Whisper Network

The time for ignoring the whispers is over. Enough is enough. The women are closing ranks to speak up about the sexual harassment in their workplace. Part thriller and part murder mystery, Baker expertly delves into what it is like to be a woman in the corporate world.

Sloane, Ardie, and Grace are Truviv attorneys while Rosalita is a cleaning woman. The current CEO has died and it is rumored that Ames Garrett will fill the vacancy. But there have been whispers that Garrett has harassed and assaulted women in the workplace. People have covered for him for years. So the women finally speak up, and someone dies. Did they have anything to do with it? Interspersed throughout the book are portions of police interviews and depositions. Also show more interwoven are two lesser plotlines that will eventually play heavily in the outcome.

A real page turner. Suspenseful. Emotional. Portions of the book will definitely take you out of your comfort zone. Realistic characters with all their flaws, characters you can relate to. I was cheering on these women.

Thank you to Flatiron Books via NetGalley for the advance reading copy. All opinions expressed are entirely my own. show less

We knew we shouldn’t be ashamed. We weren’t ashamed. We were grown-ass women—which is obviously why we paraded to the restrooms with tampons secretly stuffed into our cardigan sleeves as though we were spies delivering encrypted information.
....We pretended that all of this was a myth. That we had neither fallopian tubes, nor menstrual cycles, nor breasts, nor moods, nor children. And then we took it as a compliment when one of the men in the office told us we had balls. So, tell us again how this wasn’t a man’s world.”
― Chandler Baker, Whisper Network

My review:

This book sinks its teeth into you and does not take them out until your finished.

Whisper Network was a sensational read. It had been on my radar but not strongly. show more Now I do wish I'd read it sooner.

I agree with everything GR fans have said about how timely this book is in the age of the Me Too movement. But I also have to give props for how WELL she nails EVERYTHING. Everything about being a woman.

I am currently not working but I used to work in the corporate world. I do not mind admitting I LOATHED it. Everything about it. The "corporate culture", the office politics, the brown nosing. I am not made for that world and it never came easily to me.

I however was not sexually harassed at work. I actually had wonderful bosses for much of my career. I know people that have been though.

The atmosphere of SAMENESS and the repetitive aspect of office work are nailed down perfectly even without the harassment element. I love the quotes, the social commentary. I can relate to hating Sundays and the upcoming dread of the work week. And the misery.

But the power imbalance...and how effectively men utilize it...is just done flawlessly were. Ames could be the carbon copy of the Rich and spoiled Boss, the wealthy man who does not give a shit about anybody and is to world weary to even attempt to hide it.

Of the women, they all had good and bad aspects. I liked Ardie very much and related to her greatly. I was a bit touched by Grace and her obvious innocence. I could not stand Cathryn.

This is not for everybody. It is long and wordy and rather gloomy...but it is also so visceral in that any woman who has suffered the corporate world and looked around and thought "is this all there is"? will no doubt love this. It is a long read. I read it in one night.

I do not really give five's all that much but this is a well deserved five. Yet I get why some would not like i t.

I also like that the book showed the good and bad in most of its characters. All men are not portrayed as evil . Which is good. Although I love the movement I do sometimes wonder if it has gone to far. I remember many years ago when the North Carolina Duke University students were accused of gang rape and I was outraged and calling for their immediate arrest. Then we learned it was not true. It shook me up and I don't mind saying I have been a bit more cautious since. I know the majority of accusations are true but not all. I do hold the belief that not all men are evil and some are wrongly accused. We cannot forget that aspect.

But women are discriminated against in so many ways. I remember in one of my jobs I would make up excuses not to go tho the holiday parties because I was the only single person in that office....I have seen competent women who are also spectacular workers not get promotions....and I have seen women are ARE harassed and I have seen it destroy their lives. Whisper Network shows readers the good, the bad and the VERY ugly about the ins and outs of corporations.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is so compelling and shows more than almost any book I have read, what it is to be a woman....and sometimes it isn't pretty. Whisper Network may anger you, or sadden you or empower you but it will also make you feel KNOWN and any book that can do that is an easy five stars. show less

4.5 stars.

