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christinaroseandrews · 3 years

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Hot shot hedge fund manager, Gabriel Chesterton, is in a bit of hot water. A stock he and his firm invested in and backed has been revealed to be a giant scam, triggering a Justice Department and SEC investigation. To escape the heat, he heads down to Haven Island to visit a friend. There he meets Poppy, a gorgeous twenty-something with one of the best chests he's ever seen. He's intrigued by her and--let's be honest--her beauty. He's determined to get to know her better while he's dealing with the perils of working on Wall Street.

Poppy Smith is a small town girl at heart. Plus-sized and from a poor, working class family, she's had to struggle her whole life with how people perceive her. A challenge made even more difficult since she's become a Model and Influencer on OnlyFans. People see her and judge her without ever getting to know her, and when she meets the gorgeous Gabe the same thing happens. Except, he seems to actually want to get to know the real her. Can she open her heart to allow him in? Or is Gabe just too good to be true?

This review will contain mild spoilers.... mostly so I can talk about trigger warnings. The book contains frank discussion about child neglect, Transphobic language, fatphobia, body shaming, slut shaming, sex positivity, classism, elitism, bullying, sexual harassment, prostitution, and self-esteem issues. Make sure you're in a good place before reading this book.

I've got feelings about this book. Lots and lots of feelings. All the feelings.

The author is new-to-me and I admit I was intrigued by the premise of a Wall Street Player falling for and staying with a Plus-sized Sex Worker. The book takes place after COVID-19 and the fallout from that. During the pandemic when the restaurant workers were out of a job, the heroine joins OnlyFans to make money in order to stay alive.

It's sex work, plain and simple.

And it's not illegal, nor should it be. But it is highly stigmatized to the point where people assume that because she's selling pictures of herself that she's selling her body and that she's available all the time for the right price. It's something that I've long wanted to see addressed... like ever since the 90s. So, the book hit a Pretty Woman vibe, and I wanted to see where it went. I was there for Sex-positive and body-positive messaging. And I didn't get it, at least not initially.

In the beginning, the hero, Gabe, is pretty self-serving, selfish, sexist, misogynistic Bro of a dude. The first time he sees Poppy, he reduces her down to her chest saying "...deep cleavage. Perfect for motorboating." I just about put the book down right there. But I persevered, hoping that the author would take us on a good character arc journey. But for a lot of the book, Gabe was really unlikable. He'd do something right and then follow it up with a thought that turned my stomach. He doesn't listen to Poppy and pushes his own will on her. He's a bit stalkery and it put me off of him. I was not rooting for him to end up with Poppy for much of the book. However, he does mature, change. And his character arc about coming to respect Poppy and her choices and respect her as a person is a good one. I just wish it went further.

I was 100% here for Poppy initially. However, I wasn't there for her internal fatphobia and self-esteem issues. Yes, I know it's a thing in this society. But I'd like to see characters embracing their curves and rolls. The book doesn't pass the Pizza Night test with Poppy rarely eating (she throws out so much food without eating it my inner Katniss was screaming at all the wasted food.) In a lot of ways, the book was fatphobic while trying to be body positive. It didn't land with me. I did like that Poppy was intelligent and knew how her audience worked. I liked that she had her own goals that were separate from the hero's and that raised my opinion on this book.

As I mentioned in passing, I almost DNF'ed this book several times until I reached the 60% mark when the seeds the author planted started coming to fruition and I finally got sucked in. I did like that there is an explicit message that sex workers aren't for sale all the time and that there are lines and that their work should be respected not vilified or disrespected. I was there for that message. Sex work is hard. Making it as a online content creator is hard. I liked that aspect of this book.

So there's a lot of good in this book, it just takes a really long time to get there and there are some big missteps--use of transphobic language, continued fatphobia from most characters, a few missing scenes where I went "Wait. What?"--along the way. (As well as some little ones... like it should be Optics not Myopics when referring to how things are viewed... aka "The optics of dating a stripper don't look good if you're trying to fly the space shuttle." (Hi! Independence Day reference).)

