Not Safe For Work: Author of the viral essay 'My boyfriend, a writer, broke up with me because I am a writer'

Product Information

This read like The Devil Wears Prada set in Hollywood, as she starts off thinking that this is a job to tide her over, get her mother to stop bugging her and then she’ll get a real job. In fact, it pulled me right in through its mix of exploring serious topics such as sexual harassment and abuse, but told from the POV of a woman who is smart, sassy and not afraid of seeing the irony in a situation. Only after the fact did it occur to me to wonder why a male executive would ever think it appropriate to give a female employee a goodbye kiss at the end of the work day, regardless of where on the face his lips landed. While I don’t want to talk too much about the detailed plot, I do want to describe the overall feel of the book. My plan was to work my way into the halls of power and then fling the doors open wide for those who had been excluded.

When I started the job, one of the projects represented by my agency was under option with a production company where I knew a senior executive.But certain gendered instincts – people pleasing, playing peacemaker, considering another person’s comfort a precondition for my own – served me well. Please get in touch and we will do our best to source your book, no matter how unusual or specialist. You know, the kind of uncle who spends a little too much time with the young women and gives goodbye kisses that land too close to the mouth. Isabel Kaplan’s forthcoming debut novel, Not Safe For Work, follows an ambitious young woman trying to succeed in the entertainment industry without selling her soul. I understood, in theory, that Hollywood was a hotbed of sexism, racism and unchecked egos, but I had grand ambitions of making change from the inside.

So visceral is the narrator's voice that every time I opened the book felt like sliding into uncomfortable heels. Opening sentence: The thing about Los Angeles is that it’s awful and I hate it, but when I’m there, nowhere else exists, and I can’t imagine leaving. Quickly becoming embroiled in the day to day discussions, power struggles and gossip in her office, she meets a pretty astonishing array of dreadful people, classic LA/Hollywood characters. It’s an ugly truth, and one that’s difficult to discuss in the nuanced way it deserves, but women are often better foot soldiers of the patriarchy than men.I thought it was important that even characters that were very in touch what what was acceptable or not fell into that trap. I felt personally that I’m just a little bit out of the age range for this as some of the situations in the book were fairly obviously on the way and she just didn’t seem to pick up on the cues. It was woven through the main plotline and definitely added depth to the origins of her insecurities and vulnerability. I also knew he had passed on projects I advocated for because of their “narrow” focus on mostly women. I told myself that someday, when I had enough power that people cared what I had to say, I would make a stand for what was right.