Books I've Read: Careering

 

I really related to this book on so many levels.  It's about a very specific time in life, one I remember very vividly and kind of perfectly captured the emotion of that time.  

Imogen is in her twenties.  Not the early part either.  She's wanted to work in magazine publishing forever and has done the hard yards, interning and being a junior and working without pay to get that valuable experience while working menial other jobs to pay the rent.  Her real love, writing, is channeled into her blog which she writes between her jobs in a factory, a pub and her internships.

Harri is on track to be the editorial director of glossy fashion mag, Panache.  Until she isn't.  The company is taking the magazine in a new direction and Harri and her years of experience aren't needed.  To soften the blow, she's offered the chance to start a new online product for younger women: The Know.  She thinks the outrageous content on Imogen's blog might be just what this new product needs and invites her to be part of her new team.

Imogen is thrilled.  As an intern at Panache, she's long admired Harri and thinks all her dreams have come true.  Especially when one of her first stories for The Know goes viral and puts the new product on the map. 

It seems like a fairy tale but why is Imogen still so unhappy?  And how can Harri impress upon the business owners that she does know what she's doing with this?

Following two women at opposite ends of the their careers, this book explores ambition in an interesting way.  It also shows how cold and uncaring business can be, where even huge successes aren't enough to be praised because that level of revenue needs to be maintained.

I related to Imogen's struggle because I remember that time of life very well.  Working three jobs, just to get a foot in the door of the industry I wanted to be a part of while struggling to support myself doing anything else.  Working long hours for nothing - in my case it was for a film festival - because it was something I loved and believed in and wanted so much to be a part of.  And the disillusionment when that thing I wanted so much, wasn't quite what I thought it might be.

Harri's story also resonated - that realization that you've worked your whole life for something that doesn't really belong to you at all.  That doesn't care about you and will go on without you after you're gone.  I've never been in quite that position, but I've certainly been in jobs where I knew I'd be forgotten five minutes after I left.

So, while I enjoyed the content and premise of the book, I really didn't love the characters.  Which kid of ruined it for me.  Imogen was kind of whiny and judgmental.  She felt privileged, yet pointed out everyone else's privilege and whiled about how she'd grown up with nothing.  And the way she treated her parents and friends was appalling.

On the other hand, Harri seemed totally unaware of the effect her actions had on her staff and how terrorized they felt by her.  As someone who had lived the struggle they'd been through, I'd have thought she might have more compassion - even with the evil overlords from head office breathing down her neck.

So, reading this was a mixed experience.  I'm not sure I can wholeheartedly recommend it, but I didn't hate it.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Imogen has always dreamed of writing for a magazine. Infinite internships later, she dreams of any job. Writing her blog around double shifts at the pub is neither fulfilling her creatively nor paying the bills.

Harri might just be Imogen's fairy godmother. She's moving from the glossy pages of Panache magazine to launch a fierce feminist site, The Know. And she thinks Imogen's most outrageous sexual content will help generate the clicks she needs. But Imogen's fairy-tale ending soon sours as she finds herself putting more and more of herself into writing for a company that doesn't care if she sinks or swims.

Neither woman is aware of the crucial thing they have in common. Harri, at the other end of her career, has also been bitten and betrayed by the industry she has given herself to. Will she wake up to the way she's being exploited before her protégé realizes that not everything is copy? Can either woman reconcile their love for work with the fact that work will never love them back?