Breathe In, Cash Out is a perfect summer read!

Allegra Cobb is a 20 something, Ivy League graduate who finds herself in the ruthless, all consuming, intense world of finance. This is everything she’s worked so hard for, but lately she’s thinking it may not be the right direction for her life. Allegra has always had a deep passion for yoga, but could she make a living out of it?!?! It was at this point, I knew I was really going to enjoy this book!

I loved getting lost in this novel! I found Breathe In, Cash Out laugh out loud funny and I enjoyed reading Allegra’s journey to getting her groove back. For everyone looking for great women’s fiction that’s not a downer—this is the book for you!! Madeleine Henry really wow’ed me with her debut novel and I am excited to see what she comes out with next!

I absolutely loved this book. The life on Wall Street has always fascinated me in the way, is it really that bad, for Allegra yes it is.

She is counting the days until she can quit her gut wrenching job as an analyst to become a yoga teacher.

This was a light read and perfect for the beach! I look forward to more by the author.

Allegra Cobb is counting down the days until her investment banking job will cash out and she can fulfill her dream of becoming a yoga teacher. The only thing standing in her way is the actual investment banking job—where she puts in 100 hour work weeks, leaving little time for anything else (sleeping, eating, yoga practice). Until one weekend, two things change. She meets a man at yoga (and sleeps with him!) and she meets her Instagram idol, Skylar. From then, her life takes a drastic change.

<i>Breathe In, Cash Out </i> is throws a financial twist on The Devil Wears Prada crowd. Allegra is likable and the situations she finds herself in are comical, albeit somewhat predictable. The novel is a nice, fluffy beach read, with a July publication date. No major plot twists or huge reveals with this one. Nice and easy. Great for a debut author.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book! Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC. Can’t wait to read the next chapter in these characters’ lives.

This was a fun read! I liked the writing style, and the book had a fun Devil Wears Prada vibe to it. I liked that Madeleine Henry herself is a yogi, so she knew what she was talking about in the yoga aspect of the book. A great summer read!

I thought the author's presentation of yoga was a little off--Allegra isn't even a certified yoga teacher and she starts teaching? Really? I thought she played up a little too much of the instagram/commercial world of yoga and not what yoga is really about. Skylar was at first more like that and then turned out to be a jerk. So that was the only part that disappointed me a bit, as a yogi myself.

I feel very meh about this book. It was a short, easy, light read but without real complications and issues.

I absolutely loved this book but I will be honest it totally stressed me out.

I have been stressed at work and this book just reminded me the never ending work that I faced. I ended up putting it down in mark 78% for the night because I was afraid of the ending. I did pick it up a few days later and was happy that the ending was what I wanted not something crazy.

If you are curious what it's like to work as an investment banker in NYC, then pick this book up.

I did like all of the yoga talk. This complemented the craziness at work.

This just didn't work for me--the narrator's voice was just so grating. I wasn't able to finish it. I only made it to about 10%.

🧘‍♀️|#partner Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books & Madeleine Henry for the free advanced digital copy! This book is available on July 9th!|
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🌟BOOK REVIEW🌟
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▪️MY THOUGHTS
✔️I really enjoyed this book! It was funny and portrayed such a great strong protagonist. I loved all the dynamics in the workplace and how that was a constant throughout the entire book. There were so many relatable topics and decisions that Allegra had to face. For example doing what you love or pay the bills?! I thought the writing was great and had me hooked right from the beginning.
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▪️OVERALL RUNDOWN
✔️Overall this book was such a fun read! Underneath all the yoga poses this book really emphasized that what you see on the internet is not always true and that being kind will get you far! ❤️ Plus I also learned a bit about yoga! If you’re looking for a fun feel good read - I think you would like this one!
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▪️TITLE RUNDOWN
Banking
Reality
Exciting
Art
Telling
Honest
Empathy
Interesting
Nice
Courageous
Allegra
Silly
Happy
Original
Understanding
Thankful
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▪️STAR RATING
✔️🌟🌟🌟🌟/5

Henry's debut novel is about finance and yoga. I know the basics of yoga but was completely lost when all the financial acronyms were bantered about in the story. Allegra is an overachiever who has a pressure cooker job that often keeps,her at her desk for days on end. She persues yoga as a stress reliever and has a plan to quit her regular job and become a yoga instructor. Much of the story revolves her volatile job and coworkers. She strikes up a friendship with an social media guru, Skylar, who turns out to be a viper in yoga pants. This was a fast read. Some of the characters were a little stale and predictable, but all in all it's a decent read.

Wonderful! Allegra has the job many others dream of- she's a second year analyst at a Wall Street bank- and all she can think of is how she's going to quit as soon as she gets her (very large) bonus. She's always loved yoga and now she's planning to start her own teaching practice. She falls under the influence of Skylar, a woman who has taken her yoga to a new level on Instagram. Skye hovers over Allegra, helping her to cope and heal. Or is she helping? This has terrific insight into being a junior in a bank (or any large stress filled organization - a law firm springs to mind) and the inane work the juniors are paid to do and sacrifice their personal lives for. Henry has written succinct and on target characters - you probably know a Vivienne and a Tripp and a Chloe and so on- but she's also done it with affection for those they are modeled on (for the most part). The writing is smooth, you'll learn a little about banking, a little about yoga, and be entertained. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Henry's a darn good storyteller.

4.5 stars.

I'd recommend this book to fans of Lauren Weisberger and readers who enjoyed such novels as Bond Girl, The Devil Wears Prada, and Big Law. It was a great look inside the world of banking. And, OMG, I'm so happy I chose a different path!!

