Author: Daniella Brodsky
Diary of a Working Girl is formally labelled as chic-lit, which is not something I normally read. However, as part of my fashion teaching and research, I am revising my personal literature list to read novels that tackle working in the fashion industry and living fashion in everyday life. That is also the reason I initially read The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, which was a book that also tackles fashion in everyday life.
As I said, I do not read the so-called chic-lit normally because it is too focused on romance, and I am just not interested in that genre. But Diary of a Working Girl, whilst centred on romance is also much more than that. The writing style is compelling and there is plenty of good quality description that paints the picture of the main character and events, particularly fashion. I really enjoyed this fashion part, which will be very useful for my work, and this book will go into the recommended novel list in my forthcoming Fashion Advertising and PR textbook.
The story is centred around Lane, who is a freelance fashion journalist pitching stories to various magazines albeit she is only successful with minor ones nobody has heard of. But, as despair captures her with low work, unpaid bills and a breakup with her boyfriend, she gets an idea of getting a job in the corporate world, where there are a lot of men, to try to find Mr Right, and she lands a successful pitch with Cosmopolitan. She manages to get a job in a finance company where she embarks on monitoring corporate men whilst writing a diary every day. Things get complicated when she meets Liam, a media magnate from the UK who she falls for, which puts her story at risk. At the same time, things are happening with her boss and we wonder whether she ends up with him or with Liam, who her friends consider to sound like an arsehole. The book has a nice and happy ending, as you would expect from a romance book, however, an additional chapter written exclusively for online leaders paints a different story and opens a possibility to continue this book, which I hope happens.
It was a good read and a very positive experience with this type of literature. For anyone interested in fashion and fashion magazines, this is a book to read because descriptions of shopping and fashion are plentiful. Also, there are observations about the reputation of fashion generally and good descriptions of behavioural styles of people who work in fashion, how to pitch stories for fashion magazines, communicate with editors, the importance of fashion magazines such as Vogue, etc. Whilst a romance, the book has great value as a cultural capital for working in fashion and knowing the insider info, and it also provides a good read about designers and shopping. There is a sociological aspect to this book respective to descriptions of society and the world of work, including (masculine) corporate culture.
I liked this book and will read other books by this author. The book has provided me with invaluable information that will help me with my work.
Thank you for reading!