My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟(4 stars)
Publisher: Flatiron Books (July 2019)
The narrative begins slowly as we come into this story of four women working for a sporting apparel corporation, the CEO of which, has just plummeted to his death from the eighteenth floor. Three of the women work in the legal department and one is a cleaner. As the story unfolds and questions start to be asked about the true cause of the CEO's death, a lawsuit and a widely circulated list of bosses who've been accused of all manner of sexual harassment, each woman and her involvement in the situations unfold. What starts as a slow narrative but builds to a pretty good clip about the halfway point.
I'm withholding on spoilers but I very much liked the way the story showed the shifting sands of office politics. Power and power adjacency vied against friendship and alliances in surprising and unsurprising ways. I applaud Baker for penning a timely story that didn't feel preachy or heavy-handed. Also, the portrayals of men beyond Ames were well done and were illustrative of other ways attitudes are expressed in various situations girls and women face.
Lastly, I wasn't surprised about who figured into what went down on the eighteenth-floor balcony. It had been teased out very well and when finally detailed was completely satisfying. The thread of Sloane's daughter Abigail and her problems at school was one of my favourites. Steve earned both punches Abigail gave him and Mr. Tully so to, deserved the withering takedown by Sloane. It was pitch perfect and hit close to home for me. A reminder that the whole "boys will be boys" & telling girls to "ignore it" begin too early in life and last too long. I cheered as Sloane handled the matter and smiled that she reminded me that my own parents defended me and always made it known such behaviour was not okay or to be ignored. Period.
Recommended.
I won a galley in a giveaway. Many thanks to the publisher.
Summary: Four women learn their boss (a man who’s always been surrounded by rumors about how he treats women) is next in line to be CEO—what will happen when they decide enough is enough?
Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Rosalita are four women who have worked at Truviv, Inc., for years. The sudden death of Truviv's CEO means their boss, Ames, will likely take over the entire company. Ames is a complicated man, a man they’ve all known for a long time, a man who’s always been surrounded by...whispers. Whispers that have always been ignored by those in charge. But the world has changed, and the women are watching Ames’s latest promotion differently. This time, they’ve decided enough is enough.
Sloane and her colleagues set in motion a catastrophic shift within every floor and department of the Truviv offices. All four women’s lives—as women, colleagues, mothers, wives, friends, even adversaries—will change dramatically as a result.
"If only you had listened to us,” they tell us on page one, “none of this would have happened."
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