In all, I enjoyed this small town romance. But it took a long time for me to get there and I'm still torn about this book as a whole.

And for that, this gets....

Three Stars

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

If you like these kind of honest reviews, please consider supporting us here!

I received an ARC of this book via Edelweiss

#Romance review #contemporary romance #small town romance #plus-sized heroine #all the trigger warnings #this book got a lot of things right #and a lot of things wrong #it's not bad #but it's not perfect either #three stars #isabel jolie #Rose and Lark review books

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Go ahead and undermine my credentials and hard work. I'll just make sure people know who you really are.

Backstory

I'm 25(M) and I work in the IT department for my company. Our IT department branches out into 6 smaller departments (Technical Support, Programming, Web Development, Computer System Analysis, IT Security, and Network Engineering). Each of these has their own boss and the boss of these all answer directly to the Director of the IT department. A couple weeks ago, I was called into the Director's office when I came into work. She’s an incredible person and mentor.

She told me that she had some good news and bad news. The bad news was that she was offered another job at a much larger company as the IT director at one of their branches in Chicago, so she’d be leaving in a couple of months. The good news was that the position for IT director at our company was open, and given my performance and reputation around the office, my immediate boss (the head of Computer System Analysis) had put my name in for consideration for the job! Each of the six department bosses in IT had to put one name in for consideration, so I have at least five other people who are competing for this job, plus any potential outside hires (It’s four now, but I’ll get to that). After our little chat, I weighed the pros and cons of the job if I get it and I decided to just go for it! I might have a pretty good shot at getting the job, since I'd consider myself a fairly likable person, a hard worker, and fairly good at my job. But there are others who are also very good candidates and I'd still be okay if I didn't get the job. It’s an honor to just be considered.

Now let me tell you about the target of my revenge. For the sake of this story, let's call this guy "Gabe". As the head of Technical Support, Gabe had the power to recommend anyone in his department for the position, but he picked himself. Now I already knew him and what he's like because a year ago I also worked in Tech Support for a short time. I was originally hired to be in the Computer System Analysis department, but I volunteered to help out in Tech Support since we were a bit short-staffed at the time. Gabe is an obnoxious, self-absorbed, arrogant, and uptight dick who doesn't listen to anyone who he feels is "beneath him". He's either in his late 30s or early 40s, but either way he has at least 10 years on me. He's a little on the chubby side, receding hairline, and a neck-beard. All he needs to achieve his final form is a fedora. Back when I worked for him, he gave me a lot of crap for so many little things. From not filling out repair tickets right to completing a repair slightly out of order, he always had something to complain about. But other than that, he seemed fine to me. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have done what I did or gone as far as I did. But then this happened:

I was just doing my work and minding my own business, as one does. I stood up to go refill my water bottle at the water fountain and guess who follows me? If you said Gabe, then congratulations. You get a cookie. Gabe walks up to me while I'm filling up my bottle and starts a conversation.

Gabe: Hey OP, what's goin' on? How are you?

Immediately I knew somebody was wrong. He's never this friendly. But I had no easy way out of this, so I rolled with it.

Me: Hey Gabe. I'm good. How're yo-

Gabe: So I heard that (Head of CSA's name) put your name in for the Director's job.

Me: Yeah! I'm really excited to interview! It's an honor to even be considered.

Gabe just laughs and puts on his normal expression of smug and gassy

Gabe: Listen to me. If you think they're gonna pick you, a lazy new kid who can't even write a fucking repair ticket correctly, over me, a team manager who's had 15 years with this company, then you're out of your goddamn mind.

I was shocked. I couldn’t believe those are actual words that a coworker, much less a coworker with a higher position, said to my face.

Me: What the hell? Why would you say that? I did nothing but good work for you last year and you know it.

