Book Title: Anna Bright is Hiding Something
Author: Susie Orman Schnall
Format: 🎧
Narrators: Tiffany Bache and Hillary Huber
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Genre: Bit of Mystery/ Women’s Fiction
Audiobook Pub Date June 4, 2024
My Rating: 3 Stars
Pages: 340

This story explores our fascination with businesswomen who are breaking barriers and sometimes behaving badly with drama and secrets.
Anna Bright is the current darling of Silicon Valley. She is also committing fraud, but only a handful of people have figured this out. When up-and-coming journalist Jamie Roman lucks into the opportunity to interview Anna, she is excited to use it to jumpstart her own career.
Jamie watches Anna’s bad behavior - her treatment of others and whisperings of fraud, Jamie realizes the real story will be exposing Anna.

I struggle with this story as well as the idea that women have to act like men to be successful.
I understand breaking the glass ceiling but not sure if all women all going about it the right way.
I recently read something Gloria Steinem, said~ “I am glad we have begun to raise our daughter more like our sons however it will never work until we raise our sons more like our daughters”!!!

I like narrator Hillary Huber so hung in there. I was pulling for Jamie.
Parts of the ending were good but also unsatisfying...


Story will remind many of a real situation.
Disgraced thirty-nine-year old Silicon Valley superstar Elizabeth Holmes has surrendered to federal prison in Texas to begin serving an 11-year term for defrauding investors.
A journalist from the Wall Street Journal exposed her company to have been fraudulent. </i>

Want to thank NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this early audiobook.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for June 4, 2024.

I wanted to like this book but honestly not a lot happens. It didn't capture my attention. The characters were relatable, which helped. Especially since this was loosely based on headlines, I expected some twists and turns that took this was fact into fiction. But that never happened

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this book for free in exchange for my review! All opinions are my own. I was lucky to get both an E-Arc and an ALC of the Audiobook

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I was hoping to enjoy it because I have been intrigued by the Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos case, of which this book is most likely inspired by. However, I found myself losing focus on this book as I found the plot to go over my head (all the Silicon Valley jargon/buzzwords) and the characters were unlikeable (they probably weren't written to be but oh well). I had heard good things about Susie Orman Schnall's other books, which is why I was excited to read this one, however, it just fell flat for me. With that being said, if I wasn't annoyed by the characters, I might have kept going on this book as I did enjoy the narrator's voices (Tiffany Bache and Hillary Huber)
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Many Thanks again to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Anna Bright has a fantastic idea. It will take the world by storm and change everything. There is just one problem…they haven’t actually worked out the kinks, or the security risks yet. But that won’t stop Anna. She is taking the company public and nobody can stop her. When Jamie, a young journalist starts digging deeper into Bright Side, Anna wants this thorn in her side to disappear. Jamie has no such plans of doing so. She wants to, and plans to succeed in breaking the story of Anna’s crimes. Two strong women, each determined to win..what could go wrong?

I did this one on audio which seems fitting since it’s how I read Bad Blood about Elizabeth Holmes years ago. It really is sad what a negative light Holmes put on women in these startups, and this book discusses that a bit as well. Anna was a hard worker, but also someone that didn’t like to hear no, so she decided that when you said no, it actually meant yes. Meanwhile Jamie was doing her best to make a name for herself in an insanely competitive industry, and when had a suspicion that things weren’t as they seemed, she trusted her gut. I really enjoyed both storylines in this book, both Anna and Jamies. Obviously I ended up rooting for Jamie, but it didn’t make me like the Anna chapters any less! If you enjoyed Bad Blood you should definitely grab a copy of this one!

I thoroughly enjoyed this ripped from the headlines story about a fraudulent tech executive trying to get an ipo on a new product and a journalist covering it all.

Narrated by Tiffany Bache and Hillary Huber who did an exceptional job making this story so engaging. Their tempo was perfect and moved the story along in a conversational way.

Fans of the podcast Dropout, about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos fiasco, will feel right at home in this book.

Corporate greed, unethical CEOs getting their comeuppance and the little guy winning make for a fun time.

I’m conflicted. It’s not like the writing was bad. It was good. The story was detailed. There was dialogue that is relevant and engaging. The characters were well developed. But this book felt like three different stories and I couldn’t follow it. I kept waiting for the thriller element to kick in. And maybe that’s on me? Because maybe it isn’t a thriller. But I just couldn’t connect with it.

Anna Bright is Hiding Something immediately caught my attention since the description sounded a lot like the true story of Elizabeth Holmes with Theranos, and I was enthralled with that case at the time.

Firstly, I thought this book had a strong premise covering an ambitious female CEO who is intentionally committing fraud to get her company Bright Life public as soon as possible. Then, the other storyline of the ambitious journalist, who starts out as an Anna Bright fan, but after learning bits and pieces of how her company is handled, starts to chase this story within Bright Life of fraud, deceit, and a poor work culture.

