Release Date: 4th August 2022
Publisher: Penguin Michael Joseph
Living in LA, she manages to land a job as an assistant for a successful television broadcaster - because she had to do something with that English degree she'd spent years studying for. The chairman, Robert, is charismatic if not eccentric. The director, a powerful woman at the top of her game. And the work, it's difficult but it's the only way to make it to the top. It's the perfect step towards a career where she can make a real difference to the way women are written and shown on screen.
Until, she uncovers the truth about the people around her - the rape, abuse and misogyny behind every door. And maybe worse, amongst the rapists and abusers living in their untouchable towers, are the people turning a blind eye and covering it up. She's not safe anywhere.
"People love to tell women to come forward, as if it's a moral imperative, but they aren't considering what it means to live as that woman."
This book is a journey with an unnamed narrator, a woman who could be any one of us - and unfortunately one too many of us can relate to painfully. Making a striking statement of the rape culture and casual misogyny that exists in society and corporate culture, standing painfully on that razors edge of our need for revenge and our terror of speaking up against an oppressive system.
From birth control, to the madonnna/whore complex, to silently enforced beauty standards, to sex and careers - this story takes a magnifying glass to a mans world and what it really looks like to see it as a woman. Take Veronica, for example, a successful director, a powerhouse, a woman who takes up space, who acts like many of the successful men in the industry but is seen as a bossy bitch for simply being a boss, refusing to apologise for taking up space.
It's dark and disturbing, a horror story that is even more scary because even this fiction is too real, from the central themes to the exploration of how our formative relationships and experiences can impact us and leave lasting damage, every single theme in these pages is undeniably, painfully evocative and real.
Now, the storytelling is quite dense, with heavy prose and a lot of scene setting, with larger than life characters - but these characters drive the plot forward to create a book that can't be called enjoyable in any way, but is a story that needs to be told until it doesn't ring true anymore.
"It's a funny thing, the writing, and rewriting of history."
⭐⭐⭐⭐
I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.
CW: Eating Disorders, Parental Neglect, Alcohol, Sexual Assault, Recreational Drug Use, Mentions of Rape.
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