REPUTATION

SYNOPSIS

As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career--including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora. A former teacher, she finds the glare of the spotlight unnerving, particularly when it leads to countless insults, threats, and trolling as she tries to work in the public eye. As a woman, she knows her reputation is worth its weight in gold, but as a politician, she discovers it only takes one slip-up to destroy it completely.

Fourteen-year-old Flora is learning the same hard lessons at school as she encounters heartless bullying. When another teenager takes her own life, Emma lobbies for a new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online abuse. Now, Emma and Flora find their personal lives uncomfortably intersected--but then the unthinkable happens: A man is found dead in Emma’s home, a man she had every reason to be afraid of and to want gone. Fighting to protect her reputation, and determined to protect her family at all costs, Emma is pushed to the limits as the worst happens and her life is torn apart.

Title: Reputation

Authro: Sarah Vaughan

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Publication date: March 3, 2022

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐💫

There comes a time in the story when the main character says “We will get through this. This is a mistake which you’ll learn from and then we’ll move on”, and that could be my inner self talking to me about the experience of reading this novel. It was quite the struggle! I have not read Anatomy Of A Scandal (maybe I’ll watch the Netflix show), but I read Little Disasters and, although it wasn’t for me, I decided to give the author another chance. Now I’ve come to the conclusion her books are definitely not for me. It’s not a question of the quality of the writing, which is excellent, but the delivery.

Reputation tells the story of Emma, a MP who’s drawing increased attention from the press and public after a paper feature and her try to push for some legislation to protect women from revenge porn. A silly mistake from her daughter Flora will unleash a situation which will end up with Emma on trial for murder.

The author doesn’t let you forget about the driving theme in the story, as the word reputation is repeated countless times. It seemed to be everyone’s main concern. I’m facing prison? Who cares as long as my reputation is intact!

During the first half of the story we witness the vitriol, hate and misogyny directed towards Emma just because she’s a woman in the spotlight. Although it was pretty accurate and disheartening, it was also quite repetitive so I didn’t feel the need to pick up my book to keep on reading as it looked like the story wasn’t moving forward. The second half is a typical courtroom drama so I enjoyed it more, although it also felt quite too long.

Emma is a pretty unreliable narrator so it’s not easy to determine if she’s telling the truth or not about what happened the night the guy died, and it won’t be after a verdict is reached that the whole truth will emerge with a couple of last minute twists (one more predictable than the other) that I’m still not sure how convincing they were.

Although sadly it wasn’t for me, don’t let my opinion put you off reading it as it was very well written and it has tons of glowing reviews.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.