Not Safe For Work: Author of the viral essay 'My boyfriend, a writer, broke up with me because I am a writer'

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Will I try to convince myself that if they are interested in supporting a critique of Hollywood, the ends will justify the means? I left my job at the TV network to go to graduate school, during which time I wrote a novel about a Hollywood assistant and the slippery slope of complicity. In fact, it pulled me right in through its mix of exploring serious topics such as sexual harassment and abuse, but told from the POV of a woman who is smart, sassy and not afraid of seeing the irony in a situation. A book that leaves you pondering and gives great social commentary on the glass ceiling that very much still exists between women and equality in both the workplace and life, is always an excellent read.

If I thank him for his congratulations and leave it at that, am I demonstrating complicity, failing to practice what I preach? I hadn’t spoken to him in years; he knew me when I was an assistant, and he was a very important executive. The story is delivered by an unnamed protagonist, a young woman, recently graduated from the prestigious Harvard university. While I don’t want to talk too much about the detailed plot, I do want to describe the overall feel of the book.Recommended if you’re looking for something like Devil Wears Prada, not too deep but a nice entry into further reading. I remember being 23, anxiously navigating halls where executives didn’t look me in the eye, holding the muted phone to my ear, thinking: if I have the opportunity to speak, I hope I make the most of it. This summarises the theme of the book pretty well, as a Hollywood wannabe climbs the slippery slope to greatness. When rumours of an assault start to circle the office, and your close friend confesses her own disturbing experience, you know there is plenty to gain from staying silent. She gets a job in an agency through family connections – her mother is a well known, ball-bustin’ lawyer.

When I drove onto the studio lot for my first day of work, I was 23 years old and considered myself fiercely principled.To climb the ranks, you do whatever it takes:- Pull all-nighters – Lean on your powerful mother’s contacts – Stay in shape at cult-like fitness classes – Secretly wear your boss’s fitbit to improve his stepcount – and his temper. I understood, in theory, that Hollywood was a hotbed of sexism, racism and unchecked egos, but I had grand ambitions of making change from the inside. Ambition bites back in Isabel Kaplan's Not Safe For Work, a novel that hits close to a few recent news events . We urgently need to develop avenues for conversations about all the behaviour that lives in this grey space.