Review: Shopgirls

Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Considering that I didn't like the previous book Mary Jane, I was a little hesitant to give this author another go. But I'm glad I did.

This book is also set in the time Period that Mary Jane was, the '80s, so I knew that the reminiscing I would be doing would most likely be fun...and this time it was.

There really is no 'story' in this book. It is a slice of life of a girl, nineteen-year-old Zippy, who is thrilled to be at her job in petite dresses at a classy department store. She only has three outfits that she scrounged from a thrift store, but she wears them well. She has an unusual roommate and an unknown father. At least for most of the book, he is unknown. But I'll let you find out who he is.

This is a story about inner growth, accepting yourself for who and what you are, and not letting your guilt dictate how you live your life.

This was a sweet read, accurate for the era, and more or less a better read for a young adult/teen who is into historical fiction. It's weird for me to type "historical fiction" when I lived through that era as a young adult myself and remember it well!

*ARC Supplied by the publisher HarperCollins/Mariner Books, the author, and NetGalley.




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DESCRIPTION: "From the author of the “delightful” (New York Times Book Review) Mary Jane, a new novel of found family, growing up, and the best and worst of the 1980s, revolving around San Francisco’s most exclusive department store, I. Magnin.

Nineteen-year-old Zippy can hardly believe she’s the newest and youngest salesgirl at I. Magnin, “San Francisco’s Finest Department Store.” Every week, she rotates her three spruced-up Salvation Army outfits and Vaseline-shined pumps; still, she’s thrilled to walk those pumps through the employee entrance five days a week as she saves to buy something new. For a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store with her mother and her mother’s madcap boyfriend, Howard; a girl who wanted to go to college but had no help in figuring out how; I. Magnin represents a real chance for a better and more elegant life. Or, at the very least, a more interesting one.

Zippy may not be in school, but she’s about to get an education that will stick with her for decades. Her fellow salesgirls (lifetime professionals) run the gamut from mean and indifferent to caring and helpful. The cosmetics ladies on the first floor share both samples and advice (“only date a man with a Rolex”); and her new roommate, Raquel, an ambitious lawyer, tells Zippy she can lose ten pounds easy if she joins Raquel in eating only every other day. Just when Zippy thinks she’s getting a handle on how to be an adult woman in 1985, two surprises threaten both her sense of self and her coveted position at I. Magnin.

Set in the Day-Glo colors of 1980s San Francisco, Shopgirls is an intoxicating novel of self-discovery, outrageous fashion, and family both biological and found."