CommonBookSense: Book Review: American Female (Emily Carpenter)

American Female

by: Emily Carpenter

Genre: Adventure, Memoir

Middle-class, mid-career, and Midwestern, twenty-something Emily Carpenter walks into a new job that isn't middle anything. In only slightly more time than it takes to get a passport, this brave adventuress finds herself thrust into a world of lavish luxury, corporate hijinks, and personal scandal. Jet-setting around the globe with her sociopathic boss, she discovers the line between right and wrong is generally negotiable, and almost always in a language other than English. Forced to her breaking point, Emily has to decide what is more important: her old self-respect or her new career. But first - she'll have to survive.

**WE RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR THE FOLLOWING HONEST REVIEW**

Gosh, I'm really having a hard time here, and that has everything to do with the main character, Emily Carpenter....who is also the author. This book is a memoir, which means that the author didn't have to luxury of using past experiences..better judgement....creative writing, to turn this story as anything other than her personal experience. In the back of my mind I know that, and I shouldn't hold that against her, but unfortunately judging others is what we do, and Emily (the character) got on my very last nerve!

The best way for me to review this one is to classify it as: good, bad, and ugly. Let me tell you what I enjoyed about it before venturing to the dark side. The story flowed nicely, making this book easy to follow. The characters were, for the most part, well-developed and evolved as the story progressed.

Now for the bad/ugly. I have a hard time relating to/empathizing with women who play the victim......and Emily Carpenter definitely plays the victim. Her boss is a narcissistic egotistical douche that she should have cut ties with as soon as she realized his true nature. BUT instead she let him abuse and manipulate her, simply because he could offer her experiences/things that she might otherwise never experience. WHY?!?!?!?!?!? See, this is where I have a problem. Instead of leaving and finding another way to make a name for herself, Emily bitched and complained throughout the majority of the book about the way she was being treated. Lovely.....

As always, the links are below.