Gabe: It was mediocre at best! When I become the IT director, I’m gonna crack the whip. Why anyone would think someone like you is a worthy candidate for one of the highest positions in the company is beyond me. So I’ll make sure my new department heads have better judgement than (Head of CSA’s name)

He walked away smugly and I just stood there, both shocked and honestly quite hurt. The only part he got right was that I was relatively new, being there for two years. But I also realized in that moment that I couldn’t let this kind of person be the Director. But, again, I’m just a kid to them, so what can I do?

Planning The Revenge

That same day, I went down to the building's cafeteria to take my lunch break with my girlfriend (she works in the Marketing Department). I told her about the promotion and what happened with Gabe. She made me feel better by talking me down and that was super nice. But what happened next was even better. A few of my friends from IT walked by to congratulate me as well and they sat down. A couple of them are from Tech Support and the rest are from the other departments. My girlfriend welcomed them to sit down with us and we made it a little party. We talked and then I told them about what happened with Gabe. The ones in Tech Support all groaned and, surprisingly, so did the rest of them. I was intrigued and I asked them to elaborate, and all of them have their own Gabe horror story.

Turns out that his usual condescending remarks aren't the worst of it. They had stories about him ripping into an intern for not getting his coffee order right, one story about him making transphobic remarks about an HR rep (really sweet guy. Makes incredible babka.), one of them has a couple of recordings of sexist and rape-y comments towards the female department heads in IT, and he's even come to work intoxicated on multiple occasions. Although that last part wasn't really news to me, since he reeked of alcohol frequently.

Now at this point, you’re probably asking the same question my girlfriend asked: “Why don’t you tell somebody?” Well I’ll tell ya. Our communication policy is kinda shit in IT. Rather than report a dispute or an issue immediately to HR or the Director, we have to give it to our immediate superior, which in this case would be Gabe for a lot of them. You really think Gabe’s gonna rat himself out to the Director? As much as I love my boss and think she’s going a wonderful job, that’s the one policy that she has that I don’t agree with.

At this point, we had all kinda bonded over our mutual hatred for Gabe. We had all agreed that Gabe would be an absolutely terrible boss and we needed to stop him. We were the Avengers and this was our Endgame (which is funny since Endgame would come out the next day). Just then, my genius girlfriend said something that I couldn't believe I didn't figure out sooner. She said "Y'know, this time next week, you're going to be face to face with the CEO, an HR rep, and your Director for the interview. That's your opening. You can air out all of his dirty laundry right there." The rest of our faces lit up, realizing this too and we were ecstatic. This was our chance and we weren't going to waste it. Gabe is a terrible human being and would be an even worse Director. He had to go. But I'd need proof first. So that's what I got.

Revenge Time

Along with rewriting my resumé and brushing up on my interview skills, I spent the next week being something of an investigative journalist. I asked my previously mentioned coworker to email me those recordings he had of Gabe’s rape-y comments (which by the way were absolutely sickening to listen to. I think the worst one was “I’d love to raw her over the trash can like the dirty whore she is.”), as well as spending time interviewing members of the Tech Support team as well as some of the other department heads. Almost everyone had some form of bad experience with him, ranging from unprofessional to downright abusive behavior. The head of WebDev even said that she was always uncomfortable whenever they were alone in a room together. By the time I was done, I had 3 voice recordings of Gabe, 4 pages of quotes from people around the office, and the stories I had originally heard at lunch that day when we began planning. I really wanted to prove his whole day-drinking thing, but I was afraid that going that far might cost me my job. But what I wanted to do was sneak into his office, open his drawers, and hopefully find empty liquor bottles or something to that effect. But what I had would just have to suffice.

Then the day came. We were in the Endgame now. I showed up to the work the day of interviews in my finest suit, my resumé, and literal pages of evidence to make my case. I walked into the office and saw my competition along with a bunch of other people who I didn’t recognize. Those were the outside hires. I was getting pretty nervous, especially when I saw the interview committee in the conference room through its glass walls. The CEO, my Director, and an HR Rep. I took a few deep breaths, checked when my turn was, and then I sat down to do my work, just waiting to make my move. A few of my coworkers came by my desk to wish me good luck, and that made me feel a lot better about it.

