Meet Sophia, a 20-something young girl, no Ivy League graduate, comfortably living in the fancy home of her parents, trying to boost her career. Her pushy Taiwanese mother really hopes that along the way she will maybe find some nice career-oriented partner and she will give up her professional dreams for turning into a dedicated staying-at-home wife. But plans are not supposed to happen anyway, not in this story.
Sophia ends up working in top-notch company, ending up giving her time, life and health too for achieving business plans and communicating to strange CEOs, some of the many bizarre successful creatures of the Silicon Valley. References to Pixar or Tesla are pretty obvious, and the writer herself has her own bunch of experience in this field.
And the story goes on, with Sophia building her own path, finding a nice doctor boyfriend and climbing to the top, one crazy experience at a time.
The story has many useful thoughts about relationships in the era of women with full succcessful careers, with good examples of how to deal at work with crazy difficult people, meditation on life and startups. The new working relationships and environment are definitely changing not only the economy, but are also a challenge from the point of view of the human resources and relations perspective. Through Sophia's interactions the reader not necessarily familiar with this - sometimes unhealthy - lifestyle can get a good glimpse of the Silicon Valley gold digging fever.
With a very good intriguing start, the story goes on slow-paced, turning around Sophia and her fast-forward life. The character in itself is likeable, crazy as a bat sometimes, with a colourful way of answering to challenges and an interior life of her own too, but when it comes to complexity, I would expect more details and a different way of reflecting the challenging facts she is exposed too. More than once, I had the feeling that she is over-exposed to way too many things - friendship challenges, dramatic health issues, family craziness - and still she remains completely plain, going on with her life as it is no tomorrow. I would expect Sophia to be as complex as her circumstances were.
Otherwise, Sophia of the Silicon Valley is a pleasant weekend or holidays read, either or not you are part of this corporate world. Sometimes it is good to know well in advance if your envy for a certain kind of glamour is reasonable or not.
Rating: 3 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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