[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Flatiron Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
When Joan was 17, she broke her first big story. So she skipped college and went straight into journalism, expecting it to be her career for the rest of her life. But in the current market, more and more newspapers are closing, and layoffs are happening. Joan’s been job hunting now for nine months.
It’s making her question everything. Did she peak too early? Is she even a good writer? She’s questioning her identity and her future. At 36 years old she is living at home again. Joan needs to find a job!
One of the many jobs she applies for is a junior copywriter position at a tech start up called Bloom. It’s staffed by 20-somethings and hits many of the start-up cliches – fancy in-house coffees, open work spaces, and quarterly Q&A meetings overflowing with beer and pizza.
But Joan’s been in the real world long enough to take Bloom in with a more critical eye. What do they even do? Why is every speech a set of rehearsed statements, tons of words that say nothing? Maybe Bloom is hiding something. Maybe Joan’s days as a journalist aren’t over after all!
Review
This story tries to be both an exploration of a character’s identity crisis and also a suspenseful look at a company that might be hiding some big secret. I’m not sure it did well on either of those goals
I was more interested in the tech side of the story. And I enjoyed it. The crew Joan builds at Bloom is fun. The investigation was a fun story line. And it’s not over. There will be a sequel that will have to deal with what is going on at the start up.
The identity struggle and introspection that Joan is going through makes complete sense. She’s having something of a mid-life crisis. But her self-abuse and self-reflection bogged the story down. I didn’t really like Joan, so I also didn’t sympathize with her. I generally love a good identity story, but this didn’t click for me.
Joan’s co-workers and her family were my only favorite parts of the story. I’m not sure if the secondary characters will be a big enough draw to get me to try out the sequel. (Language, off-page sex)