I waited and waited for my turn and then saw Gabe walking up to me from the conference room, so that means his interview must’ve just finished. I pulled out my phone and went to voice memos and began recording, just in case I got anything more out of him, and oh boy you bet I did.

Me: What’s up, Gabe? How was your interview?

Gabe: Great. Obviously. The job is as good as mine. You might as well not even try.

Me: I’m still gonna try my best, man. Who knows? I might even get it.

Gabe: Yeah keep dreaming.

He starts to get up in my face and I can smell his lunch on his breath. Too many onions. He then starts hissing at me.

Gabe: You’re absolute trash, kid. They’re not gonna pick a kid with two years of experience with an undergrad degree over me. I’ve been at this company for far too long and got my undergrad degree and my masters from Princeton! Don’t think for a second that you have the upper hand. You’re nothing to me!

I held my breath while he ranted and then he walked away to talk to another one of my coworkers who had their interview already. Coworkers around me just looked at me both shocked and confused once he walked away. I grabbed my phone, stopped the recording, and played it back. That was it. That was the final piece. I waited for a couple more interviews to finish, until they finally called me in. I grabbed my bag and my phone and walked into the conference room. As I walked, I could feel the eyes of some coworkers on me. They knew my plan, and I think they were counting on me to pull this off. Once inside, we all shook hands and exchanged formalities before sitting down and letting the interview begin. Not all of it is relative to the story, so let me just skip to the end.

CEO: Given the amount of internships you've done and how much time you've put into the company, you may have a good chance. However, we've just interviewed people with almost triple your experience. How do you stand out from the rest.

Me: Well, if I become the new Director, I already have some ideas for policies I'd like to put into place.

Director: Oh really? Would you care to give us an example?

Me: Don't get me wrong. I believe that you have done an amazing job as Director of this department, but there are some things that I think can be improved upon. For instance, our policy when it comes to HR.

HR Rep: Could you elaborate on that, please?

Me: Certainly. In the IT department, when we have any disputes or grievances to settle, we need to report them to our direct superior. Not the Director, but to the lower department heads. My goal is to streamline communication, so workers can report issues directly to the Director or go straight to HR.

Director: Alright, but can you tell us why the current policy is an issue?

I started smiling. This was it. This was my opening.

Me: Funny you should ask. Recently, I heard stories from a bunch of my coworkers about our head of Tech Support, Gabe. He's been very rude to his staff and to others on multiple occasions. In fact, I think "unprofessional" is a bit of an understatement from the stories I've been hearing.

Right then, I reached into my bag and pulled out the long list of stories and quotes I had gathered from the past week and handed them to the CEO.

Me: I care about my coworkers, so I did some digging. I really feel like this is something that you need to see.

I watched as the search committee read the quotes and stories. I watch their expressions turn to shock and disgust, which I totally get. I felt the same way when I heard all of this.

HR Rep: This is a... conflict of interest. From what I know, Gabe is also your competition for this position. How do we know that these stories aren't fabricated so that you could get an advantage? Because offenses like these could result in immediate termination. I hope you have a way to prove these very serious accusations.

Me: I had a feeling you'd say that. You are free to interview any of the people I quoted, but I can just save you some time and show you this.

I pulled out my phone and opened up the email that my coworker had sent me and all four of us listened to this neck-beard's disgusting and upsetting quotes. But I wasn't done there. I also pulled up the most recent one. The conversation between me and him. My Director just looked down at her desk and then they looked at each other. I was the one to break the silence.

Me: I'm sorry you had to hear all of this.

CEO: Could you please email those recordings to me? I would like to address this immediately.

Me: Of course. You are free to keep those papers too.

I forwarded the email to him along with my recording.

Director: Thank you for this information, OP. We'll let you know our decision when the time comes.

Me: Of course. Thank you for your time.

I shook everyone's hand again and that's when the HR Rep spoke up.

