Official Review: Pearls and Heels by Kareen Cole

[MrEmDash]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Pearls and Heels" by Kareen Cole.]

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I really enjoyed Pearls and Heels by Kareen Cole. I've long been fascinated by how the social system works in the large corporations and this book was a really interesting novella on what might go on behind the scenes of a person trying the climb the corporate ladder.

The book is supposed to follow Paula, Nina, and Carla as they climb the corporate ladder. However I was only given Paula's part and I can only assume parts 2 and 3 following Carla and Nina in the process of writing. Paula lives a mundane life with a mundane boyfriend with a mundane sex life. She is a failed writer who joined the corporation Mannings Americas as an analyst but was promoted to an advisor. A meeting with senior management is coming up and is an opportunity for a great promotion. Paula works hard to get the position while battling with 4 other people including the seemingly vapid, too-cheery Carla. Paula believes that her presentation is perfect, but things seem to go wrong. The management are not impressed and start asking strange questions. When it is revealed who landed the job, Paula is devastated not only because of the result, but because she had just broken up with her boyfriend of 3 years. This causes Paula to contemplate whether or not she is as smart as she thinks she is and her life in general.

I thought this was a very interesting book. The best part of the book by far were the characters. They were recognizable, but made the author's own, which I really appreciated. I definitely identified a lot with Paula, being an analytical, cutthroat person who just wants to succeed (ie. have more power and money). The writing style was also solid, some good voice, and really good dialogue, especially from Carla. The idea itself is also very interesting in that it's following three different women as they attempt the climb the corporate ladder and what it takes to do so.

There were some oddities though. Firstly, the spacing is extremely random. Sometimes there are up to 5 spaces between words, sometimes one, sometimes 3, etc. It's really random and if the text weren't so small, would be incredibly distracting. Secondly, none of the paragraphs are indented which distracted a bit from the reading. Thirdly, there were some minor spelling/grammar issues such as "CEOS" should be "CEOs". Small stuff. Fourthly, I believe that some of the descriptions could have been better. A lot of them seemed a bit generic and not that descriptive. A lot of the book was dialogue and Paula's thoughts.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this novella. I'd give it a 4 out of 4 stars. The idea is great, the characters are fantastic, and the writing flows well and is consistent. While there were a lot of small problems, it barely detracted from my enjoyment of the book which is why this book didn't receive a 3. As long as the author fixes the minor errors (which will prevent the book from being kind of hard to read), and adds in parts 2 and 3, I think it will be a solid book. Nice job!

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[Kareen]

Thank you for taking the time to review my book. I appreciate your comments and will make the alterations suggested.

Kind regards
Kareen Cole