Please Join Us by Catherine McKenzie explores the darker potentials of playing the game of networking in a man’s world. With an interesting premise and synopsis, I was excited to read this new release. This is not my typical read (or watch for that matter), but I figured I’d branch out. Unfortunately, I was not the biggest fan. Please keep reading to get my view on this book.
Summary
At thirty-nine, Nicole Mueller’s life is on the rocks. Her once brilliant law career is falling apart. She and her husband, Dan, are soon to be forced out of the apartment they love. After a warning from her firm’s senior partners, she receives an invitation from an exclusive women’s networking group, Panthera Leo. Membership is anonymous, but every member is a successful professional. It sounds like the perfect solution to help Nicole revive her career. So, despite Dan’s concerns that the group might be a cult, Nicole signs up for their retreat in Colorado.
Once there, she meets the other women who will make up her Pride. A CEO, an actress, a finance whiz, a congresswoman: Nicole can’t believe her luck. The founders of Panthera Leo are equally as impressive. They explain the group’s core philosophy: they’re a girl’s club in a boy’s club world.
Nicole is all in. And when she gets home, she soon sees dividends. Her new network quickly provides her with clients that help her relaunch her career, and a great new apartment too. The favors she has to provide in return seem benign. But then she’s called to the congresswoman’s apartment late at night where she’s pressed into helping her cover up a crime. And suddenly, Dan’s concerns that something more sinister is at play seem all too relevant. Can Nicole extricate herself from the group before it’s too late? Or will joining Panthera Leo be the biggest mistake of her life?
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Plot
Please Join Us certainly had a mystery thriller element to it. As a reader, I felt the immediacy of the dangers and complications that the main character confronted. I was also unsure of how the mounting problems would be resolved (if at all) by the end of the book. In the end, I thought too many of the plot twists were… not great. This leads me to my second set of points on the plot.
I think this idea of a too-good-to-be-true networking cult was very interesting and what drew me in. What could have been a fascinating exploration into the power of culty groups turned into something less engaging. It read as a negative depiction of driven women in the workplace seeking to be successful, portraying them as conniving and underhanded to the nth degree.
Characters
I do not think any of the characters felt very real to me. Motivations did not seem very consistent and this is aside from the twists and turns that the book took. The relationships between the main character and all others, even her husband, were not very convincing. I think what we got in Please Join Us was this trope of what strong career-driven women should act like (i.e. confident, take no prisoners, etc.) but add in some similarly stereotypical ideas of women’s inner anxieties (i.e. weight, diet, appearance, etc.).
Overall
While I wanted to try out Please Join Us‘s corporate/professional cult mystery and like it, it didn’t actually pan out that way. McKenzie did a good job in the beginning and middle of the book setting up the induction into the organization and some of the perks, but it didn’t really grow from there. The characters were not developed enough for my tastes, either. The final twists and revelations at the end felt a bit much. The resolution seemed to be a result of too much manipulation and (successfully) being one step ahead of someone else. This felt too far-fetched in terms of the ability for these actions to actually be carried out.
Find Please Join Us on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org & The Book Depository