HR Rep: Can you please ask Gabe to come back? I would like to address this immediately as well.

I'm ecstatic at this point

Me: I would be happy to.

I leave the room and notice my friends in Tech Support just staring at me. My girlfriend was also sitting at my desk, since we planned on going out for lunch after my interview. I didn't want to give anything away, so I kept a straight face and walked past them and towards Gabe's office. I walked in and sighed.

Me: The interview committee wants to see you again.

Gabe just looked up from his computer and just gave me a cocky smirk, as if to say "I told you so." He got up and pushed past me towards the door. I followed behind him towards the conference room and we parted ways when he went in and I walked towards my desk. I wanted to see exactly what happened. I watched what unfolded through the glass walls. I saw Gabe's face turn white and his expression turn from smug to terrified. He turned his head to me and I had this shit-eating grin on my face. I just waved and then left my office with my girlfriend to have a nice lunch.

The Aftermath

I was feeling pretty good about the whole day. I got my revenge, did fairly well in a job interview, and had amazing chicken parm for lunch that day. I felt so good, that I decided to take the rest of the day off. I went to the zoo, saw a really cute koala bear. The next day, I came to work dressed down since interviews were over, and then patiently waited for the committee to make their decision. When I walked into the lobby of the building, my two friends from Tech Support ran over and trapped me in a bear hug.

Me: Well this is new. What's this for?

Friend 1: You did it!

Me: I GOT THE JOB?!

Friend 1: No! We wouldn't know even if you did. We're talking about Gabe!

Me: I stopped him from getting the job?

Friend 2: Oh you did a lot more than that. But you'll just have to see for yourself.

Both of them drag me to the elevator to go up to the IT floor. When we get there, they dragged me through the main office and over towards Gabe's. When we got in, all I found was an empty room with a desk in the middle of it. My jaw dropped. Apparently I collected so much evidence for Gabe's misbehavior, not only did I eliminate him from gunning for the Director's job, but he was also fired from the company and potentially blacklisted since everything I submitted for evidence against him was put on his permanent file. I'm not sure if he was blacklisted or not since I'm not entirely sure how that works, but he's definitely gone for good. I asked them about the details of what happened after I left. They told me that Gabe was so mad (probably at me), that his face was bright red. After he left the conference room, he spent the rest of the day packing up and drinking in his office, so I guess my day-drinker theory held up. He left in shame, and we won't see him again.

I was so excited. Gabe was gone and it felt like the office was a brighter place. People were so excited that a few people outside the Tech Support department brought in a bunch of desserts, from cheesecake to brownies. They were delicious, but I think what them taste better was that I did something to cause this rush of joy. I think the best part of this whole thing is that only a couple of people know that I had something to do with this. The rest of them? Totally clueless. I'm not the protector that IT wants, but I'm the protector that IT needs. Now enough humble-bragging. It's starting to make me feel like a douche.

In hindsight, I don't know what would've been more satisfying. Doing what I did or getting the job fair and square and firing Gabe. But if there's one thing I learned in life, you will do things that you are proud of that you will enjoy and you will do things that you're not so proud of but will really enjoy. This doesn't apply. I am both very proud of this and I really REALLY enjoyed this. This might come back later to bite me in ass, but for right now I think I'll enjoy it. But now the Director has to pick a new head of Tech Support. Either that or she'll give that job up to the next Director. It's been almost a few days since the interviews and we're still waiting on the results. Even if I don't end up getting the job, I still gained something from this. I have a better bond with my coworkers and got rid of the asshole in my office. If enough people like this story, I'll update you on if I got the job or not.

Moral of the story: Don't shoot an unfamiliar gun. You don't know how strong the kickback's gonna be.

TL;DR: I was considered for a job promotion but was demeaned by a superior who was also up for the job. I found out bad things about him and presented them during my interview and got him fired and possibly blacklisted from getting another job.

(source) story by (/u/KyuubiBlade)

#prorevenge #by /u/KyuubiBlade #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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