Isabel KaplanReseñas

Great read. Kaplan really captures the ambivalence and tension of being of feminist with ambition in a patriarchal workplace/world. The mother-daughter storyline is also compelling. I did wish, at some points, to see the character of Gemma further developed. Or maybe I just wished that the narrator had a better friendship with her.

[Note: I am no longer rating books with numerical or star ratings. ]

Thank you to Henry Holt & Co and Netgalley for the ARC.

Milk Fed meets The Devil Wears Prada?

A solid debut about the inner conflicts we face as feminist women trying to succeed professionally. I was really rooting for the narrator, and both loved and hated how much I related to her sometimes. She navigates a new job, her own mental health and that of her mother, interpersonal issues with friends and men, and body image. There were moments when she was grappling with the inherent hypocrisy of trying to get ahead as a woman in a man’s world when I wanted to shout YES THIS IS SO TRUE AND SO FRUSTRATING!

Some issues with fleshing out the secondary characters, and the prose tended towards simplistic, but absolutely worth a read if you’re interested in the themes.

Trigger warnings for sexual assault/harassment.

This is a novel of privilege and entitlement, of what a degree from Harvard doesn't do for a directionless women with a missing father and an obsessively smothering mother. It should be yuckier than it is, and less sympathetic, but the writing is really good and the story is very suspenseful, until it isn't. The unnamed protagonist lands a peon job at the third runner-up TV network, due to her lawyer mother's friendship with the big boss. She learns how to maneuver and manipulate, how to cope with her self-loathing and her (well-deserved) feelings of uselessness, and how to swim faster than the other sharks. Eventually, the management gets "#METOO'd as the narrator holds back from reporting her own experience with sexual violation at work, and her mother, previously acclaimed for defending women in sexual harassment suits, inconceivably steps in to defend the guilty, rationalizing by blaming her daughter’s job security. It’s an empty calorie page-turner.

Reviewed by Amber Gibson for TeensReadToo.com

Living in Hancock Park doesn't make Becky Miller so different from the average teen girl. She still has the same awkward family issues, boy confusion, and wants to be accepted by the most famous and popular girls at Whitbread, her upper-class girls school where almost everyone is somehow connected to Hollywood. However, the whole moving into the Four Seasons Beverly Hills thing and having a style guru mother who has her own TV show kind of sets Becky apart from the blue-collar working girl.

Like many Hollywood stars, Becky's life might appear to be all fun and glam, but that's far from the truth. No, she doesn't have a cocaine problem (her friend Alissa is another story) and she doesn't have a closet full of Jimmy Choos (borrowing mom's is much more frugal). Becky doesn't even have the hallmark Hollywood eating disorder, despite her grandmother's attempts to foster anorexia in the poor girl. All things considered, Becky has a rather healthy mix of self-esteem tempered with the typical anxieties and insecurities that all young adults can identify with.

Starting junior year while simultaneously trying to find a best friend replacement and dealing with her parents' divorce is difficult for Becky. She finds solace in her long-time psychiatrist (another prerequisite to living in Hollywood, or so it seems), until it is determined that her psychiatrist has been overdosing her on medication since she was ten.

School understandably takes a backseat to the social drama of junior year. Choosing between the popularity and dazzling beauty of the Trinity (the hottest girls in school) and drama geek Taylor for best friend replacement is constantly on Becky's mind. Then there's Aaron, the soccer player who just moved back to Hancock Park - fresh meat in the Trinity's eyes, and he seems to have his eye on Becky. So it's no surprise when Becky finds herself at her first Pimps and Hos Halloween party.

Junior year is sure to bring a lot of changes, and if she isn't careful, Becky may find herself light-years from the down-to-earth, Model United Nations girl that she once was. Then again, is that necessarily a bad thing?

With life a whirlwind hot mess around her, Becky is just another teen girl trying to survive, albeit in quite luxurious circumstances. The Trinity are quite mild as Whitbread's reigning mean girls, but otherwise the characters are relatively believable. Isabel Kaplan spins a Hollywood tale with heart, which fans of Alyson Noel or Melissa Walker will enjoy.

I can't believe this stunning debut novel was written by an eighteen-year-old! Our heroine, Becky Miller, is an average girl with an above-average life. She goes to an elite L.A. high school, and appears to live the dream life. And, aside from her struggles with mental health, Becky is mostly okay with being average. She has her best friend, Amanda, to lean on. But when Amanda moves to New York and Becky's parents split up, it turns out that junior year will be tougher than predicted. To make matters worse, her shrink has just gotten in trouble for prescribing Becky way too much medication. On the bright side, the Trinity - the school's most elite clique - have their eye on Becky. Before she knows it, Becky is popular. But of course this comes with strings attached - Becky can't be the public brainiac she used to be, or hang out with drama-geek Taylor, who might be her only real friend now that Amanda's gone. With her self-worth dwindling, Becky has choices to make. Can she find her old self, or is the new Becky the real Becky after all? In stark contrast to the no-consequences world of Gossip Girl, Hancock Park is a strong, fulfilling addition to teen literature. I can't recommend this enough to girls who want to read about the glam life, but don't want to ditch the real life altogether. I'm looking forward to seeing more novels from Isabel Kaplan.