Lady and the tramp
BOY, am I glad that I read Techbitch in a quiet room all by myself, with no human interaction. Otherwise, I would have committed a crime and be writing this review from a jail cell. Never has reading got me so angry – Techbitch really made me want to punch someone out.
Imogen Tate, the protagonist of this novel, is the wimpiest, saddest, most annoyingly passive fictional woman I have ever come across in my life.
She is the editor- in- chief of Glossy, a prominent fashion magazine, who returns to work after a five- month sabbatical she had taken due to a cancer scare.
On her first day back at work, she finds her former assistant, Eve Morton, camping in her office with a bunch of young female writers hooked to their laptops and earphones.
No one looks up from their screens or even acknowledges her presence. There is no “Hello” or “Welcome back”, or even familiar faces around to celebrate Imogen’s big return.
Her office is not the same as when she left – there is a bean bag right in the middle of it now – and, in fact, her beloved magazine is not even a magazine any more. Imogen unceremoniously finds out that Glossy has been turned into an “app”, but first she has to learn the meaning of the word. She quickly realises that she is the only person in the room who cannot tell Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook apart, and wouldn’t know coding if it bit her in the face.
Although Imogen retains her position as the chief editor, something tells her that Eve is the one who is running the entire show at Glossy. The tech savvy younger woman is smart, sharp and inno-
vative, and her ideas get Glossy’s big bosses all excited – well, that and her tight- fitting, cleavage- baring dresses.
Imogen, who has yet to grasp the full potential of her smartphone, is way in above her head with the new app and struggles to keep up with Eve, who doesn’t even give her the time of the day.
Eve is condescending, rude, and downright nasty to Imogen at every chance she gets. Appointed as the editorial director of Glossy. com, Eve is biding her time to kick Imogen to the curb with her shiny Jimmy Choos – but not before using the old cow to get on first name basis with the who’s who of the fashion world. She undermines Imogen’s authority at every turn and sabotages her every move right in front of her face.
But. All is not bad in Imogen’s world, as finally learns how to use Twitter – though her first tweet was “Hello Twitter! Here I am twerking” ( instead of “tweeting”) – and she gains popularity on Instagram at well. But with Eve around, that joy definitely won’t last long and Imogen eventually finds herself losing out to Eve, starting with her front row seat at the prestigious New York Fashion Week, her dignity, and possibly even her job.
Now what grinds my gears is not how Eve disrespects her boss, but how Imogen lets it happen. As much as Imogen believes that calm and collected is how a woman of prestige should carry herself, there are so many moments in the book that warrant hissy fits and a tight slap or two. OK, I don’t condone violence but still ... I really don’t think it was necessary for the authors to paint Imogen in such a pitiful way, because instead of drawing inspiration from her character – who is supposedly one of the most powerful women in the fashion industry – I just hate her cowardice.
If she can’t even stand up to a bratty, 20- something psychotic subordinate, how am I to believe that she controls the Calvin Kleins and Diane von Furstenbergs of the fashion world?
And as for Eve, I think that the authors must have taken bits and pieces of characteristics from people they have hated in their lifetimes to come up with her. She is the spawn of evil, that Eve, with her cruel ways and words.
Like I said earlier, never has a book made me so angry, and Techbitch really got me boiling deep inside.
However, there was a little bit of a silver lining to reading this book. With all that anger in me, I couldn’t wait to go to my kickboxing class and pummel the heck out of that punching bag. Thank you, Imogen and Eve.