Imposter Syndrome

I LOVED this book. Julia Lerner starts out as an abandoned little girl in an institution in Russia. She is clever and smart but has nothing. Twelve years later, she’s working for Russia’s largest intelligence agency but also the COO of Tangerine – a tech company that feels a lot like Facebook. As she leaks information back to Russia, she questions what she is doing, while simultaneously feeling powerless. Meanwhile, Alice Lu is a first generation Chinese American who just can’t get a break. She took a demotion to work alongside her boyfriend (knowing he’d leave and start his own company) only to get dumped. She’s 35, single, slogging away as a lower echelon employee… and living with her cousin. One day she notices a large data transfer and tracks it back to Julia. This is a cat and mouse hunt between Julia and Alice. It’s sharply written, it’s smart (the way it tackles sexism at work and in a marriage is excellent). I couldn’t put it down! Order it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.