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A review by bookishmillennial
Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
I thought this was an enjoyable enough coming-of-age story about Zoe, who leaves Manhattan, New York to take a new job in Silicon Valley, California to work for a tech start up FitPick (where the public votes on your outfits, sounds like my personal nightmare!). She was in Manhattan for four years, feeling stuck in her job, living in a shoebox apartment with roommates, and not getting any closer to becoming the fashion writer she had aspired to be when she was a doe-eyed newbie to NYC.
I enjoyed her arc and the tying together of fashion and the Silicon Valley startup world. It felt authentic enough (I'm from Silicon Valley and btw, there's no specific "town" called Silicon Valley, it's just an area, mostly referring to the South Bay in my opinion lol), and I appreciated that Zoe had a bit of a romantic subplot too! Mostly, I was pulled in by the commentary on body positivity and diversity, especially when it comes to the fashion world. The erasure of fat models in fashion is wild, and I'd generally just like to see diversity of all kinds of bodies in fashion, and represented across media everywhere.
Overall, sometimes the writing felt a bit too forced (I thought multiple times, "do people really speak like this?" and I'm surrounded by engineers sooooo I feel like I'd know?) or too perfect if that makes sense. However, I'd still read another book by the author, especially since I think she is local to the bay area.
cw: misogyny, sexual harassment, fatphobia, diet culture/what I call a religion of thinness lol, sexism
I thought this was an enjoyable enough coming-of-age story about Zoe, who leaves Manhattan, New York to take a new job in Silicon Valley, California to work for a tech start up FitPick (where the public votes on your outfits, sounds like my personal nightmare!). She was in Manhattan for four years, feeling stuck in her job, living in a shoebox apartment with roommates, and not getting any closer to becoming the fashion writer she had aspired to be when she was a doe-eyed newbie to NYC.
I enjoyed her arc and the tying together of fashion and the Silicon Valley startup world. It felt authentic enough (I'm from Silicon Valley and btw, there's no specific "town" called Silicon Valley, it's just an area, mostly referring to the South Bay in my opinion lol), and I appreciated that Zoe had a bit of a romantic subplot too! Mostly, I was pulled in by the commentary on body positivity and diversity, especially when it comes to the fashion world. The erasure of fat models in fashion is wild, and I'd generally just like to see diversity of all kinds of bodies in fashion, and represented across media everywhere.
Overall, sometimes the writing felt a bit too forced (I thought multiple times, "do people really speak like this?" and I'm surrounded by engineers sooooo I feel like I'd know?) or too perfect if that makes sense. However, I'd still read another book by the author, especially since I think she is local to the bay area.
cw: misogyny, sexual harassment, fatphobia, diet culture/what I call a religion of thinness lol, sexism
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Fatphobia, Sexism, and Sexual harassment