Trade Secrets: V.K. Tritschler

 I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. 

I thought this was a great premise for the book, so I was pretty disappointed when the direction it was actually taking became clear to me. 

It was easy to get into the story right away. Tritschler pulled me in to the world she was spinning. I jumped into the office life with Emily quickly. Tritschler also does a great job with descriptions: it was easy to visualize the story along with Emily, as she walks through the office and notices her coworkers. It was easy and quick to read with fun character quirks.

However, I had such a difficult time with the main character. Emily is just SO dramatic. Way over the top. I rolled my eyes at her so much my eyeballs got sore, and I had to take a break from reading. I think her character was just overdone. There was too much anxious teen in her, I think. I understand that Tritschler wanted to emphasize the point that Emily was a young, inexperienced character who had a lot of growing to do, but I think there was too much of this. Often times, Emily was just a limp leaf of a character, getting crushed by everything and everyone, in ways that I didn't find relatable, for example, getting 40 emails on her first day of work. That's just what happens in the job world, and she let that knock her flat, according to one of the last sentences of the first chapter: "Maybe she wasn't cut out for this position." That's too dramatic for me. 

Early on in the book, I wrote in my notes, "Are we supposed to believe she's [Emily] attracted to her lecher of a boss?" Jimmy was written too inappropriately in the beginning to be an actual potential romance for me, so I was very disappointed that this was the route taken. He was too gross, especially as someone in a position of power. His character should have been toned down a bit in the inappropriate behavior for me to believe that Emily would be interested in him. The "sexual chemistry" was not enough for me to understand their connection.

A lot of the plot points in this book were poorly written and missing a lot of resolution. Harry needed more resolution, and instead, he just dropped of the face of the book. Emily's family showed up for a few pages and a medical emergency, but disappeared after less than a chapter. The Carter case, the main plot of the story, had zero resolution, as far as I could tell. 

Overall, I was disappointed in the ending, frustrated by every single character (and not in a good way) and confused by the disappearance of plot points.