M.K. Permejo

Book: Career Girls Author: Louise Bagshawe Category: Romance Fiction Publish Date: 1995 Pages: 512

A very straightforward title to an otherwise lackluster delivery of a promising plot, Career Girls is about two go-getters who had had a rift because of lust and temptation. When they went on their separate ways but found themselves meeting again in later years, Rowena, the one who got betrayed by her best friend Topaz, was set on participating—if not engineering it herself—in the crumbling of Topaz’s career.

Although there was true potential for the book to be great, it was just not well-written. Most of the imagery gets ruined by unnecessary spice. It was as if the book itself just wanted to be spicy all throughout and completely ignored transitions that could have made a huge difference in how the story progressed.

Perhaps this is because the author, Louise Bagshawe, wanted to re-encapsulate one of her better-known books, ‘A Kept Woman’, and tried to run with the same formula. However, the excessive sexual encounters and details that followed just didn’t work with what was supposedly about women, rejected by the men in their lives, trying to prove that they can be just as strong and successful by becoming industry professionals. It only sheds a poor light on something most career girls try to dismantle: that the only way to the top is found between a woman’s legs.

At the end of it, the silver lining in mending friendships and turning out alright despite adversities at work and in life, especially as a woman, was still quite inspiring. It’s an okay read, to say the least, but it’s not something you would recommend to any true career girl.