. I did not feel close to any character. The MC is an adept social chameleon who thoroughly commits to her mission, which at first I thought was interesting. Infiltrating rich people circles! No, that is not the reason. Make it clearer, please. But the author did not. A lot of stuff the MC experienced, would have a deep psychological effect IRL. She breezes through it in five pages here. And even after that, she kept dragging the audience back to the Xtian college! She didn't link it to the present -at all-. I kept reading because I wanted context for the last twenty pages. Reviewers noted them so I stuck it out. It's a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment (thanks to Nostalgia Chick for the term): comes right the fuck out of nowhere, is overdone, makes no sense in the context of the story, has no bearing on the plot, and once it occurs, no one speaks of it again.

All because the author writes poorly, can't link things to one another, and is too wordy. I've read some of her other works, or tried. This is actually an improvement, I'm surprised to note. She's getting there. I don't and won't intentionally seek out her work. I read this while I was waiting for other books to come on. I wasn't the intended audience for this. It was boring..… (más)

And I thought I'd had a bad boss (luckily only one), these ladies set out for a little revenge.

FROM NETGALLEY: Best friends Cate, Lauren, Olivia and Max are overworked and underpaid assistants to some of the most powerful people in the entertainment industries. Like the assistants who came before them, the women know they have to pay their dues and abide the demeaning tasks and verbal abuse from their bosses in order to climb the ladders to their dream jobs.

But as they are passed over for promotions and the toxic office environments reach a breaking point, the women secretly start an anonymous blog detailing their experiences, which snowballs into hundreds of others coming forward with stories of their own. Confronted with newfound viral fame and the possibility of their identities being revealed, the assistants have to contend with the life-changing consequences of speaking out against those who refuse to share the power.… (más)

If The Devil Wears Prada and Bridget Jones Diary had a baby it would be this book. I’m loving this book, the dialogue and most of the characters. Four friends in entry level positions in New York City work as assistants in various industries. All four women want to climb the ladder within their respective fields and have a successful career.

Cate is an assistant to the head of a huge book publisher. He requires her to do the administrative as well as personal jobs for him. Keep his calender but also get cupcakes to his son's school for a party, pick up dry cleaning, open his home in Vermont for his vacation.

Max is an assistant at a news station with goals to be journalist. She is sexually harrassed by the lead news anchor and does all the running for coffee and other minor tasks. Her male counterpart Charlie is never subjected to demeaning comments or asked to run out on errands.

Lauren dreams of being a script writer one day. She is an assistant to Pete and gets harrassed by one of the writers on the show. Go get the coffee and keep your mouth shut. Until she has enough of that treatment.

Olivia is an actor's assistant and has some of the same demeaning tasks as her friends. Go to a smelly unairconditioned warehouse to search for a sofa he wants delivered; try and take notes and keep his calendar while he is doing yoga naked. The B list actor Nate always dangles the idea of passing on a screen test of hers to someone who can help.

The ladies meet Thursdays to drink margaritas and unburden themselves to one another, the only people they can trust. Then they take the napkins with the written out grievences and burn them at the end of the night. One night they decide to start a website called Twentysomething and write out their stories anonymously. Thanks to the NDA (non disclosure agreements) they must use names like The Bossy One, The Emotional One, etc. Then it takes off. More women are telling their stories and the website becomes a sensation. People start to wonder, who are these women behind Twentysomething as it becomes newsworthy.

This book has sexual references and the occasional F bomb. This doesn't bother me but I know it does for some. The stories are believable as are the friendships and struggles. This is a story about women being impowered by one another and getting tired of being passed over for promotion and treated differently than their male counterparts.

I will definitely be looking for more by Amanda Pelligrino in the future.

Publication date December 21, 2021 by Harlequin. Genre: General Fiction Adult and Women's Fiction.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced reader's copy of this book. I was not compensated for the review, all opinions are mine.… (más)