hardcover, 368 pages
Published June 1, 2021 by Atria Books.
Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.
Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.
It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just …
Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.
Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.
It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.
A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.
Finished reading my first book of 2022 and it was just so good. The ending absolutely broke me.
I don't know if it's because I was listening to it rather than reading it, but I found this book a bit confusing to follow. The main plotline featuring Nella and Hazel in a current day publishing office was easy enough, but there were other characters and plotlines circling around them that made me wish I had the print book so I could flip back and see who they were talking about. Additionally, this book doesn't neatly fit into a single genre, so that probably also contributed to my general sense of confusion.
Aside from that, I appreciate what the author was doing: highlighting the challenges of being the only black woman in a white-normative office culture and the shift in dynamic when you're not longer an only. For people who are unfamiliar with code switching, microaggressions, etc. it will be an education. At its best, this book might …
I don't know if it's because I was listening to it rather than reading it, but I found this book a bit confusing to follow. The main plotline featuring Nella and Hazel in a current day publishing office was easy enough, but there were other characters and plotlines circling around them that made me wish I had the print book so I could flip back and see who they were talking about. Additionally, this book doesn't neatly fit into a single genre, so that probably also contributed to my general sense of confusion.
Aside from that, I appreciate what the author was doing: highlighting the challenges of being the only black woman in a white-normative office culture and the shift in dynamic when you're not longer an only. For people who are unfamiliar with code switching, microaggressions, etc. it will be an education. At its best, this book might help white people recognize the additional work (emotional labor) their colleagues of color are performing beyond their job description when working in a white-dominant/normative environment.
My big lingering questions: I wonder how this book lands with black readers? And I wonder who the author was writing for?
This book was annoying from the beginning but I stuck with it because I wanted to see why people were making the comparisons to Devil Wears Prada and Get Out. I didn't actually see Get Out so maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by how it ended but based on the book alone I was super pissed at how it ended and it seemed out of character for Nella. It struck me as a way for the author to end the book without wrapping up any of the loose ends she left hanging. Oh who cares about Kendra and and Eva and that fucking pink crescent shaped scar if Nella just goes along with everything? Hated it.
I'm not sure the puff "Get Out meets Devil Wears Prada" quite does it justice, but it's not wrong. The book didn't go where I thought it would, and was probably better for that.
I suppose it’s not as well known as a movie, but I got Sorry to Bother You vibes from this book more than Get Out vibes. But while I really enjoyed Sorry to Bother You, I didn’t love this book.
I loved the themes of this book - a Black woman’s experience working in a white dominated corporate space, insecurities about being Black enough, representation in publishing, etc. I also felt this was pretty readable, I got through it in a few days. I wanted to see how things ended. But as others have said, the execution didn’t work well for me.
The chapters from other perspectives weren’t necessary to me. If anything they spoiled stuff so that I knew more than Nella did. As soon as Richard said “Kenny” on the phone I thought, as in Kendra Rae, right? Is that supposed to be hard to guess? I didn’t …
I suppose it’s not as well known as a movie, but I got Sorry to Bother You vibes from this book more than Get Out vibes. But while I really enjoyed Sorry to Bother You, I didn’t love this book.
I loved the themes of this book - a Black woman’s experience working in a white dominated corporate space, insecurities about being Black enough, representation in publishing, etc. I also felt this was pretty readable, I got through it in a few days. I wanted to see how things ended. But as others have said, the execution didn’t work well for me.
The chapters from other perspectives weren’t necessary to me. If anything they spoiled stuff so that I knew more than Nella did. As soon as Richard said “Kenny” on the phone I thought, as in Kendra Rae, right? Is that supposed to be hard to guess? I didn’t feel like there were “twists” in this story because it was generally easy to see coming, so it was more like… you watched Nella react to what you already knew.
I liked the bizarre hair product mind control angle, but I didn’t love the explanation. I think sometimes the more you try to explain something weird like that, the sillier it feels.
I wish we had committed to bizarre earlier, like in Bunny by Mona Awad, so things could get real weird. Or really pushed it even further at the end, like the WTF moment you get in the end of Sorry to Bother You. The middle of this book kinda dragged for me, so tightening that up would have made this a sharper read for me.
I see some readers saying that they feel this book is saying that Black women should be like Hazel, maintain the acceptable level of Blackness, don’t get offended, and succeed. Maybe I’m misunderstanding those reviewers?? But I thought it was clear she wasn’t saying that at all! My take is that the author is saying it’s horrific that Black women are forced into these bad options by their white workplaces. The strongest parts of this book for me were those oh so painful scenes when Nella is dealing with false white wokeness and white fragility.
