Member Reviews
I loved this chronicle of a young woman's experience working as an assistant for a top hedge fund CEO. Carrie was raised in the US by immigrant parents. She is highly intelligent and , although her passion is for writing feels strongly obliged to achieve financial success as her parents had scarified to pay for her MIT education. She's burned out by her high pressure job (at which she is highly successful) and misunderstood by her boss, her parents and her boyfriend and needs to find a different path to happiness.
This is my kind of book. I love memoirs that take a hard look at certain types of companies - fashion, stock market, just to name a few.
Honestly, I did not like any of the characters in this story and it kind of freaks me out that this really happened.
Reading this was like getting an inside look at high finance and let's say it.....privileged white men run the markets. Boone was so typical of some of my bosses, it gave me chills and brought back memories that were not positive...actually made me feel so good about the fact that I am off the crazy rides driven by money.
Having said this, however, Carrie was a pain to read and I don't know why, other than to say that she was frustrating, not being remotely in tune with herself at all. She was so matter of fact about everything, the huge work load, her relationships, her friendships....all she kept saying was "i am tired". He relationship with Josh and her parents are good examples. She just went along, either by tuning out or by letting things go with the flow, which is usually a pretty good way to be, except that she did this with EVERYTHING. Even her ridiculous amounts of gifts and $ left you with a feeling that it was all just MEH!.
I struggled a bit with the actual writing. The author did not do a great job of linear writing. Josh, for example, has harassed her, for most of the book, and yet she casually drops, into the storyline, that they have started seeing each other again -almost like "oh, I have readers so I should probably tell them that Josh is in my life again" and does the very same thing when they break up again.
I think real, raw emotion is what is missing in this book. She never cries, she never yells, she never does anything bad.
Still, I loved this story. I know most of this review is pointing out issues with the book, but honestly I just loved to read about all of it, I felt like I got a front rom to such overindulgences.
After reading this memoir I congratulated myself on not choosing to pursue a career in “finance”. I often heard how soul-stripping it can be, especially for women. The author’s account of her experience in a boutique hedge fund confirms it. But her decision to accept a job there so she could pursue her true dream of becoming a writer baffles me a bit. She had to know how all encompassing a role as personal assistant to the CEO could be. And how she’d fall into the trap of having to dress and act the part of people who were only driven by money. However, she gave it her all and this story is really more about her passage to learning about herself and how to become the person she really wants to be..