I can appreciate a lot of elements of this story, but there are too many issues that are glaring for me. This book had uneven pacing that had be bored four about 75% book, just waiting to hear actually what all of this fraud and culture issue actually was. Because of that, I didn't really find any character in this story to be likeable. Anna was a boss that I would never want to find myself working for, Jamie was a journalist chasing a story that the reader didn't have full details over (or so it felt), and the many other characters had no dimension or qualities to want the reader to root for them.

The formatting of this book was also a little bizarre, where it would share what the main character was doing/who she was with, but wouldn't share the details of what took place at that time until later chapters. That made this book kind of hard to read and a bit confusing, and had me questioning if I totally missed something or not.

Overall, this story was too close to Elizabeth Holmes with Theranos, and weirdly, they even mention her and her company multiple times toward the end of the book. I wish that instead of covering that story seemingly so closely, this was more of a unique story about a female CEO that didn't have to include all of the cliches about women in the workplace.

Thank you to NetGalley, Susie Orman Schnall, and the publisher for providing me with the advanced audiobook copy for an honest review.

Anna Bright Is Hiding Something, by Susie Roman Schnall, is such a fun read. Or, in my case, listen. The audiobook made the four-hour drive to pick up my son from college fly by like only minutes! I was so impatient to find out what happened with Anna and Jaime that I turned it back on as soon as we got home and just finished it now. The narrators were fantastic, truly bringing the author's characters to life. Highly recommend!!

*3.5 stars*

This was a little outside my normal because it was definitely more warm and fiction than thriller but I found myself still interested enough to listen to the audiobook which I thought was well done. I will say I was really enjoying it but I felt like the ending was kind of a letdown. And originally I was going to give it four stars but I feel like the ending just kind of made me bring it down just a little. But overall I found it an enjoyable and entertaining audiobook. I can see how some might not find it super throwing but it had enough to keep me going! It almost felt very real though and I kept having to mind myself that Anna Bright wasn't a real person.

3.5 stars
If you followed the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos situation and/or read the book Bad Blood, you’ll notice that Anna Bright is Hiding Something follows things pretty darned closely. I enjoyed the audio well enough, thought the narration was flat for me (Hilary Huber in particular). I think the target audience is people who are fairly unversed in the subject matter, otherwise it mostly becomes a derivative version of the actual story.

I expected this to be more of a thriller and have more twists and turns, so I was a bit disappointed that it was more straightforward. I still enjoyed the characters and felt the way they interacted was very honest and understandable, especially Anna. It would have been very easy to make her pure evil (and of course she’s still pretty bad) but she felt messy and human to me in a very important way.

A fun thing about this book is it kept me googling things like "public comment business?" "quiet period SEC?" the whole time. I guess a lot of the time I get annoyed with books that talk down and overexplain so I have no business being annoyed with a book that assumes I know what it's talking about but I did have to educate myself as we went along LOL.

This book is Definitely Not About Elizabeth Holmes, but it is about a Homes-like tech start up with a similar employee culture. If you can't get enough of "WeWork" and those types of stories you'll enjoy this fictionalized and sensationalized account. I do think the ending was kind of unsatisfactory and the stakes kind of just... fizzled out... but like, that's also how life is sometimes. I was just really hoping for something a little more punchy lol.

This was my 3rd book by this author and I really enjoy her versatility in subjects. From a subway contest in NYC in 1949, to the World’s Fair in 1939 and now another novel set in NYC about business woman in today's world.

This is a fast-paced novel which took me to Silicon Valley and a world I knew nothing about. We follow Anna is hoping to become an IPO and a journalist who wants to destroy her. Female ambition can be powerful or catty. We have different names for powerful men VS powerful women. Anna might be hiding something! Absolutely fascinating! Get ready for one wild ride.

Looking forward to talking with my book club with the author. The narrators were perfect with their characters

Loosely based on the Elizabeth Holmes case, this "fast-paced and ripped-from-the-headlines story" was definitely ripped from the headlines but NOT fast-paced.

The book's premise was strong:
* An ambitious and talented female CEO intentionally commits fraud.
* An ambitious and talented female journalist vows to expose the fraud and make a name for herself as a journalist.

The book was replete with cliches about females in the workplace.

Overall, the book's pacing was uneven and lacked the level of intrigue I was seeking.

Quite frankly, the Elizabeth Holmes case was much more interesting.

I listened to the audiobook read by Tiffany Bache and Hillary Huber.

Both narrators did a superb job with the narration.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars rounded up.

4.5 rounded up to a 5 star

Anna Bright is secretly engaging in fraudulent activities within her multibillion-dollar company, BrightLife. Journalist Jamie Roman discovers Anna's misconduct and sets out on a journey to expose her, aiming to make a mark in journalism.

I loved this book. It is reminiscent of the Drop Out and Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.

The theme of gender dynamics in leadership and the challenges that women in power face was well done both with Anna at the CEO level and Jamie who is striving for growth in her journalism career.

Anyone who was captivated by the downfall of Theranos or is intrigued by the Silicon Valley start up life will enjoy this book.

I also listened on audiobook, and the narrators did a fantastic job.

Publishes on June 4th