Review: Break in Case of Emergency: A novel

Break in Case of Emergency: A novel by Jessica Winter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Break in Case of Emergency follows Jen, a married woman who starts a new job at a foundation that has been established to empower women. While she is a talented artist, she lets this take a backseat to a variety of things, including her friend's art career, her pursuit of starting a family and her struggle to decide where her life should go next.

The author does a good job at painting a picture of a completely self-serving foundation—the creator of the foundation, Leora Infinitas, puts together something to help all women around the world in a variety of ways, but she is also completely out for her own self image, which leads to Jen having to deal with not being heard, being misunderstood when they do listen and helping to build a foundation that has a lot of good ideas but no real substance. Along with her personal struggles, Jen is in and out of her own life at times, not really present but not fully escaping.

I can honestly say I don't really see what the main idea of the story would be. I do, however, see that the book itself tends to mimic the fictional foundation in the book—a lot of good ideas, but not a lot of real substance. While each topic (workplace relations, marriage and adult friendship) was interesting to explore, Jen never really followed through on any of her own thoughts, but still ended up with exactly what she wanted in the end.

*Received a copy of this book through Penguin First to Read

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