I was so stressed out while reading this book as well as vicariously exhausted and hungry. The main character Allegra tried really hard to balance her day (more like 24-7) job with her yoga aspirations and thought she'd hit the jackpot when she caught the attention of her Instagram idol Skyler Smith but sometimes too good to be true is not just a cliché, it's a fact.

Although I skimmed much of the financial talk and found one of the sub-plots to be unnecessary, I really liked this book because I was 100% invested in what happened to Allegra. I particularly enjoyed the romance sub-plot. It was minor, but really cute.

I understand the character's frustration with her life but the use of foul language really put me off, dropping my rating from a 4 to a 3.

Allegra Cobb has a plan: when she gets her bonus she is quitting her Wall St. banking job and opening her own yoga studio., once she completes formal yoga training. In the meantime others have plans for Allegra's future and she has to make some tough choices. Being a people-pleaser adds to her stress.

Allegra is based on the author's life experiences.

Fantastic, fun read! I haven't run across a really well-written women's fiction story in so long - this one hit the spot! I found myself completely engrossed in the story and finished it in just a handful of sittings over a couple of days. The characters were dimensional and likeable, the setting immersive, and the ending completely satisfying. I've recommended it to all my friends as a great summer read!

The PR department over at Atria clearly knows me a little too well, as Breathe In, Cash Out is pretty much tailored for me. As much as I relish in the cleverness and beautiful use of language in highbrow literary fiction, there's really nothing like a solid piece of chick lit to get me excited. I know, I know, "chick lit" is no longer a phrase we use, but I say it in an entirely non-pejorative, proud of my not-so-dirty and not-so-secretive, way. That's not to say that the genre is without its problems-- it is, and I'd say they're mostly of a qualitative nature; many of the offerings wind up being of the mediocre mommy porn variety, and let's just say that's not helping. But, okay, let's look specifically at Madeleine Henry's debut novel, about a young woman on Wall Street whose ambitions involve a different kind of upward (and downward, as in, 'dog') mobility than most of her peers. My enjoyment of this novel is likely owing to narcissistic tendencies, as I'm also an avid practitioner of yoga, with Ivy League credentials, working in a male-dominated field, dating a finance bro. The story hits home, yes, but I think there's an informative component that sets it apart from may other offerings in the genre. If you come to this with a finance background, I would expect you'd pick up some yogic knowledge and perhaps some desire to self evaluate; if you come to this with a yoga background, you'll likely learn a bit about finance, and the cutthroat atmosphere of working at the bottom rung of banking. In addition, the writing has a great bite to it, as if the author expects the reader to keep up without coddling.

Couldn't get through the first couple of pages. Totally boring to me. I think it needed a more interesting firsst chapter

This is the quintessential Summer read, perfect for a day by the pool. Witty, funny, and entertaining, this book is a fun "brain candy" read. Allegra, the main character, is likeable and interesting. I think a lot of people have dreams about ditching their corporate lives for something adventurous, and a little romance thrown in is always fun to read about. I practice yoga in my real life so I enjoyed reading about the yoga aspects of the story.

Allegra Cobb spends her days and nights glued to her desk at Anderson Shaw (aka Goldman Sachs) in the Healthcare Group, where most of her Princeton undergrad colleagues would kill to be. However, not one to go with the flow (yes, that's an awful yoga pun, sorry), Allegra finds herself dreaming of exploring more about Yoga and it's practice and principles. She hopes she can make enough money from her annual bonus to ahem "Breathe In, Cash Out" and start her own studio. But these last few months are just not going Allegra's way, including accidentally sleeping with her new boss, so when she meets famous instagram personality @SkylarSmithYoga , she decides it may be time to put these ideas into practice for real.

I really enjoyed both the financial and social aspects of this novel, as well as learning about yoga, which at times did go over my head. Learning that the author actually left her Goldman Sachs job to practice yoga (I too used to work there) made me extremely interested to read the cultural parts about life in investment banking and I will say Henry hit the nail on the head - even if you know nothing about this world, I think it will still be of interest to you and I'm sure you know plenty of people who fit the types described in her workplace! And lets not forget the ever relevant topic of sharing your life on instagram and opening up your life to someone from instagram as well. This is a dynamic that Henry explored well and added a fun layer to the book.

This was a very strong debut from Henry - finance, yoga and now writing - is there anything she can't do? I'll be eager to see what comes next from a strong voice in this genre.

Thank you to Atria for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own

On Breathe In/ Cash Out by Madeleine Henry
A chick lit novel about an investment banking analyst at the fictionalized Anderson Shaw, who dreams of becoming a yoga teacher. She also accidentally sleeps with her boss, comes to terms with the fact that her parent’s dreams are not her own, and meets her yoga idol, who turns out to be not as zen as she seems. It’s a funny, fast read by a former Goldman Sachs analyst who clearly lifted a lot of her banking tales straight from her time there. If you want to feel like a banker without putting in the hours, read this book.

Was able to snag an eARC of this book via NetGalley and it was a really fun read! I loved being able to see the crazy side of two very different industries (Wall Street vs Yoga) and the fun of following along as Allegra attempts to straddle the two. I’m a sucker for a character that’s very much an InstaStar and somewhat full of shit LOL 💁🏻‍♀️ I don’t want to spoil the book but I definitely recommend this if you’re looking for a funny, light read (loved the ending). I need to get a paperback copy because this is one I want on my shelves!