Isabel Kaplan - Not Safe For Work

Isabel Kaplan - Not Safe For Work 

3 ⭐

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Feminism, Literary Fiction  

Pages:  262

Format: eARC on NetGalley  

Publisher: Penguin Michael Joseph   

Date Published: 4th August 2022

Huge thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph for giving me a chance to read and review this book on NetGalley. 

Book Blurb: 

You are young, ambitious, college-educated and a feminist. Your new job is in television.

To climb the ranks, you do whatever it takes:
- Pull all-nighters
- Lean on your powerful mother's contacts
- Stay in shape at cult-like fitness classes
- Secretly wear your boss's Fitbit to improve his stepcount - and his temper

You know the rules of this world. When someone senior tells you how pretty you look, you smile and thank him - and make a mental note never to wear that dress alone with him again.

When whispers start to circle that your office might have 'a bit of a rape problem,' and your close friend confesses her own unsettling encounter, you know there is plenty to gain from staying silent, and all too much to lose through speaking out.

And of course, you know your own boss is one of the good guys . . . don't you?

With blisteringly sharp prose and a darkly humorous voice, Not Safe For Work is an unflinching exploration of the grey area between empowerment and complicity, and a searing, unforgettable portrait of what success costs in a patriarchal world.

My Review: 

I was so looking forward to reading this book as the blurb of it was so captivating and interesting. However, it didn’t live up to my expectations. It was an interesting read about very important topics and some realities of a still very patriarchal society. However, I felt that this book was missing the connection with the main protagonist since she was unnamed, therefore it was hard to relate to her or get to know her as a character. Additionally, the rest of the characters were not explored in depth and their personalities were only displayed from the viewpoint of the main protagonist.

This story is about an unnamed protagonist and her search for a job in Hollywood, especially her struggles to move up in the company and show that she is just as worthy as her male co-workers. The story also explored the protagonist sometimes rather a toxic relationship with her mother and barely existing relationships with her brother and father. Additionally, topics of eating disorders, weight and self-abuse were also discussed, especially how females in Hollywood try to look as good as possible with the help of diets, starvation, gym, medication and of course Botox, makeup, etc, in hope that it will help them to impress their bosses and move up in their jobs.

I think the topics discussed in this book are very important, especially sexism, privilege and still very much male domination in society, as well as toxic parenting and mental health issues. I loved reading all about that, but the book really dragged until about the last 20%. Some of the dialogue and scenes were not adding anything to the plot and sometimes the main protagonist just seemed whinny and childish when dealing with simple tasks and conversations.

The ending left me very surprised. I expected something more and it just flopped flatly…just abruptly stopped. Thus, the story just felt unfinished to me. I even checked a few times if my file wasn’t corrupted and it is the actual ending.

Overall: This book explores so many important topics, such as sexism, toxic relationships, abuse, mental health and eating disorders, but it fell flat with the execution. This storyline and plot had so much potential that was not executed well and the story itself just felt a bit weak, especially in comparison to the other books that explore similar themes as NSFW. At times it felt that the toxic relationship storyline between the protagonist and her mother took the front seat, whereas the main storyline about sexism, male power and abuse took a backseat. Most of the time, however, I just couldn’t connect with the main protagonist and her story. 

The review was first published on NetGalley: 

https://www.netgalley.co.uk/book/251858/review/959200

About the Author:

Isabel Kaplan graduated from Harvard and holds an MFA in creative writing from NYU. She is the author of the novel NSFW and the national bestselling young adult novel Hancock Park and was born and raised in Los Angeles.

https://www.isabelkaplan.com/about

Julia May Jonas - Vladimir

Julia May Jonas - Vladimir 

4 ⭐

Genre:  General Fiction, Literary Fiction, Character Exploration, Fiction 

Pages: 256 

Format: eARC on NetGalley 

Publisher: Pan Macmillan, Picador

Date Published: 26th May 2022 (UK) 

Big Thank You to Picador and NetGalley UK for a copy of eARC to read and review! 

Book Blurb: 

A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students – a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own . . .

When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.

And so we meet our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose husband, a charismatic professor at the same small liberal arts college, is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extramarital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir, a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus, their tinder-box world comes dangerously close to exploding.

With her bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured literary debut, Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the strictures of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and surreptitiously moving, Vladimir maps the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the messy contradictions of power and desire.

My Review: 

This book caught my eye because it features academia and I love reading fictional books where academia is given a centre stage. It was a very interesting read. However, it wasn’t my favourite since I wanted more action than this book provided.

Book follows an unnamed narrator, who is in her 50s and is a Literature professor at a small university on the outskirts of NYC. Her husband, who is also a professor at the same university, is under investigation for sexual relationships with his former students. At the same time, a young, good looking and popular professor/published writer Vladimir joins the department with his wife Cynthia, and our unnamed narrator starts ‘obsessing’ with him. The story deeply explores the narrator’s character, her struggles with writing a new book, her age, her emotions, her weight and of course her role as a female in society and academia. She starts comparing herself to Cynthia and tries to find ways to impress Vladimir with her wisdom and knowledge of literature.

