review: a lady's guide to selling out by sally franson

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A Lady's Guide to Selling Out is about a young woman who majored in English because of her love for books, but took a job in public relations because she wanted expensive clothing. Unfortunately, said young woman is vapid and the author tries far too hard to make her witty. But it's not just an unlikable lead (a number of authors expertly write an unlikable main character) that Sally Franson fails at, she also summarizes important scenes rather than letting them play out on the page. For example, Franson gives a brief description of what Casey says to her mother, then has the mother begin to cry and declare that Casey sounds just like her much-loathed father. It would be helpful for the reader to know just what Casey said to trigger such a response. With Casey's work on a sponsored social media campaign for authors and her open letter (which the reader never gets to read) on plagiarism and patriarchy, it seems Franson wanted a social commentary for her debut novel but Casey Pendergast was not the right character for the task.
1/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.