Amazing story, made even more compelling by listening to the audio. I felt completely wrapped in to these women's lives and the mystery as to what happened - both for the witness statements and the history storyline. I loved how the women recounted the many ways they had to be more but also detailed the small slights we're just supposed to keep ignoring. The simmering rage in the story was so well done. This idea of the excel spreadsheet - passed around and anonymously updated- I loved the moral dilemma and the differing POV. What a great story! It made me mad, made me rage with and against characters in the book - but most of all, it held me completely wrapped up in it. I had to know how it ended. I'm so glad I gave this one show more a try - I loved it!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. show less

Whisper Network isn’t really like any other book I’ve read. It’s equal parts female solidarity, work life, revenge thriller and convoluted relationships. In this #MeToo world, this book is timely and another way of reflecting on what is seen to be the norm for treating women in many workplaces. It’s a compulsive read that I really wanted to get back to reading each night with its twists and turns. I simply couldn’t predict what would happen next…

The story is about four women who work at the large Dallas company Truviv. Sloane, Grace and Ardie are all lawyers and Rosalita is one of the cleaners on their floor. From the outset, we can see that there are fractures in this workplace. Grace has been given a ramshackle room to show more breastfeed in and Sloane has a past with their boss, Ames. Ardie is always up to defend and protect (but in a quieter, less obvious fashion than Sloane) and Rosalita keeps her head down to provide the best for her son. Then, the office is surprised by the death of their CEO. Rumours have it that Ames is the main contender, but the women of Truviv are not keen about that. Ames has always been surrounded by rumours and whispers, so maybe it is time that the volume is taken up a notch or two. Add in a new colleague who is being taken under Ames’ wing (willingly or otherwise) and a spreadsheet of ‘bad men’ making the rounds of inboxes and these women are going to fight back. The stakes and consequences are going to be extraordinarily high…

I really liked how the story is told in two ways. There is the unfolding of how this happened interspersed with interview transcripts, online comments and other statements. As the reader learns about what is unfolding, there is that extra sense of foreboding reading the statements to give that extra thrill of things getting much worse before they get better. It gives the story an extra edge and yet another reason to carry on reading! The mix of the women between their work lives and home lives also adds a nice juxtaposition – while they may have it together at work, it doesn’t always continue outside the doors of Truviv. Each has a loss of control – Sloane’s daughter is being bullied, Ardie’s divorce is uncomfortable, Rosalita needs money for her son to attend a private school and Emily isn’t really feeling anything about motherhood. To try and take control back, they do a variety of things like throwing their weight around in a lawyerly fashion which as explosive results.

I can’t say that I’d be best friends with any of the women in this book. They are all strong characters in their own ways, loud or quietly going about their business. They aren’t particularly likeable but they are admirable for taking those whispers and making them heard. Sloane has the subtlety of a bull in a china shop topped with the guilt of a workplace affair, but you would want her at the helm of any crusade. Ardie is the thinker with hidden depths and Emily seemed to be there because the others were. Rosalita was to me the most fascinating because she was looking at the Truviv world from a different aspect to the others.

Chandler Baker makes many astute comments about what is considered to be normal in a workplace versus what is acceptable. This is the first of #MeToo fiction, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Thank you to Hachette for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com show less

** spoiler alert ** "Our motto had long been: Keep it between us.....And so, when one of us spoke up, it was never just for her. It was for us". This was a tale of three women who formed a bond because of their common struggles but most importantly because of their secrets. These secrets are also the secrets of a multitude of women who have formed a network that came to be known as the Whisper Network.

It all started with a secret Excel spreadsheet that starts circulating naming bad men. When the three women's boss dies and they realize who is next in line to take over, Sloane takes matters into her own hands and makes a decision that changes all of their lives forever.

