About the Book
When a fashion writer dives headfirst into the cutthroat Silicon Valley tech world, her future threatens to unravel in this addictive novel by Kyla Zhao, author of The Fraud Squad.
On paper, Zoe Zeng has made it in New York’s fashion world. After a string of unpaid internships, she’s now a fashion columnist at Chic, lives in a quaint apartment in Manhattan, and gets invited to exclusive industry events.
But life in New York City isn’t as chic as Zoe imagined. Her editor wants her to censor her opinions to please the big brands; she shares her “quaint” (read: small) apartment with three roommates who never let her store kimchi in the fridge; and how is she supposed to afford the designer clothes expected for those parties on her meager salary?
Then one day, Zoe receives a job offer at FitPick, an app startup based in Silicon Valley. The tech salary and office perks are sweet, but moving across the country and switching to a totally new industry? Not so much. However, with her current career at a dead end, Zoe accepts the offer and swaps high fashion for high tech, haute couture for HTML. But she soon realizes that in an industry claiming to change the world for the better, not everyone’s intentions are pure. With an eight-figure investment on the line, Zoe must find a way to revamp FitPick’s image despite Silicon Valley’s elitism and her icy colleagues. Or the company’s future will go up in smoke—and hers with it.
Mixing fashion with tech and social media with questionable standards, Valley Verified was one I was immediately invested in. Watching Zoe struggle with New York’s fashion world – writing for a publication that doesn’t care about much else than views and clicks, she feels she is constantly questioning her ethics with some of the articles she has to write. When she attends yet another exclusive industry event, she meets the CEO of an app startup based in Silicon Valley and next thing she knows – she’s saying goodbye to her best friends and tiny NYC apartment and moving across the country. Starting over, especially in an industry she isn’t well-versed in, is daunting enough, but add in the only other female employee who treats Zoe with disdain and getting the huge challenge of helping prove this app to the tech world and she’s got a lot to handle.
This felt like a behind the scenes look of both the fashion and tech industries, both which I don’t know much about. From Zoe learning how to work with social media and influencers, what it means to get canceled online, and when you finally have to choose yourself and your values, this was a fascinating look at a women trying to pave her way in a male-dominated industry and do it the right way. There is a humor, heart and a lot of times I found myself nodding along to Zoe’s thoughts. I enjoyed that while there is an office romance, the main storyline of the book is Zoe’s career and finding happiness with herself and her decisions. Highly recommend!