The story itself is quite slow, there’s not much action till the very end actually and even then, the ending was a bit disappointing as there weren’t any big reveals or shocks about any of the characters. However, the lack of action was substituted with beautiful and flawless writing. Jonas is so talented in that regard, the way she describes scenes, and events and gives deep to the characters is fabulous. I think the main reason I continued with this book was the writing as it grips you from the very first page and before you know it you are 100 pages in.

Another thing that I noticed was that in the blurb it sounded like the narrator is obsessed with Vladimir and honestly, I expected that given the title of the book. However, throughout the book it didn’t feel like she was obsessed with him at all, it was more like she liked the thought of him and she had this perfect version created in her head of him. This leads me to my other point about Vladimir…we don’t really get to know him as a character. He was mainly portrayed to the reader as to how our narrator saw him. There was a little glimpse of him at the very end of the book when he is alone with the narrator and talks about himself, but overall, the book doesn’t explore his character deep enough in my opinion.

I really liked that this book explored power relationships in academia and gender roles, both quite controversial topics in the past and in the current environment. It was so interesting to see what the narrator thought about her husband’s relationships with female students.

Overall: I think I had a bit too high hopes for this book. I really wanted it to be more like Nabokov’s Lolita, as well as to have more action and more twists and shocks in terms of all characters but mainly Vladimir and the narrator’s husband. Although I didn’t like the lack of action in this book, I liked the writing of this book, it was truly flawless and there are so many exceptional quotes in this book that will definitely stay with me for a while.

I do recommend this book to anyone who likes books that explore characters in depth and who don’t mind the lack of actions and twists in their reading.

This review was first published on NetGalley and can be found on:

https://www.netgalley.co.uk/book/246703/review/959200

About the Author: 

Julia May Jonas is an experimental playwright and playwriting professor at Skidmore College. She holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University. Vladimir is her debut novel. 

https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/julia-may-jonas

Raven Leilani- Luster

 

Raven Leilani- Luster 

3 ⭐

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Adult, Race, Literary Fiction 

Pages:  227

Format: Paperback 

Publisher: Picador 

Date Published: 21st January 2021

Big thank you to Picador for gifting me a copy for a The Motherload Book Club (Facebook) readalong.

Book Blurb: 

Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort of agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn’t already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric’s home and family.

Razor sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now.

My Review: 

I had such high hopes for this book, as I read so many amazing reviews and saw people raving about this book all over the Bookstagram and BookTube. So naturally, I expected Luster to be amazing...but from the very beginning of this book, I realised that I hoped for more. More character development and a more engaging plot. At times I wanted to DNF this book, but I persevered and read it cover to cover…

The book follows a 23-year-old Eddie, who hates her job in a publishing company, as she wants to pursue her true ambition, painting. She also has an affair with Eric, who’s not only a middle-aged white man but is also in an open marriage. One day she suddenly losses her job and Rebecca, who is Eric’s wife decides to take Eddie into their house so she can help and look after their adoptive teenager Akila. The book explores and shows emotions from Eddie’s POV, how she deals with losing her job, her affair, living with Eric’s family, and her relationship with Rebecca and Akila.

I do think that Leilani is a talented writer, as some parts of the book are beautifully written, especially when she sets the scenes in such a flowy and descriptive manner. At times her writing did make me feel like I am there seeing the world from Eddie’s POV.

However, I found it so hard to connect with Eddie’s character. For me, she felt so flat, cold, detached, sarcastic and rude. It felt like for most parts she doesn’t care about anyone or anything. At times she even felt so hypocritical, especially when she says she wants to be an artist and that her ambition to do that is so strong but really doesn’t try her hardest to build her career and when it hits a barrier, she just blames it on society or the environment. I felt that she was a bit too naïve for someone who is supposed to be a 23-year-old with a degree. Her character just frustrated me so much and I honestly thought there is going to be some evolution and growth in her throughout the book but there wasn’t…

I wanted to know more of a backstory of Eric, Rebecca and Akila. I must say I liked the depiction of Eric and Akila in the book. I think these two characters were really well thought out and had quite a lot of substance to them. However, I felt that I didn’t get to know Rebecca’s character that well and I would have loved to know more about the backstory of that couple and how they came about to be in an open marriage, as I think that would’ve helped to understand Eric and Rebecca as characters more (and even relate to them).

I also think the plot of this book had so much more potential, especially to explore relationships between the characters and certain themes, such as race, identity, belonging, and family in more depth but it missed the opportunity to do so.

Overall, there were aspects of this book I enjoyed, especially Leilani’s writing but could not connect with some of the characters and the plot. I would definitely give Leilani’s writing another go if she writes another novel, but this story is not for me. 

About the Author: 

Raven's debut novel, Luster, is forthcoming from FSG August 2020. Her work has been published in Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Narrative, Yale Review, Conjunctions, The Cut, and New England Review, among other publications. She completed her MFA at NYU. 

https://ravenleilani.weebly.com/