Ambitious Monster is a sharp, relatable, and refreshingly honest exploration of ambition, identity, and the struggles of navigating a career while trying to stay true to yourself. Jennifer Romolini brings a raw and witty perspective to the complexities of modern work culture, with a voice that feels both candid and deeply personal.

What I loved most about this book is how Romolini doesn’t shy away from the messy, uncomfortable truths about ambition—especially for women. She perfectly captures that internal push-and-pull of wanting success while wrestling with self-doubt, burnout, and societal expectations. Her storytelling is engaging, with moments of humor that balance out the more vulnerable reflections, and there’s something incredibly relatable about her willingness to embrace imperfection.

While I found the book insightful and full of sharp observations, there were moments where the narrative meandered or became a little repetitive. That said, the overall honesty and wisdom more than made up for these minor issues.

Ambitious Monster is an empowering and thought-provoking read for anyone who has ever questioned their ambitions or felt out of place in their professional life. It’s a book that reassures you that you’re not alone—and that sometimes being a little “messy” on the path to success is exactly what makes you human. A solid 4 stars!

This was a very middling memoir, but I do not fault the writing. Romolini and I are from two different generations, and this book has a very Gen X feel, which I, as a millenial, have trouble connecting with. I appreciated the central thesis. The collection of vignettes is well edited, and I do not feel any time was wasted in descriptions or details. But I just couldn't relate. The relationship most millenials have to work is just so fundamentally different than how work is perceived by Gen X. Most folks I know feel no loyalty to their job, feel no connection to work generally, and want to spend their days doing what they would like to be doing. I would absolutely recommend to folks in Gen X. The writing is very well-done, and it felt like an honest telling of Romolini's life and experience.

ARC Review:

With it being November I wanted to squeeze in a few nonfiction reads and this book came to mind.

Ambition Monster is a thought provoking read. Jennifer Romolini opened my eyes to the disparities women have face and continue to face in life and the workplace.

Unafraid and uninhibited, Romolini laid everything out, both the good and the bad alike. She dared to share stories that were not only deeply personal, but often showcased her in a negative light. I appreciated how mindful and sensitive she was when it came to discussing stories that extended beyond herself.

Special thanks to Netgalley, Atria Books, and Jennifer Romolini for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

*Being that this is a memoir I feel it would be unfair to give a rating. All I will say is I found this to be an interesting read and would recommend it to others.

Ambition Monster by Jennifer Romolini is a memoir about working too much and about how addictive ambition can be. From the outside, the author had everything she could ever want. But that didn't mean that she was doing okay on the inside. This is a lesson that a lot of people can learn. You can't earn your way to healing. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

This is a memoir about a workaholic. Her ambition is not a passion about the with she does but about the act of working constantly. This stems from a chaotic, sometimes neglectful and abusive, childhood and being told by her mother to earn her way rather than relying on a man.

Without my own backstory that makes this resonate more than is comfortable, I may not have rated this as highly. However, I appreciated that she did not try to make herself perfect in the relationships she describes.

I found it jarring (but unfortunately not surprising) that she and her partner were so irresponsible with their money decisions. I know some will judge her for this but it’s extremely common for highly paid people coming from traumatic backgrounds to make questionable money choices.

This was a hard read but compulsively readable at the same time.

I expected this memoir to contain a recounting of Romolini’s career, maybe some musings on burnout, relatable passages about girlbossing too close to the sun as a fellow woman in media. And I got that, but I got SO MUCH MORE. This memoir truly reads like fiction, which I think is the highest compliment. I admired the way she wove her childhood in, asserting that she could not speak about her toxic ambition without speaking of her family and the adverse experiences at home that led her to seek worth in work. Romolini will take you on a beautifully crafted ride from that complicated childhood and beyond, through her reckless and rebellious young adult years and, finally, to achieving professional and personal success - or at least what seemed like success from the outside. Her recounting is my favorite literary take so far on the death of the girlboss.

I enjoyed this memoir about Jennifer Romolini's life. It was very interesting to finally read a memoir where the author is very realistic and honest about their own actions and thoughts, in the sense that not everyone thinks positively or nicely all the time. It was very intriguing to read more about the childhood of the author and how that impacted them as they grew up and when they became an adult.

I needed this. This is a memoir of anti boss bitch culture. Why do we need to be more productive? Why do we need to achieve more? Why can’t we be happy with what we have? The writing was really good, and the author was very honest and reflective.

WOW. This memoir delivered a lot more than the critique of ambition that I expected—the exploration of family, class, self-worth, and health was all delivered through nuanced, nonjudgmental, incisive prose. I saved every word, even when the scenes and reflections were sometimes hard to handle. It will linger with me for so much longer.

