The Take

This is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in ages. It reads like a fast-paced thriller (I gobbled it up on a Saturday), but it’s more than that. Similar to books like Yellowface and Such a Fun Age, it’s also a meditation on power balances, race, and class (and in this case, aging). Ingrid Parker is a (white) veteran film producer, with piles of money and a successful career. But she can already see her shelf life fading as she begins (at age 53) to feel irrelevant and her (white male) counterparts no longer seem to give her the time of day. When she learns of a cutting-edge medical procedure that can take ten years off of her life, she hires Maggie Wang. Maggie is a smart Asian American writer: young, broke, and in need of mentorship (and income). Ingrid offers Maggie $3 million and mentorship in exchange for ten experimental medical sessions. The only thing? As Ingrid ages in reverse, Maggie may age 10 years doing this. As the women’s relationship intensifies, they use each other in complicated ways. I couldn’t put it down. I cringed at times, I gasped at others . . . but ultimately, it made me think. It would be a great book club read as there’s so much to talk about!