What I loved the most about this book was that it highlights and show more celebrates the complexities of female friendships and being a woman in general. This book gives an exterior voice to the internal female voice. It illustrates the power that women have as a collective force when they come together and support each other as allies. The author transforms the narrative from one of pettiness and jealousy to one of strength and power when women are bold and tell their truth. The author illuminates that women have more in common than they think and points out that our voices matter and have the power to transform the world around us.

Although I wasn't completely sold on the characters from the beginning, when the story came to it's climax, I was immediately rooting for these women. I was drawn to the character of Rosalita from her first appearance and figured out the author's subtle clues about her true story. When all the details came out I was rocked to my core. As each woman recounted her story, I couldn't help but get emotional. Bravo the author for tackling such deep societal issues in a beautifully written way. Thanks to Flatiron Books for the ARC and chance to provide an honest review. show less

Whisper Network is a novel that would not exist without the #MeToo movement as it is inspired by the Shitty Media Men spreadsheet, a controversial effort by women in media to have each other’s back by informing each other who the harassers and abusers are. As often happens, the woman who created the list was vilified with more outrage and passion than the men on the list.

The main characters in Whisper Network are four in-house lawyers at a sportswear company in Dallas all of whom work under Ames, a man who is likely to be the next CEO, something that makes them uneasy.

The four women are Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Katherine. Katherine is a new hire whose left a bad experience behind her. Sloane has had an affair with Ames and resents show more how he uses their past to diminish her work. Grace is a new mother with a clear case of post-partum depression struggling to juggle work and the new baby. Ardie is an old hand, unhappily divorced, and a good friend with a good heart. Through her we also meet Rosalinda, one of the cleaning staff she befriends. When tragedy happens at work, these women are at the center of it and the spreadsheet of BAD lawyers is a criticial plot point.

I enjoyed Whisper Network quite a bit. The chapters begin with an introductory paragraph or two that capture the lived experience of many women. The introductions are often biting and humorous. There is a snappy style to Chandler Baker’s writing that keeps the story moving. There are interstitial documents of interviews and depositions that foreshadow the crisis, but seriously, nothing prepared me for the end. It was a complete surprise and I loved it.

I received a copy of Whisper Network from the publisher through NetGalley

Whisper Network at Flatiron Books | Macmillan
Chandler Baker author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/9781250319470/ show less

Whisper Network is a complicated novel that left me with complicated feelings. It is simultaneously a ‘ripping good yarn’ that kept me up until 4 a.m. and a deeply nuanced look into female friendships and empowerment in the age of #MeToo. It is fantastic and flawed. It is a sign of how far women have come and how far we have yet to go, even within our own minds and hearts.

There is so much good about this book, especially the home truths it tells about being a woman, how women have looked out for each other through the centuries, and what we’ve had to do to survive and thrive in a male-dominated world.

And yet the writing troubled me. The problem I had with Whisper Network is best illustrated by the unnamed narrator at the beginning show more of each chapter. The author explained in her note that the many stories of sexual harassment she heard from other women became the collective “‘we’ narrator, a means to talk about the working woman experience”.

“The working woman experience”... as if only working women experience sexual harassment. And there it is: in this book that was supposed to strike a blow for women around the world, the author only wrote from the viewpoint of a young, blond lawyer from Austin, Texas. She heaps disdain on the only stay-at-home mom character. There are zero African-American characters. The two Latinix characters are a divorced, socially awkward, frumpy single mother and a stereotypical uneducated cleaning lady, also a single mother. The two white main characters are rich, pretty, successful, happily married, and Southern.

I also found reading the book rather choppy, as it jumped between depositions, police interviews, the unnamed narrator, and the actual story. It didn't flow between these seamlessly.

Even with these problems, I absolutely recommend Whisper Network. It was good, very good, and the author managed to do what she set out to do despite herself. show less