Romolini's prose is breathless, a dive into memories that are ethereal and vibrant simultaneously. Romolini writes with a cadence that's etched in her trauma, and it allows an honesty as she works out on the page how she approached it, without sentimentality. From the dizzying childhood of too-young parents, to her own youth-infused choices to her climb up the corporate ladder, Romolini's sober reflection is a one-two punch on her still-yet short life lives.

Romolini's memoir about her rise in the media world, from working as an editorial assistant to getting a C-suite role before deciding to leave it behind. Romolini's voice is SO strong in here. It's no surprise that she's a great writer given her career trajectory, but I thought that her writing style really upped this from some other career books l've read. As someone who also works in media, I was absolutely GLUED to those sections. She also takes us through her childhood (although I thought this part ran a little long), but it works together to understand her ambition. Would rec this one if you're interested in books about burnout/the notion that work won't love you back.

Ambition Monster is a surprising, engaging, and worthwhile read for anyone who has bought into the hustle culture .Romolini writes not just on workaholism, but also dysfunctional family dynamics, feminism in the workplace, substance abuse, and ultimately finding yourself.

Ambition Monster is a an easy and interesting read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for the eARC!

Intriguing book on the face. Good to learn about her back story, however the author dives into details that are difficult to connect with and loses the reader’s focus. Rating: 3.5

Thank you to Atria Books and Simon Audio for the copies to review!

What an incredible book that hits a little too close to home for me. I picked this up knowing that I would be able to relate but I didn’t know just how much, and it was like looking in a mirror and I am so incredibly grateful that Jennifer shared her story. It is difficult to talk about putting work second at times and I fully understand the ‘pick up and just keep going’ mentality, but I admire how she tried to understand the root of where it is all coming from and do something about it, as that is yet for me to do. We are such an odd culture of finding value in working the hardest, longest, whatever the mostest, and no one else is doing that but us. I’ve been a part of it for way too long, and it was wonderful to not only hear someone speak this to the written pages but also discuss what they did about it and how they did not lose everything but gained so much when they stopped working all the time.

This is an inspiring read that I know I needed to hear, as in I listened via audio and the author reads herself. I loved listening the first time though but I have ordered a physical copy to read again and annotate. I highly recommend this one if you are working too much at your job or at anything where you feel like you have to do it all.

HOLY HELL. I could not stop reading this book. I needed to know what she was going to encounter next. The fast pace of the storytelling made it possible, but the anxiety was present also. I hope that JR has conquered the ambition monster once and for all, the parallels to my own Gen X life made this book an anthem for us now turned 50 and how they hell did I get here, and is it where I want to be females. Five star read.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for this advanced copy!

This well-written memoir tells the story of a woman who came from a unique background to become a leader in the lifestyle, tech, and writing spaces over the course of her career. Growing up with parents who had her in high school, Jennifer struggled to feel love and real connection for most of her life. She left her small town in Pennsylvania and moved to New York City to start working as a fact checker and later editor, climbing to leadership while working grueling hours and compromising building real family and friends relationships. While the book has the word ambition in title however, I never truly felt ambition from the author. She was a workhorse to be sure and put work over much of the rest of her life, but she never really addresses wanting to be in the C-Suite or starting her own company. I felt the book shared good details about parts of the story but parts felt too vague for my liking or left me uncomfortable, like how the health and wellbeing of her child was ignored by her and her partner. I really enjoyed the parts of the book about her childhood and family dynamics but once she got to mid way through her career, I began skimming to get to the end. I appreciate the author's care with her words and how the story moved, but felt that it could have been a bit shorter and still accomplished her goal.

That was a powerful, emotional and sometimes thought-provoking real life story.
The writing is enganging, compelling and relatable to many people out there, I'm sure.

I really enjoyed this memoir! I think many of us can relate to feelings of being ambitious to a fault, over-worked, burnt-out or even feeling the need to always be productive- but at what cost? It sucked me in from the first few pages, and hearing about her childhood broke my heart a little. For me, the winning element was the author's voice and writing style. She is polished, honest and vulnerable- all things I appreciate in a writer. If you loved the author, she co-hosts a podcast "Everything is Fine" that you should check out!

Thanks NetGalley for the copy of this book.

Despite having a very different upbringing than the author, I found this book really relatable! This is not a how-to guide for fixing your workaholic tendencies, it's a brutal self examination. In the midst of all that, it does lay out a picture of how life can change when your values shift. As a fellow recovering millennial pink, girlboss, workaholic, I so appreciated how honest Jennifer Romolini is in her writing and her candor in putting this book out into the world.

I have nothing but good things to say about this memoir. Jennifer Romolini's story of gaining and overcoming workaholism in a high-profile field is relatable and eye-opening. She is self aware to how her childhood led to her tendencies towards workaholism and how it affects those around her. This book was so good I forgot it wasn't fiction while I was reading.