Citizen Girl

October 11, 2004
McLaughlin and Kraus (The Nanny Diaries
) are back with another tale of woe featuring a 20-something New Yorker searching for a way out of her miserable life. This hyperventilating satire features Girl, an ambitious feminist whose well-known girl-empowering boss saddles Girl with the worst tasks, steals her ideas and finally cans her for speaking out. After a desperate search, Girl is hired for a dream job with a matching dream salary. As the Director of Rebranding Knowledge Acquisition for My Company, she doesn't exactly know what she's supposed to do, but it involves dodgy activities with her boss and being made over to fit in with a new California client. "You're lucky to even be here.... We're about to buy you a few thousand dollars' worth of suits. So just go try on the Goddamn bikini.... Honey, what're ya gonna do about the bush?" As work goes from bad to worse, the only light in Girl's tunnel is Buster—a sweet boy/man who creates video games for a living and who fluctuates between fleeing Girl and being there for her. But when a new boss takes My Company into a whole new darker direction (think sex industry), Girl is forced to make a decision between morals and money. Though witty and biting in spots, this bitter tale is too schematic and strident to be much fun. Agent, Suzanne Gluck at ICM. (Dec.)

Forecast:
The peccadilloes of Upper East Side mothers are a far cry from the sins catalogued here.
Nanny Diary fans who pick this up may find they've gotten more than they bargained for.

July 1, 2004
The Citizen Girl Diaries? Our heroine discovers that there are harder jobs than nannying. An eight-city author tour.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2004
When Girl, our heroine, is fired from her job making copies and collating files at a dismal nonprofit agency, she's faced with an employers-take-all economy, in which scores of desperate, overqualified applicants compete for each available job. Finally, she's hired by a women's Web portal called My Company to bolster its credibility with the feminist community. Girl thinks she's lucked into her dream job, but this is a world in which the bosses' rule is absolute. Under the high-strung command of My Company's director, Guy, Girl quickly finds her hopes and her principles crumbling as she's forced into a series of increasingly degrading scenarios just to keep drawing a paycheck. McLaughlin and Kraus deftly satirize postfeminist, postmodern, twenty-first-century America, using management jargon and hipster slang with equal precision. More remarkable is the subtlety with which Girl's story moves from the dreary-yet-familiar world of demanding bosses and unrewarding work into the realm of nightmares. The authors have conjured up a vision of America that's just this side of dystopian, and their funhouse-mirror worldview generates its own strange suspense. Given the runaway success of their " Nanny Diaries "(2002), expect high demand for this unsettling novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2004
The Nanny Diaries team is back with another biting satire. This time, McLaughlin and Kraus take on the corporate world from a feminist perspective. What's it like to stand at the bottom rung of the career ladder, briefcase full of neofeminist ideals in hand, when an expensive degree in gender studies only certifies you to sort and staple papers? After getting fired from what should have been her dream job for actually attempting to use her brain, the aptly named "Girl" must battle thousands of other degreed and depilated new graduates for the few jobs available. Although she lands a position with great potential, her boss's inability to communicate the simplest thoughts makes it impossible for Girl to perform at her best. While a fun if a bit harsh read, the novel gets drawn out near the end. After spending so much time reading about Girl's ambiguous job, we've almost lost interest by the time the book reaches its semi-exciting denouement. Still, fans of The Nanny Diaries will be watching for this one. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/04.]-Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.