They’ve been part of the same boisterous friend group since college, and they know that their breakup will devastate the others and make things more than a little awkward. Wyn Connor and Harriet Kilpatrick were the perfect couple-until Wyn dumped Harriet for reasons she still doesn’t fully understand. Robinson shows promise with easy prose and characterization, and it's refreshing to read a book about publishing with a half-Black heroine who's wryly aware of the way she stands out in a very White field and, in Andrew, a Filipino love interest who's the talk of the business-book world.Ī slow, slightly stumbling, but ultimately hopeful look at getting out of a rut.Įxes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation. The rut Nora finds herself in is not only external, but internal, and while the book starts off a seemingly light read, it turns more serious, with insightful discussions of depression and suicidal ideation.

This quarter-life-crisis novel starts out a bit slowly, but it finds its footing when Nora begins to take risks, even if they don’t always pan out. With the added pressure of a possible promotion riding on her getting hot young author Andrew Santos to sign a contract for his new book after she befriends him at a conference, Nora must struggle to keep her head afloat while figuring out what she truly wants. No longer sure she can even pay the rent, she secretly takes a part-time freelance job with a rival publishing company. To make matters worse, she’s just found out that her salary is being cut by 15%. She works on business books she’s not excited about, and her company is downsizing, leaving her stuck covering the slack of layoffs and saying goodbye to the co-workers who kept her sane, including her best friend, Beth. She’s been in love with books since she was small, and the idea of working with them seemed like a dream-but now, five years in, it’s become a nightmare. Nora Hughes has been an editorial assistant at Parsons since she first got out of college. A young woman tries to find her purpose in life while working a dead-end job in this debut novel.

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