A Career in Books
Ratings3
Average rating4
15
Ratings3
Average rating4
A Publishers Weekly Best Books 2022: Comics pick A Career in Books is a graphic novel for everyone who's wanted to "work with books" and had NO idea what it entailed. It's for those who were taken aback by that first paycheck. It's for those who wanted a literary career even in the face of systemic racism, who dealt with the unique challenges of coming from an immigrant family, and whose group chat is their lifeline. Shirin, Nina, and Silvia have just gotten their first jobs in publishing, at a University Press, a traditional publisher, and a trust-fund kid's "indie" publisher, respectively. And it's . . . great? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ They know they're paying their dues and the challenges they meet (Shirin's boss just assumes she knows Cantonese, Nina cannot get promoted by sheer force of will, and Silvia has to deal with daily microaggressions) are just part of “a career in books.” When they meet their elderly neighbor, Veronica Vo, and discover she's a Booker Prize winner dubbed the “Tampax Tolstoy” by the press, each woman finds a thread of inspiration from Veronica’s life to carry on her own path. And the result is full of twists and revelations that surprise not only the reader but the women themselves. Charming, wry, and with fantastic black-and-white illustrations, A Career in Books is a modern ode to Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything, and perfect for fans of Good Talk, Younger, and The Bold Type, as readers chart the paths of three Asian-American women trying to break through the world of books with hilarious, incisive, and heartbreaking results.
Reviews with the most likes.
Love when VV says “I know some writers say they don't read while they're working on a book because they don't want someone else's words in their head. I think that's bullshit. I'm always reading.”
About half ‘20-somethings making it in the big city' and half ‘behind -the-scenes in the lower rungs of publishing', with a healthy dash of book love and writer angst thrown in. The Asian American women's perspective felt like a key part of each character's story without making it the sole focus. The Veronica Vo character ties it all together. So many pearls of wisdom about life from this fictional author that feel widely applicable enough that I kind of want to shove this book into the hands of all people fresh out of college. I'll admit I'm still spoiled by full colour graphic novels to the point where seeing a colour cover open to black and white pages makes me a bit cranky, but this story has a distinctive art style and a lot to say text wise, which makes up for the limited palette.
