Thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt for the ebook. A young woman escapes Los Angeles to graduate from Harvard, only to end up back in LA and having her mom get her a job at a TV network. This begins her career as she crawls towards advancement and clocks the subtle, and very not subtle, sexual harassment of the entertainment industry. If that weren’t enough, she also has to deal with her attorney mother who is either hopeless and in bed or a tyrant that demands unending love and respect.

I really liked "NSFW" by Isabel Kaplan. It's a story set in Los Angeles, which I found cool because I love books set there. The main character is written really well, and I cared about her a lot.

But there were a couple of things that made me unsure. The other characters in the story weren't as important, and the story moved so fast that it was a bit hard to keep up. The ending was interesting - it left me with questions, which is kind of neat. You can imagine different things happening to the main character.

The book talks about women, their dreams, and some tough situations they face. I thought that was important.

I just wished the story had a stronger structure to hold everything together. Still, it's a good book, and I think you might like it.

We follow an unnamed main character with her journey navigating a career in the entertainment world. Her mom is a woman’s advocate lawyer and the main character is navigating in a world where women are exploited by men on a daily basis. It is about how women are treated and how we deal with being exploited. What it takes for women to get to the top in a man’s world, how we are treated and the relationships with other women.

This brings to light the subjects that society doesn’t like to talk about and how there are two different sides of how we deal with the way we are treated as women. Also, how women treat other women.

Thank you #NetGalley for the advance read

I love the cover of this book! It’s so beautiful. The premise of this book was interesting, so I couldn’t wait to pick it up. Check it out and find out for yourself!

While this book has some beautifully incisive things to say about women and power, it suffers due to an inconsistent pace.

A fascinating time capsule of 2012, in the lead-up to the Me Too movement, in the entertainment industry. An extremely bright, recent Harvard graduate gets her foot in the door at a Fox-like TV station where she quickly rises up the ranks, but learns that feminism and office/entertainment politics don't mix. Battling an abuse Mom, terrible co-workers, and a few bad boyfriends, our un-named protagonist makes some tough decisions about mixing her values and her success in this new career she thinks she wants. The ending is a bit ambiguous, which s why I'm giving it 3 stars (I needed just a little more) but it's a wonderful debut.

Is it possible to succeed in Hollywood without selling your soul? Well, the unnamed protagonist (Which is a unique component of storytelling) is about to find out. I enjoyed the storytelling of this one and it was done in a way I haven’t really seen before. Quite uniquely offering a showcase of what it means to be in an industry where men seem to be the ones in charge, but times are definitely changing.

Thank you #Henryholt and #Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

🥵NSFW🥵

I was immediately drawn to this one because I love me a steamy, not safe for work type of book. HOWEVER… if you are going to title a book NSFW, it better be NSFW. And this one was very safe for work…

We follow an unnamed female as she enters the workforce at a TV network the has a strong history of misogyny and sexual harassment. She is faced with the difficult decision to either keep her head down to try to further her career or speak up for what she feels is right. Yes, her work environment is not safe… but this book sure is. Will not recommend.

So well written so involving a book that caught my attention from the beginning a difficult mother daughter relationship a toxic work place.A storyline that keeps your attention a young author to follow.#netgalley #henryholt

Loved this hot girl book. Books about workplaces are just so insanely tense and interesting for me. Thank you Holt for the ARC for my honest review.

i cannot believe that this is a debut. the writing is so strong and compelling, and the storyline equally so. it is rife with commentary on sexism and power abuse. while it would be so easy to be one of the many other books that addressed this recently, kaplan offers a fresh perspective and execution. enjoyed this so so much.

I received an ARC of NSFW from Henry Holt & Company in exchange for an honest review.

NSFW follows an unnamed protagonist, a Harvard graduate whose mother, a famous feminist attorney, helps her get a low-level position at a TV network in LA. You can probably guess where this is going. As she claws her way up the ladder, the protagonist starts hearing rumors of sexual misconduct (this is pre-#MeToo), and she realizes that maintaining her values and moving up at the company are mutually exclusive. Things get worse when she asks her mother for aid.

It’s a story we’ve seen before (Kitty Green’s The Assistant comes to mind), but it’s a story that remains frustratingly, persistently relevant. I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to read another book about rape and misogyny. But I’ll say this: NSFW handles its sensitive subject matter better than most novels, thanks to Kaplan’s exceptionally sharp prose and smart structural choices.

Kaplan’s writing reminded me of none other than Elif Batuman’s in The Idiot and Either/Or (which is pretty much the highest praise I can give to an author), books with which NSFW has many stylistic similarities in addition to protagonists who share many qualities. The protagonist of NSFW, although a bit more cynical than Selin of The Idiot and Either/Or, perceives the world in much the same way, and her narration is so satisfying in its precision and its obsession with poking and prodding, like a tongue returning again and again to the gap where a tooth used to be.

NSFW doesn’t address sexual assault head-on. The protagonist is assaulted, but not by the boss at her network (although he is scummy in his own way), which keeps the stakes small and personal, and therefore more meaningful. The assault is also not the core conflict of the story. Kaplan’s ace in the hole is the relationship between the protagonist and her abusive mother. I can’t recall ever reading an abusive parent written this well or this accurately, and using that relationship as a catalyst for how the protagonist reckons with her assault provides it with unexpected dimensions.

