In Iman Hariri-Kia’s debut novel A Hundred Other Girls, Noora has a newly minted degree from NYU and a blog cleverly named Noora York City, which has quite the sizable following. Noora is crashing on her sister Leila’s couch and their Iranian-born parents are now living in Dubai.
Noora wants to be a writer, but for the time being, she’s tutoring spoiled rich kids on the upper east side. However, due to some connections, Noora scores in interview with Vinyl magazine as the assistant to it’s formidable editor-in-chief. Loretta James.
Noora is thrilled with this opportunity. Not only will she be working in media and perhaps get a chance to write, she will also be working for the best magazine ever! Vinyl is a magazine that covers fashion, pop culture, social issues, and politics, kind of a mash up of Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The Nation. And Vinyl has been a touchstone for Noora since she was kid. Vinyl taught her the important things in life, like how to insert a tampon, and she also slept with a copy of Vinyl under her pillow.
Though Noora notices a few red flags while being interviewed by Loretta, but brushes them aside and happily accepts the position as Loretta’s assistant. She thinks working for Vinyl is her ticket to making her dreams of being a writer true. However, there is one caveat. Loretta tells Noora she cannot write for anything but her blog. Hmm? How is Noora going to become a writer if not given a chance to write beyond Noora York City? Noora swallows her pride and takes the job. She figures having work experience at Vinyl is a feather in her cap, and it’s an opportunity so many other people would kill for.
It isn’t long before Noora realizes things at Vinyl aren’t so wonderful. Loretta is at turns demanding and insecure, and doesn’t allow Noora to have a life outside of work. She’s always at Loretta’s beck and call. And to make matters worse, there is a turf war between print and digital at Vinyl. Loretta and Noora work on the print side, and the vinyl side is headed by the fearless Jade Aki who is only 27 and who used to be Loretta’s assistant.
However, there does seem to be some positive aspects to working at Vinyl. Noora befriends Vinyl’s beauty director Saffron who is non-binary and goes by the pronouns they/them. Saffron is a cheerleader for Noora and they show her some of the ins and outs of Vinyl like the beauty closet, which turns out to be more than a place where you can experiment with the latest Fenty lipstick.
Noora also strikes up a flirtation with a hot IT guy named Cal who is also involved with a start up that has to do something with cannabis. Will this flirtation lead to a lovely romance or some down and dirty nookie in the beauty closet?
Noora somehow ends up attending a meeting on the digital side and she is besotted. Everyone seems so cool and welcoming. And Jade Aki just seems so dynamic, the perfect role model to Noora. However, later on, at a Vinyl event outside of the office, some of Jade’s tweets come to light, and they are not pretty. There are calls for Jade to be cancelled and there is also talk that these aren’t really Jade’s tweets. No matter what, it is a scandal for Jade and Vinyl. And Loretta thinks she is victorious in the battle between print and digital.
Through some odd turn of events, Noora ends up writing pieces for the digital side under the pseudonym “C. Bates”. These pieces gain traction, go viral, and become buzzed about around the Vinyl office. Just who is this C. Bates? Noora is thrilled that her writing is getting attention but at the same time she lives in fear that she will be discovered and fired from working at Vinyl (and possibly never working in media again).
And when A Hundred Other Girls reaches it’s sad, yet not surprising denouement, Noora is put in the hot seat and faces a very captivating decision when it comes to her future at Vinyl. However, is it worth Noora selling her soul?
I truly loved A Hundred Other Girls. It was fast-paced and a page turner, and it truly revealed how cutthroat media can really be especially in the age of the internet and the demise of print publications. There’s a lot of juicy gossip, name dropping, and desperation to be seen as relevant as younger generations succeed in the workplace. Noora is a fascinating study on young people trying to find their footing in craziness of work, love, relationships, family, being a first generation American, and a card-carrying member of Gen Z.
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