Mini Reviews: A Spy in the Struggle and The Nobodies

Yolanda Vance is used to working hard, but she also believes in honesty. When her law firm gets raided by the FBI, she turns over evidence against them and goes to work as an agent instead. The FBI is watching a group of black activists who claim that a local corporation is intentionally hurting their neighborhood, and Yolanda is the perfect person to send undercover. As she discovers what is really going on, she is caught in the impossible position of doing her job and hurting people she has come to care for or breaking the rules and fighting back. 

I really liked the premise of this book--why don't we have more stories about women (particularly women of color) who are detectives and spies and agents? Aya de Leon does a wonderful job of showing through Yolanda's experiences that it is not always easy to know who is good and who is bad. Unfortunately, the character of Yolanda fell flat for me; it seemed that the author hadn't really decided who Yolanda was outside the parameters of this story. 

A Spy in the Struggle
By Aya de Leon
Kensington Books December 2020
352 pages
Read via Netgalley

Joan Dixon doesn't really want to be working at a place where her bosses are a decade younger than she is, but it's hard to be a working journalist and Bloom was hiring copywriters. As she adjusts to working at the tech start-up, she starts to make friends among her coworkers. But the good times don't last--Joan discovers there may be a major problem with her idyllic company. This could be the story of a lifetime, but it could also destroy her only steady job in years and the relationships she has been building.

The Nobodies is unfortunately not my favorite Liza Palmer novel. Joan is a tough character to follow, as she seems to fumble everything in her own life. But Palmer really captures the feeling of failure well. When Joan's latest story is rejected by an editor or an attempt to make a friend goes awry, it's enough to break your heart and bring back every terrible memory of your own rejection. If you love a book set in the world of tech start-ups or a story about a woman determined to make her own way in the world, The Nobodies might be the perfect pick for you. 

The Nobodies

By Liza Palmer

Flatiron Books September 2019

266 pages

Read via Netgalley 

Netgalley mini-reviews: The F Word and Lili DeJong

Olivia Morten seems to have a perfect life, but it is actually a carefully crafted facade. Olivia can spin anything, in her career as a publicist or in her personal life. When her crush from high school comes back into her life, her constructed life starts to fall apart. Olivia realizes that her friends are vapid, her husband is not invested in their marriage, and her beautiful, successful life is not making her happy. She finds herself reflecting on the girl she was in high school--she was fat and unpopular, but she knew who she was. Can she find that girl again?

I am a new Liza Palmer reader. I happened to read her book Girl Before a Mirror last year and really enjoyed it. But The F Word didn't work for me quite as well. Olivia is apparently a character in another of Palmer's books, which I haven't read. She might make more sense as a character if you have the whole picture. But within this book, Olivia is a tough character to follow. She has built up such a wall that it's difficult to get to know her. Maybe Olivia herself doesn't even know, and that's really apparent in her relationships with her husband Adam and Ben, the boy from high school. She has ignored Adam's infidelity for years and when things finally explode, she decides that she's done with that relationship. Instead, she focuses on Ben, who was cruel to her in high school. I wish we had more insight into Olivia and Ben in high school and their relationship then. It would have made their interactions in the present more significant. While this story wasn't my favorite, I can certainly see myself giving another Liza Palmer novel a try.

The F Word
By Liza Palmer
Flatiron Books April 2017
288 pages
Read via Netgalley

Lilli has big hopes for the future. Her brother and her fiance have gone to find good jobs and have promised to send for her when they are settled. But her life quickly takes a turn when she discovers she is pregnant. There is no way her father and new stepmother or Quaker community will support her, so Lilli finds sanctuary at the Philadelphia Haven for Women and Infants. After her daughter is born, she is expected to give her up and go back to her life. But Lilli quickly learns that she cannot part with her baby and decides to do whatever it takes to keep her child safe.

Lilli de Jong is told as a series of diary entries as Lilli details the love she shares with Johan, her hopes for the future, and her quick descent from an honorable woman to someone with no place to call home. In some ways, this book reminded me of Pamela, where we see seemingly the whole world act cruelly towards one young woman. But Benton does a wonderful job of showing just how impossible it was to be a single mother in the 19th century. It's sobering to think about how things have changed and how they still haven't; if you are a parent and have no one to care for your child, how can you work? If you can't work, how can you provide for a child? Through it all, Lilli remains steadfast and determined to keep the child she loves.

Lilli de Jong
By Janet Benton
Nan A. Talese May 2017
352 pages
Read via Netgalley

Review: Girl Before a Mirror

Girl Before a Mirror

By Liza Palmer

William Morrow January 2015

384 pages

From the publisher

Anna Wyatt is doing some personal rearranging. After her divorce, she takes a dating sabbatical and decides to focus on her job as an advertising executive. If she can hook a big new pharmaceutical client, maybe she can finally nab a promotion and some respect. When she finds the company's long-forgotten shower gel, she knows that this is the way in. But her ordered life takes a turn when she schemes to make the winner of the Romance Cover Model of the Year pageant their new spokesman. The business-minded Anna finds herself swayed by the notion of having some fun, making new friends, and maybe even experiencing a little romance herself.

I'm a bit of a book snob. There, I said it. If something looks like it might be a romance novel or perhaps it could be categorized as "chick lit," I usually keep my distance and plant my flag firmly in the "literary fiction" camp. But this book showed up in my mailbox and I had seen so many bloggers rave about Liza Palmer. I decided to give it a try.

The cover seems pretty...girly, right? I knew I would be frustrated if this book turned out to be all about the perfect pair of shoes and impressing the guy. I didn't need to worry. As the book opens,  Anna is taking slow steps to being confident in her talent and in her choices. She is fighting to be recognized in a a male-dominated industry and is aggravated by the assumption that she can only market "women's things" until she has the realization that women are the ones doing a majority of the buying for their households. Women are the market.


Anna is also finding the freedom to pursue relationships in her own way. When a beautiful new art director is placed on the shower gel account with her, Anna's first reaction is to feel threatened by Sasha's youth and good looks. But the two women find that they can support each other instead of climbing over each to reach the top. Even the romance (and yes, there is of course a romance) is about progressing slowly and recognizing the pain and disappointment that both Anna and Lincoln have experienced with relationships.


Many women find it difficult to rest and to take time to do things that are just fun - pastimes that don't better their homes, their careers, or their families. Anna begins the novel with a condescending attitude towards the women who enjoy the frivolity of romance novels. But she (and maybe, just maybe this reader) begin to see the error of their ways. There is a beautiful moment during the Romance Novel convention where Anna looks around the room and just sees women letting loose. They are snacking, dancing, and enjoying the company of new and old friends without fear of looking silly or the thought that they should be doing something productive. Why is having fun and enjoying something, whether it's a cupcake, a romance novel, or a crazy dance party, a moment to feel guilty?


"Somewhere along the line--probably in the septic tank that was my adolescence--I stopped believing I was the hero of my own story. Or that my story was worthy of a hero at all. I settled because that's all I thought I deserved...Moderation in everything and when I did allow myself to indulge--whether on a big meal or an expensive piece of clothing--the guilt that set in within seconds made it never worth it in the end. In choosing to be good, cautious, and efficient, I talked myself right out of amazing."


It's really wonderful to find a read that simultaneously makes you laugh and think long and hard about the way you treat the people in your life and the way you treat yourself.  I will decidedly be reading more of Liza Palmer's books.