Break in Case of Emergency

May 16, 2016
Winter’s debut novel offers an entertaining and smartly satirical glimpse inside a New York City nonprofit startup. Jen, in her mid-30s and a new hire at the Leora Infinitas Foundation (also known as LIFt), attempts to navigate the office culture of meaningless jargon, comically hollow acronyms, and self-congratulatory meetings about vague project proposals. Jen, who is by nature accommodating and eager to please, becomes conflicted as she realizes that the company is more concerned with appearances than empowering women all over the world, as its mission statement claims. Still, unlike her coworker Daisy, who is hilariously blunt in her mockery of the foundation, Jen is determined to please her superiors and succeed in her position, having given up on her dream of becoming a visual artist in favor of a stable income for the next phase of her life. She and her husband have been trying to conceive for long enough that they’ve devised their own code language for doctors’ visits and fertility tests. But as Jen’s job begins to affect every aspect of her life, she’s forced to reexamine her choices, relationships, and aspirations. This is both a biting lampoon of workplace politics and a heartfelt search for meaning in modern life.

May 15, 2016
Work woes and fertility issues, female friendships and marital challenges are among the factors at play in this satirical novel.Some of the details of the day-to-day life of Jen, the overly accommodating protagonist of Winter's debut novel, will sound all too familiar to many young women: the cavalier (not to say cruel) treatment she receives at the company where she works, a vanity charitable foundation that purports to empower women while robbing Jen of her own sense of self; the sweet husband she dearly loves yet wishes was more of an economic provider; the college friends she feels closest to but can't help envying; the struggle to conceive a child--in Jen's terms, a "hypothetical tiny future boarder"; and the squelched yearning for some kind of self-actualization, although Jen and her crew would probably dismiss the very concept as sounding too much like something Leora Infinitas, the TV sitcom star-cum-socialite who heads the nonprofit at which Jen works, would hold a board meeting to discuss. When she's not toiling away at her pointless job--her chief duties are writing memos no one reads; devising acronyms no one likes; and reading the heartfelt, meandering musings of the privileged women Jen and her caustic-yet-caring work pal, Daisy, have dubbed "the Judys"--Jen makes art and is actually a gifted portraitist. Her work evokes the hidden, perhaps happy, perhaps sinister inner lives of her subjects, and over the course of the novel she finally begins to get a handle on her own inner life. While at times the story veers uneasily between the broadly farcical and intimately emotional, it gains momentum as it goes along. At a certain point, Winter's hold on the plot, her characters, and, as a result, her readers becomes surer as it leads to its satisfying conclusion. Half rollicking sendup of celebrity philanthropy and half meaningful meditation on marriage, friendship, family, and adulthood, Winter's curious, captivating novel seems to teeter at times between split purposes but ultimately finds a pleasing balance.

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June 1, 2016
Anxiety and frustration are the dominating emotions for Jen, leaving her unsure of herself and the direction of her life. After losing her job, Jen finds herself working for a feminist nonprofit, LIFt, founded by the eccentric celebrity Leora Infinitas. Her coworkers are consumed by brainstorming vague ideas and acronyms for projects rather than developing the programs at all. Stymied by not quite knowing what her job entails, Jen is left drafting pointless memos and planning projects that most often never come to fruition. This confusing inefficiency in her workplace is coupled with her feelings of inadequacy and disappointment in aspects of her life outside of work, such as her struggles with getting pregnant and her reliance on amphetamines. Her relationships with her husband and two best friends are shaken and tested by her insecurities. Winter weaves a story of the ridiculous (and the serious) people and events that can be found as we reach a turning point in our adult lives. Readers who like workplace satire will enjoy this debut from Winter (features editor at Slate).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2016

Jen, an aspiring young artist living with husband Jim in a non-hip part of Brooklyn, has just been laid off. In desperation, she takes an ill-defined job at the Leora Infinitas Foundation (LIFt). The brainchild of self-made celebrity entrepreneur Leora Infinitas, this nebulous enterprise with an all-female staff purports to help empower poor women around the world. But Leora has an amazing way of turning every proposed project to benefit the downtrodden into a brazen exercise in her own self-promotion. Jen finds herself in the most toxic New York workplace environment since The Devil Wears Prada, all the while dealing with worrying problems at home and misunderstandings with longtime friends. Readers will long for Jen to stand up for herself, and finally she does, in a very satisfying conclusion. VERDICT This witty and sophisticated debut is a wonderfully snarky satire on the world of celebrity do-gooders. It is also the sympathetic story of a deserving young woman who finally gets what she wants. Happy endings for all, except maybe those phony LIFt folks. [See Prepub Alert, 1/11/16.]--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2016

Nabbing a job at a nonprofit feminist start-up helmed by celebrity actress Leora Infinitis should be Jen's dream come true, but instead it's a nightmare. Fellow staffers undercut one another while stroking Leora's considerable ego, with little productive work getting done. From the features editor at Slate.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.