Opening Belle

Starred review from November 15, 2015
Corporate sexism and the mortgage crisis are a laugh a minute...in this delightful comic novel, at least. Belle Cassidy is a managing director at an investment banking firm called Feagin Dixon-- she makes $700,000 a year plus an end-of-year bonus for 2007 that comes in just under $3 million. Sure, the money is great, but Belle is also a member of the Glass Ceiling Club--a group of women who have organized secretly to talk about the raging sexism of their work environment. This entails everything from ass-grabbing to frat-style office parties to the exclusion of women from top-level decision-making, including the risk management committee--a real-life fact which, according to former investment banker Sherry (Walls Within Walls, 2010), is at least partly responsible for the subprime mortgage disaster of 2008. In chapters with titles like "Herd on the Street," "Gentlemen Prefer Bonds," and "Dais of the Dicks," she evokes this luxurious yet disgusting world in juicy detail, from a mandatory softball game at a 15-acre estate in "Hedgistan, the area between New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut, where most hedge fund managers live," to the weekly chapel session at "a preschool so elite it had no name on the door, no website, no listing in the phone book," where "the billionaires sit along the front sides of the room" avoiding the "annoying millionaire parents who are pining for a playdate." To get her kids into this school, Belle has had to call in a favor from her ex-fiance, Henry Thomas Wilkins III, who soon turns up in her working life as a key player at one of her major clients. Good thing her husband, Bruce, a hunky, big-spending, nonworking dad, isn't the jealous type. While she's making you laugh, Sherry does an excellent job of explaining what exactly happened in the financial crisis and gives a rare picture of the wide range of ways women in the workplace deal with chauvinism, some as heroes, some as victims, and some as opportunists. So much fun, and educational too.

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January 1, 2016

In Wall Street insider Sherry's first adult novel (after the middle-school title Walls Within Walls), Belle is a 36-year-old managing director on Wall Street who seemingly has it all. She's a working mom who brings home a six-figure salary, not including bonuses; her husband "works" from home and her two children attend a prestigious private school. She is at the top of her game when she learns of the Glass Ceiling Club, a group of female coworkers who are tired of conducting business in a sexist, frat-boy environment. At first, Belle is reluctant to get involved, having made it this far by putting up with the men who pat her bottom and make money off her ideas. Meanwhile, her marriage is tested by a husband who appears content to lie around at home while she brings in the money. Temptation comes in the form of the successful ex-fiance who wants her back in his life. Set in 2007, the novel touches on the mortgage crisis, wonderfully explaining the ways of the world of finance for readers while still making them laugh. VERDICT This workplace novel that takes a fun look at Wall Street and the Park Avenue set is filled with humor and heart.--Catherine Coyne, Mansfield P.L., MA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2016
Sherry wittingly uses her 12 years' experience on Wall Street to depict the 2008 plummeting market and the struggle that is work-life balance. Belle McElroy is the vision of a Manhattan working mother who has it all. She's bringing home millions working as a managing director on Wall Street, juggling motherly duties with a husband who stays home and takes care of the kids. Belle's life seems to be working out just the way she planned, but when she takes a closer look around her, she discovers some rather large flaws. Her work atmosphere is more sexist than an episode of Mad Men, her husband spends a lot of money on indulgences and short-lived hobbies, her biggest account at work becomes an emotional entanglement with the man who broke her heart after college, and her overall desires of what she wants in life are changing. Sherry's first novel for adults is already being developed for a film adaptation. This funny and fast-paced romp is sure to entertain.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)