The Partner Track by Helen Wan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a loosely autobiographical story of a Chinese-American woman trying to make partner in a prestigious New York law firm and how the deck is stacked against those who aren’t white, male, and privileged. (At least, that’s the book’s premise.)
There are some moments in the book that resonated with me (such as the times when folks confused the Asian female lawyers or the times that the main character is mistaken for a secretary), and those moments are both illuminating and bittersweet. But the book also portrays the main character as without fault in any of the unfolding events. And the final humiliating straw–the emotional crux of the novel–made no sense to me at all.
That being said, the book is well-written and an easy read with moments of poignancy. However, it would have been a more interesting read had there been more nuance and shades of gray. Not every white privileged male is a jerk and not every minority is deserving of advancement. It would have been nice to see more than cardboard cutouts of stereotypes. The book was good, but it could have been so much more than it was.