If NSFW has a problem, it’s the ending. It’s too simple. Too cute. Everything leading up to it honors a simple truth: the world is a messy place—speaking up about rape and sexual assault isn’t consequence-free for survivors—and there are no easy answers. But the ending about-faces, reminding me of a YA book in the worst way possible, and reduces all that complexity to a binary choice that feels entirely at odds with the rest of the novel. It’s a real disappointment.

NSFW is a difficult book to recommend. Not just because of the subject matter, but because of the writing style, which was a perfect fit for me but likely won’t be for many readers. If you read The Idiot and Either/Or and are searching for a novel with similar narration, NSFW may be for you. If you appreciate intelligent and unexpected approaches to well-worn stories, NSFW may be for you. Kaplan is a smart, thoughtful storyteller, and I look forward to reading more from her.

This book left me scratching my head like “should I suggest this for my feminist book club or will it just be too horribly depressing for us to unpack?”

I liked the clear feminist themes, especially the repeated reinforcement of how powerful the patriarchy is and how pervasive misogyny is, especially in the entertainment industry. However, I also felt like aside from emphasizing how brutal it can be to be a woman in the world, the author was a little lost in what she wanted readers to take away about the theme or maybe just didn’t have anything new to say about it.

I also wish there was less time spent rehashing the toxic mother-daughter relationship, though to be fair, how intertwined their lives were was critical to the plot later on.

Overall, a solid three star read for me.

The relatability of this book — even though i am not a Hollywood gal working in the industry — was pretty funny. I found myself laughing out loud at parts. That being said, this wasn't super the type of book I gravitate toward. It was still a fun enough ride!

Geared towards New Adult to early thirties, this novel looks at sexual harassment in the workplace and beyond. Deftly deals with many social concerns, but didn't grab me. Characters felt underdeveloped, with the possible exemption of the mother with questionable alliances.

Good but not great.

This ia a very timely #metoo story of a new grad ( Harvard) entering the workforce and one well known for this type of behavior. Her experiences are compounded by a mentally unstable mother who has helped launch her career by calling in a favor. when that favor turns into yet another #metoo cover-up we follow along. This book is part post-grad crisis along with lots of other issues ( eating disorders, toxic relationships) thrown in. I usually love post-grad stories, I couldn't quite connect with the protagonist on a personal level, but I found her story and how she navigated intriguing- especially at the end. .

The book failed to draw me in. The writing felt clunky and lacked a linear plot. While an important premise, the lack of a plot really turned me off. It wasn't anything like I had thought/hoped it would be?

Our unnamed female protagonist has just landed an entry level position at a top TV network with a little of her mother’s help. Her mother is a famous women’s rights lawyer and the two of them have a codependent relationship that is hard to read at times because my mom was the same in a lot of ways, that’s why I’ve gone No Contact with her. Our protagonist limits time with her mother because of this, and I totally get it as someone who has been in a similar type of situation. As awful as her relationship is with her mom, it’s almost better than the one with her dad whom she doesn’t see very often and when she does see him it’s like he shows no interest in her life.

At the TV network, she’s a floating assistant (which means she assists where needed, it’s a job the boss created just for her) and on her way up. However, she is hearing whispers of gross misconduct and even rape in the workplace. Her mother tells her to just keep her head down and focus on her career but that kind of goes against what her mom taught her about defending herself and women and the rights women have especially in the workplace. The men at the TV network constantly abuse their power and talk gross about women, even the head woman will talk gross about other women because I suppose she feels if she doesn’t engage in that sort of way she could lose her job, position, and/ or be left out of more meetings and whatnot. The protaganist’s mother, who was raped and fights for the rights of women in similar situations, decides to defend the network head who is accused of rape and other gross misconduct including having a girl strip naked so he could stare at her like a super creep. That same network head had a button on his desk that would close and lock his door, I’m guessing like the setup Matt Lauer had.

Her job as an assistant soon brings competition, the other assistant Julian feels like he always has to compete with her because they are both great assistants but she is a little better, a fast learner. I like this line she says about competition, "...a rising tide lifts all boats" because that’s how it should be, everyone lifting everyone up instead of “all for me, and none for thee.” She does get along well with the other assistant, Allyn, though and they seem to be really good work friends.

I enjoyed reading about her life, her mom upset me a lot as a character but I still enjoyed the novel. There were lots of people to dislike in this book but the main character seemed to really be trying to do her best in life and that's really all you can do is try to do your best. So many of the male characters were scary because there are men like that in the real world, who think they can take whatever they want from whoever they want. I’m just glad more of them face the consequences of their actions these days than they used to because that’s the way it should be.

I was really excited about this one, but it turned out pretty weak to me. The MeToo type discussions in this book were interesting and nuanced, but the rest of the book just didn't get there for me. I understand how cutthroat working in television could be, but I felt this relied on cliches that didn't feel lived-in. The main character wasn't particularly interesting to me and all the discussions of weight didn't really pay off either. I'm just not sure this did anything for me at all.

I enjoyed this book, and I liked the narrator. I felt badly that she was trapped in such a toxic relationship with her mother. I was a little disappointed in the ambiguity of the ending. Overall, a good book!