A HUNDRED OTHER GIRLS

Noora, a 22-year-old Iranian American lifestyle blogger, lands her big break when she's hired as assistant to the editor-in-chief of Vinyl magazine—Vinyl, her political compass, her guiding light, her everything since she was a kid.

She quickly learns, however, that sometimes things are too good to be true. Loretta James, her boss, is a chaotic nightmare, and the staff of Vinyl is caught up in an all-out turf war between Print and Digital. Between her fast affinity with the Digital team, her desire to write, and her reluctance to leave behind the woman she once idolized, Noora finds her loyalties fractured. Pulling from a mix of real-world scandals and pop-culture cues, Hariri-Kia has created a cast of characters who are vibrant yet grounded in their moral grayness while conjuring up the media-industry allure that's needed to keep Noora, along with the reader, pushing through an otherwise toxic environment. When Digital Editor Jade Aki gets canceled and freelancers start dropping off, Noora’s second opportunity of a lifetime arises: She's asked to write a column for Vinyl Digital. “For the reader” is Noora’s mantra as she navigates the tension between her goals and loyalties, consistently reaching for justification for everything she's going through. Her energetic and self-reflective voice elevates the book from a classic “old guard vs. new guard” tale into a sophisticated meditation on the function of audience. Noora learns there is nothing fulfilling in sacrificing your morals for an institution and that the most important reader can be someone who sees herself in you. The ultimate decentering of legacy institutions makes this debut the perfect reflection of contemporary attitudes toward the media industry.

A refreshing take on the classic media-insider novel, championing the value of passion and thoughtfulness over career.