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NSFW

A Novel

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

Blisteringly sharp, hypersmart, and compulsively listenable—meet Isabel Kaplan's searing debut novel about a young woman trying to succeed in Hollywood without selling her soul.
"The rare kind of read that made me giggle just as much as it left me gutted." —Zakiya Dalila Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Other Black Girl
From the outside, the unnamed protagonist in NSFW appears to be the vision of success. She has landed an entry-level position at a leading TV network that thousands of college grads would kill for. And sure, she has much to learn. The daughter of a prominent feminist attorney, she grew up outside the industry. But she's resourceful and hardworking. What could go wrong?
At first, the high adrenaline work environment motivates her. Yet as she climbs the ranks, she confronts the reality of creating change from the inside. Her points only get attention when echoed by male colleagues; she hears whispers of abuse and sexual misconduct. Her mother says to keep her head down until she's the one in charge—a scenario that seems idealistic at best, morally questionable at worst. When her personal and professional lives collide, threatening both the network and her future, she must decide what to protect: the career she's given everything for or the empowered woman she claims to be.
Fusing riveting prose with dark humor and riveting commentary on the truths of starting out professionally, Isabel Kaplan's NSFW is an unflinching exploration of the gray area between empowerment and complicity. The result is a stunning portrait of what success costs in today's patriarchal world, asking us: Is it ever worth it?
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 9, 2022
      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.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In this timely audiobook, an unnamed protagonist encounters misogyny at her job as an assistant for a Hollywood television network. Narrator Stephanie Nemeth Parker's youthful and expressive tone also captures the protagonist's challenges with family and romance. Parker expertly depicts the protagonist's claustrophobic and virulent workplace environment in which sexist commentary is freely expressed. When she is sexually assaulted there by another assistant, Parker superbly manifests her internalized pain and conflict, as well as the institutional forces in place to silence her. Especially poignant is the protagonist's fraught relationship with her depressed mother, a lawyer and victims rights advocate whose controlling persona is wonderfully portrayed. Hollywood's fat-shaming culture is also astutely conveyed. Despite an abrupt ending, Parker brings to life a tragically relatable story. M.J. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

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