Jaded
A Novel
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A young lawyer wakes up in the morning after a work gala with no memory of how she got home the previous night and must figure out what exactly happened—and how much she’s willing to put up with to make her way to the top of the corporate ladder—in this “smart, compulsively readable novel” (The New York Times).
Jade isn’t even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name.
Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be. A successful lawyer. A dutiful daughter. A beloved girlfriend. A loyal friend. Until Jade wakes up the morning after a work event, naked and alone, with no idea how she got home. Caught between her parents who can’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed, and her job that expects silence, the perfect world Jade has constructed starts to crumble.
For fans of Queenie and I May Destroy You, Jaded is a “raw, dark” (Refinery29) account of consent, power, race, sexism, and identity in a broken society.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lee's promising debut probes what happens when a British woman's carefully constructed persona shatters after she's sexually assaulted. The daughter of a Turkish father and a South Korean mother, Jade Kaya was born Ceyda Kayaoğlu. At 25, Jade has assimilated into upper-class English society, immersed in her high-powered job practicing corporate law and involved with a wealthy white boyfriend, Kit. Everything about her life is practiced and studied—down to the name Jade, which began as her "Starbucks name." After she's sexually assaulted by a colleague, however, she reconsiders her relationships and aspirations. Kit's performative support for marginalized people doesn't extend to sticking up for Jade against his friends' casual racism, and her two best female friends disagree on whether she should file a formal workplace complaint. At times, these characters can feel more like straw men than real people. Lee is better, though, at untangling the complicated emotions wrapped up in Jade's evolving relationship with her parents, who fear she will lose hold of her material successes and grieve their home countries. Though somewhat lacking in nuance, this is carried along by flashes of genuine rage and connection.
