The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

A special thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.

Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.

Being hailed as Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada, this brilliant novel is unputdownable. Harris delivers a character-driven account of what Black women experience in the workplace—it, is a thoughtful examination of race, class, and power. The publishing world will be turned on its head much like it is in the book.

Thought-provoking and filled with twists, this is an incredibly original and timely read. Already named a most anticipated book of 2021, this powerful debut has something for everyone: acerbic wit, horror, mystery, and a contemporary edge.

Razor-sharp, biting, and authentic, The Other Black Girl is utterly electric.  

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ZAKIYA DALILA HARRIS received her MFA in nonfiction creative writing from the New School and has a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Other Black Girl is her first book.

Harris was born and raised in Connecticut and now lives in Brooklyn.

Is There Still Sex in the City? by Candace Bushnell

A special thank you to NetGalley, Edelweiss, and Grove Atlantic/Grove Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sex and the City was a cultural phenomenon—Carrie Bradshaw redefined the single girl. Fast forward twenty years and Candace Bushnell is back with a commentary on sex, dating, and friendship after the age of fifty.

In this book, Bushnell's topical chapters are a comment on trying to find love when you are middle aged, and how to navigate after divorce with the modern tools that are readily available to singles today. She also updates one of her more popular stories from Sex and the City, "The Bicycle Boys," about the dudes who are always trying to bring their bicycles up to a woman's apartment. There are other amusing anecdotes—getting Tindered, or the "Unintended Cub Situation" where a competent, put-together older woman temporarily loses all sensibility when she becomes the love interest of a much younger man.

Is There Still Sex in the City? is a satirical look at how middle-aged women are perceived, the unrealistic expectations put upon women by way of not aging and doing/having it all, as well as all the different stages and types of love—marriage, having children, not having children, divorce, and widowhood. This book is exactly what we need more of. What does it really mean to have it all? Who judges these things? Why are women constantly being compared to another woman's best instead of their own personal best? Some days it is a huge feat just to even get out of bed in the morning. The levels of expectations that women, both young and old, experience, and the pressures of society to be thin, beautiful, youthful, and successful are both crippling and unrealistic. These same pressures are not put on men, especially with appearance (see the section about the "Mona Lisa" treatment).

Bushnell is a fantastic writer. She's engaging, captivating, and razor sharp and this wry social commentary collection is no exception.

CANDACE BUSHNELL is the critically acclaimed, internationally bestselling author of Sex and the City, Lipstick Jungle, The Carrie Diaries, One Fifth Avenue, Trading Up, Four Blondes, Summer and the City, and Killing Monica.