Smile and Look Pretty
Book Feature - Smile and Look Pretty by Amanda Pellegrino
HBL Note: Amanda Pellegrino, NYC TV writer, drew from her own experience assisting some of the most powerful actors, directors, and screenwriters in the entertainment and media industries to create Cate, Lauren, Olivia and Max, the four overworked and underpaid assistants in her piercing novel. “Assistants really were the most powerful people in the world. They had the inside knowledge of the most important executives, were wildly ambitious, and knew how to be present while also having the uncanny ability of making their future career intentions known… They were willing to endure anything to make it happen,” writes Amanda. Listed as one of the most anticipated novels in Fortune, Feminist Book Club, The Nerd Daily, Bookish, and Motherly, you won’t want to miss this book. Scroll down to read more.
“A timely, page-turning battle cry...Bad bosses, prepare to quake in your boots.” -- Laura Hankin, author of A Special Place for Women
From the publisher:
Best friends Cate, Lauren, Olivia and Max are overworked and underpaid assistants to some of the most powerful people in the entertainment industries. Like the assistants who came before them, the women know they have to pay their dues and abide the demeaning tasks and verbal abuse from their bosses in order to climb the ladders to their dream jobs.
But as they are passed over for promotions and the toxic office environments reach a breaking point, the women secretly start an anonymous blog detailing their experiences, which snowballs into hundreds of others coming forward with stories of their own. Confronted with newfound viral fame and the possibility of their identities being revealed, the assistants have to contend with the life-changing consequences of speaking out against those who refuse to share the power.