"How Emily Got Promoted" by Sarah Web Irish Short Story Week

"How Emily Got Promoted" by Sarah Webb (2004, 25 pages-from Irish Girls are Back in Town)

Day Eight

Mass Market Best Seller Day

Sarah Webb

Resources for the Week

Sarah Webb (Dublin) writes mostly about women in their late teens up to their early thirties.    She has written several books in her Amy Bloom:  Teen Agony Queen series with titles like Bridesmaid's Blitz,   Boy Trouble, and When the Boys Are Away.   Amy is 13, lives with her mother who used to write for a soap opera and her mother's boyfriend who is a nurse.   Her dad is trader and lives with his much younger girl friend.   Her boyfriend is 14.   She has two younger siblings.    Amy likes her pink ipod, her BFF, and assorted other cultural artifacts that give her identity and status.     The action of the books are all tied up with lots of drama, texting, gossip, and drama of the highest sort.   Lots of moral outrage at such offenses as walking sexy in front of someone's boyfriend combined with endless discussion of the character flaws of everyone she knows along with an extreme case of glandular overload make up the world of Amy Green.    Webb's books have all been on the Irish and American best seller lists.

"How Emily Got Promoted" centers on seemingly mid-twenty something Emily.   I guess she is Amy's big sister.      Like Amy, her world centers on her relationships to other women in the same age bracket.   It is a world where you are judged by the expense of the gadgets you carry, the car your drive and your daddy's job.   Emily is not yet married or settled into a permanent relationship with a man.   Her parents and friends are starting to ask her why not and of course she finds this annoying.   Emily is a free lance writer selling articles mostly to very trending high end type fashion magazines.   The action of  the plot is all about how Emily gets her self promoted from  free lance writer to a very coveted by many in her peer group position as a staff writer(envy is a big thing in this world).

   A lot of the fun of the story is seeing how some of the girls she knew in school have developed into "real grownups" and others have not.   The writing style is straightforward and very easy to follow.   "How Emily Got Promoted" is a good story, I enjoyed it.  

Sarah Webb has a very attractive web page, the dominant color is pink, that gives a lot of information about her books.

"Sarah, we are so lucky, somehow your
room is right next to mine"-Carmilla

Mel  u