Reading, Writing, and Me

  NSFW  by Isabel Kaplan TW: sexual assault This review contains spoilers  Overview: The protagonist of Isabel's Kaplan's novel doesn't have a name. We can ignore the fact that this unnamed girl has lived a suspiciously similar life to Kaplan, working in television and graduating from Harvard. Nonetheless, unnamed girl is back in LA from Boston and ready to break into the entertainment industry. While she often complains about having all the wrong kinds of privilege, her mother is able to get her a position temping at a television network because of her connection to the head of a company through her law career. She starts at the bottom, but a square one that was created for her. As time goes on, she realizes why TV is an infamously rough industry, and she faces multiple instances of both sexism and sexual harassment leading up to the big reveal that the head of her company–yeah, that guy–is a serial sexual harassment/assault perpetrator. Her mother's connections to the

Tell Me I'm An Artist  by Chelsea Martin Buy the Book via Bookshop! this post uses affiliate links which means I get a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you! learn more  here . Overview:  Joey made it out Lodi all the way to San Fransisco and art school. She's left behind a chaotic family that always makes her feel guilty for the good things that happen to her, and she's determined to make the most of her chance to be an artist. The book centers around Joey's struggle to create a semester long self portrait film, which she decides to theme around remaking the movie Rushmore  without having seen it. Despite being a drawing major, this film elective becomes the center of her life and makes her question what it means to be an artists and the actual value and meaning of art. At the same time, her family is imploding at home. Her older sister has disappeared, leaving her baby with Joey's mother who struggles to care for the baby while keeping a job. Joey