Kathleen Jones (5)

Booklife, February 2024

In this tense, funny novel, Sarah Morris, a 49 year-old editor, faces upheaval at the publishing company, Quill Pen Press, where she's worked for the past 21 years. Though there is no change in her job title or pay, all of her job responsibilities are now different and she is forced to do overtime without pay for new daily tasks that she hates. With a recession ravaging hopes of economic stability, and finding herself her family’s sole income-earner following her husband’s dismissal from his banking job, Sarah must decide what steps she needs to take in her career to find her way back to being happy in the workplace. Does she dare a job search, as she puts it, “In middle age. In a crappy job market … that’s hostile to older people like me”?

Sarah exemplifies the emotional turmoil many feel when facing discontent in the workplace as Jones delves into self-doubt, the fear of starting over, and being complacent in a dead-end job. With wit, snark, and a striking sense of all-too-real realism, Jones writes a relatable and personable narrative about being pigeon-holed and feeling stuck with work that is no longer fulfilling or providing the space or opportunity for advancement. Exploring toxic work cultures, micromanagers, and workplace favoritism, The War on Sarah Morris is punchy and pained, outraged and comic, offering much that readers—especially women working in troubled industries—will find resonant. While set in 2011, the novel feels pointedly of the moment.

Jones convincingly captures the inner workings of a publisher and the ever-increasing responsibilities that fall onto lower level staffers, plus the indignities of a job search, from “biographical resumes” to pop-quiz writing assignments in job interviews. In this, Jones blends the engagingly dishy with sharp-elbowed analysis of power dynamics. Readers who have ever worked under tyrannical managers or for companies who only care about how much money is coming in will be impacted and feel a personal connection to Sarah's struggle.

Takeaway: Sharp-elbowed novel of a woman facing a job hunt after 20 years in publishing.

Comparable Titles: Lisa Owens’s Not Working, Liz Talley's Adulting.
Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A… (plus d'informations)

This book is a story of comedian and screenplay writer who is insecure and have no believe on himself, that's why his fans base is not set, and now his joke's are failing too, one day he made fun of a women in a show, video go viral, after that he met that girl, and get into her life like rainfall, she try to help him during tough time find a proper house to publish his screenplay and then to someone who must buy book rights to make a movie over it, but one house buy it they restrict the creativity of him and turn the story and mould totally different from what jose wrote, he got frustrated and try to solve it and end up broking heart of his girl who is pregnant with his child... He returned to her for that try to balance his career as comedian, screenplay and now father... Things change from time to time during the book proceed...… (plus d'informations)