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?

Weekly Goals 23-3-26

 It's going to be a busy week with the season opening on Thursday, so I'm not going to make too many plans for the week outside work.  Especially since I go back to teaching at the gym this week as well.  I did a full spin class yesterday, and while I probably wasn't up there in terms of the gear I put on, I did make it through.  Which gives me hope that I'll be fine teaching my 30 minute class tomorrow and Thursday.

I also plan to ride my bike to work as much as I can this week too.  Getting my fitness back is very important to me and daylight saving ends in just a few weeks so I want to get as much riding in as I can before it gets too dark in the evenings.

Still haven't got any burning idea for a new book, which is unusual.  I think maybe my brain is telling me I need to take a break after writing two in such quick succession.  I'm getting quite a stockpile of unsold books piling up in my hard drive!

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 21-3-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

It has been a long week, so I'm looking forward to a little down time.  The orchestra season starts next week, so it's going to be busy from now until December.

I rode my bike to work for the first time since my surgery and it felt good.  I did feel a little tired and sore when I got home, but not too bad and I didn't hurt the next day.  This weekend I plan to do a spin class too, just to make sure I can before I go back to teaching on Tuesday.

I've managed to write flash fiction four out of five days this week, which is pretty good.  Not sure I'll be able to do the same next week, but we shall see...

The new (well, the old library that's been closed for earthquake strengthening since 2019) opened this week and it's a really beautiful space.  I can't wait to go and spend a day writing there.  And they have all but my newest book on the shelves in the YA section.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Daisy Darker

Set over one night in a house on a remote island only accessible at low tide, this was a very creepy little thriller.

After many years apart, Daisy's family gather at Nana's house to celebrate her 80th birthday.  As kids, the three girls spent a lot of time here, especially after their parents divorced, yet their memories of their time on the island are not all sunny and fun-filled.  So, each family member arrives with a lot of baggage (and I'm not talking about suitcases).

At midnight, when the tide is at its peak and the island is cut off from the mainland for the next 8 hours, Nana is found murdered in the kitchen.

As a storm rages outside, the family gather to try and figure out who could have done something so heinous.  When, an hour later, another body is found, it becomes increasingly clear that a killer is among them, determined to bump them off one by one before the tide goes out.

The book does a good job of weaving together the present-day mystery with their secrets from the past, creating an ever-ratcheting tension as the bodies pile up and the list of suspects narrows.

I enjoyed this one.  I always like a book with a compressed timeframe and a ticking clock. It really makes every detail important.  And in this book, there were so many details I kind of overlooked as being unimportant before the twist at the end revealed exactly how important they really were.

While definitely contemporary, this book felt like one of the old mysteries by Agatha Christie I read when I was a kid (I went through a period when I was 12 where I read everything the Queen of Crime wrote) and that's not a bad thing.  There's a reason why she was called the Queen of Crime.  And the setting was perfect for this kind of mystery where there's absolutely no possibility the killer isn't among the people in the house.

So, I'd recommend this for people who like a good mystery, especially one that takes place over a single night in a unique, creepy locale.

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

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.

Weekly Goals 16-3-26

 I don't have a whole lot of goals this week.  

I got my RevPit entry in over the weekend, which was good.  I still don't think I've 100% nailed the formatting for that manuscript, but I guess it doesn't matter too much, so long as it' s readable and understandable.  It's just tricky because of the way it's written, it kind of demands to be formatted differently to a regular MS.

I have a busy week ahead of me.  The Arts Festival is over, but the Symphony season kicks off next week for the year.  I'm ahead of the game and have everything ready to go up until mid-July, but I should probably start looking at what I need to get done for the second half of the year so I can get a jump on that before things get crazy.

Otherwise, it's kind of a waiting game.  I have some manuscripts out with agents, a whole lot of unanswered queries out and I'm waiting for a new book idea to sweep me off my feet.  I just don't have anything big enough to start writing yet.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 13-3-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

I've had a busy week and dealt with some rather difficult people as part of it, so I'm looking forward to having a couple of days to decompress.

I'm getting my materials together to enter RevPit, a contest I have entered the last couple of years.  I've never won, but I have got some really useful feedback on my query and openings pages.  I'm going to enter Street Smarts this year, since it's the most raw of my completed manuscripts and could benefit most from a professional edit.  I hadn't really finished writing a query, or even started thinking about a synopsis until now, so that's going to be my weekend...

I got to go to the dress rehearsal of a beautiful dance work this week.  One of the pieces is by a very well known New Zealand choreographer and I saw a performance of it in the '90s when it premiered.  At the time, it was quite shocking and groundbreaking and made a huge impression on me.  Now, when so much contemporary dance has adopted these techniques,  it's less shocking, but still a very hauntingly beautiful piece.

I've managed to stave off the cold I thought I was getting, but my partner got hit hard.  I have my fingers crossed it was me who brought the germs into the house and that I won't get it now.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: The Bad Angel Brothers

I've always enjoyed Paul Theroux as an author, so when I saw this at the library, I just had to pick it up.  Even more so, because I always enjoy reading about the relationship between brothers.

Cal and Frank Belanger - known around town as the Bad Angel Brtothrs - could not be more different and their relationship is troubled from the time they are children.  Their mother dotes on Frank and feels he can do no wrong.  Cal does not agree, all too aware of the way Frank manipulates the truth and steals other peoples' stories to make himself look better.

As they grow up, their relationship becomes more distant.  Frank becomes a successful lawyer and a pillar of the community it their small hometown.  Cal becomes a geologist and works in the mining industry, usually outside the States.  Yet, despite the contentious nature of their relationship, Cal is constantly drawn home for visits with his mother and Frank.  Visits he tolerates, but rarely enjoys.

As they grow into middle age and are forced to deal with first their mother's decline and then her death, what has been a distantly unsteady relationship, becomes a full-blown war in which there can really be no victor.

I enjoyed this book.  Cal was a delightfully slippery narrator and I was kept wondering through most of the book if Frank was as truly awful as he was through Cal's eyes.  Especially since everyone else in their small town from their mother to random people on the street all seemed to think Frank was some kind of saint.  I started wondering if Cal was an unreliable narrator or if Frank really had this entire town duped into believing he was a good person.  It makes for compelling reading.

As I expect from Theroux, the sections about Cal's travel to far-flung places as part of his mining work were detailed and well-drawn.  And while demonizing Frank, Cal was under no illusions about his own failings as a man and a husband and father.  But, by the end of the book, you really feel Cal's pain as he struggles to find his feet in a life Frank has all but destroyed.

So, I'd recommend this one.  It's a distinctive portrait of two people and a lifetime of struggling to negotiate each other.

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

An evocative novel about two brothers whose rivalry as youths in the Massachusetts town of Littleford reverberates throughout their lives, with striking consequences. As they grow into men, they develop into very different people on very different paths - Frank becomes a successful lawyer, and Cal becomes a geologist - but they are constantly drawn back to one other. As they grow into middle age, their relationship reaches crisis point after the death of their widowed mother. The Bad Angel Brothers is an intimate portrait of family, resentment, and the bonds that shape our lives.