NSFW
A Novel
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3.2 • 9 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION'S FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • “An intoxicating exploration of male-dominated workplaces . . . NSFW is gripping, with a lot to unpack, making it excellent book-club fodder.”—TIME
Named an Amazon "Best Book of 2022" for Literature and Fiction
The thing about Los Angeles is that it’s awful and I hate it, but when I’m there, nowhere else exists, and I can’t imagine leaving. It’s a difficult place to be old or sick or fat or poor or without a strong social media presence. It’s not an easy place to be young, either.
So begins Isabel Kaplan’s electric and incisive debut novel about life at the bottom of the corporate ladder.
She’s young, she’s smart, she’s set up for success. She has a covetable assistant job at a television network, a well-connected feminist mother who only wants the best for her, a prescription for appetite-suppressing injections, and a relentless work ethic. What could possibly go wrong?
Compulsively readable and darkly comedic, NSFW explores the messiest parts of twenty-something life, from the indignities of entry level jobs to the elusive quest for self-acceptance. “Excellent book-club fodder” (Time), it’s a novel you’ll want to press into the hands of your coworkers and friends and one that marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The daughter of a prominent victim's rights attorney navigates the treacherous pre-#MeToo television industry in Kaplan's well-crafted but unilluminating adult debut (after the YA novel Hancock Park). The unnamed narrator returns to her hometown of Los Angeles after graduating from Harvard and, after using her mother's connections, begins climbing the ladder at XBC, an upstart broadcasting network. As the narrator internalizes fatphobia and unrealistic beauty standards, and capitulates to and chafes against the casual misogyny at XBC, she tries to stay afloat in an environment teeming with sexual misconduct. Most intriguing, though, is the narrator's Sisyphean relationship with her famously feminist mother, who simultaneously longs for her daughter's success and resents it. Kaplan takes on heavy topics with an appealing frankness and snappy prose but doesn't offer anything new regarding the no-win scenarios faced by survivors of sexual violence when deciding whether to go public ("Come forward and your career is probably tanked. Stay silent and he won't have to answer for any of it," the narrator says to a colleague), and as a result her depiction of the double bind comes off as rather mundane. As a Hollywood coming-of-age story, this does the job, but those in search of a new take on the larger issues at play will be left unsatisfied.
Customer Reviews
Rambling, goes-nowhere book
Filled with trigger subjects that are supposed to make the book seem important but it goes nowhere and nothing is developed enough to create any impact.