Bond Girl (Erin Duffy, 2012) takes you behind the scenes of Wall Street, an arena dominated by men but this book shows what it’s like to be a young woman trying to carve out a career. Alex Garrett had always wanted to work in finance having taken inspiration from her father. After graduating from college she manages to secure an entry level job on Wall Street. She is one of only two female members of the 40 person team and she soon finds that being the new kid on the block isn’t all that glamorous.
She is basically used as the office gofer for the first few weeks at the firm, alongside doing her own job. As well as working 60 hours a week she manages to find time to do the things that all 22 years old do, party, fall in love and enjoy the perks of her hard work. Unfortunately the person that she falls in love with is a colleague and the book deals with the many complications that come with this. The book also deals with the financial crisis of 2008 which saw countless people on Wall Street lose their job.
SPOILER ALERT: One aspect of life in your early twenties that people rarely warn you about is that your life will not turn out exactly as you had planned. This is certainly true for Alex, after months of hard work and after seeing her friends lose their jobs she realised that finance is not the area that she wants to spend her life working in. I think this is an incredibly important lesson for young people to learn, it is okay for your plans to not work out and for you to choose a different path in life.
I would recommend this book to anyone in their late teens or early twenties for the simple reason that it shows you that nothing is permanent. That job you have that is taking over your life, the man that is making you cry and the overwhelming feelings that you have, will all pass.
-Michelle O’Brien
Junior Girl
Girl Museum Inc.