The Stand-in by Lily Chu taught me something about sexual harassment and I am thankful for that!

Gracie is biracial and is working for a large company. She is miserable becuase she is getting harassed by her boss. She also has a mother in memory care who has Alzheimer’s.. She wants to be able to move her into one that has private rooms and is much closer to her apartment. She knows that she is losing her and wants to get her the quiet of her own room. Of course, it costs much more and she feels guilt about waiting for someone to die so a room will come available.

She is a doppelganger for a famous Chinese movie star and gets offered to be a stand-in for her for social activities for two months because the movie star really needs a rest. Tempting offer but she is inclined to reject it, her movie would never approve,

Then, the boss wants invites to humor him and she cannot to do it of course. The sleazy boss fires her! She know that she cannot find as good paying job anywhere in town. So, now she is considering be the double for the money.

I want more about her mother's Alzheimer's but I am grateful for the part in the book about sexual harassment. I was among a group of women who were a _target for sexual harassment by a man at work long ago. I learned that sexual the predators go after women who care about people and are not trying to attention to themselves. I was going through a divorce and as soon as he heard that from other people, ugh long story but he was a supreme creep. Made jokes about divorced women while staring at me in group of people and when alone in vacant lunchroom, he copped a feel. I learned from the book the people who are sexual predators zone in the vulnerable. I was vulnerable.

Now retired from work, I am not having that problem thank goodness. Do not let anyone at work let them know that you are gong through a divorce, your closest friends will tell it and until the predator hears. He or she knows that you ae vulnerable and just want to become a part of the walls at work.

This is a great book! ( )

Romance which includes but lightly traverses issues of mental health, multi-racial identity and self-worth, the last being the one bearing the most weight. Fun and well paced with some satisfactory glam wardrobe moments. ( )

Loved it. Well written and cute story. I figured it out part way through but written so well that I kept reading. Where is the planner app? I need that planner in my life! ( )

Gracie is trying to get her mother, who has Alzheimer's, into a better nursing home, but the one she wants for her is more expensive and has a huge waiting list. Gracie's job is a nightmare - she's being subtly harassed by her boss but doesn't feel she can do anything about it because 1) no evidence and 2) she really needs the money. Then she receives a nerve-wracking offer she can't really refuse: get paid handsomely to act as the double of famous Chinese actress Wei Fangli. This puts Gracie in frequent contact with Fangli's best friend, the gorgeous and equally famous actor Sam Yao, who disapproves of this plan but will do whatever is necessary to help Fangli.

The scenes with Fangli and Gracie were wonderful - I loved reading about those two becoming friends. Unfortunately, the romance between Gracie and Sam wasn't as good. In the midst of everything else, it didn't have enough room to breathe. Sam was pretty emotionally walled off - he took on the bulk of teaching Gracie to be Fangli, and one of the most important lessons he had to teach was that everyone watched literally everything he and Fangli did when they were out in public, and every word, gesture, and action had to take that into account.

Gracie learning to be Fangli was great, if anxiety-inducing. That said, the author went a bit easy on her, so situations that should have blown up in her face and ruined the whole plan ended up being much less disastrous than I expected. The story's internal logic occasionally had some issues, as well. For example, Gracie was acting as Fangli's double so that Fangli could rest while still projecting "Fangli is fine" to the world, but at one point Gracie used laryngitis as an excuse to avoid having to talk and there were no real consequences.

The cross-cultural mental health aspects were interesting. Also, I loved that each chapter started with an illustration of Gracie's latest stab at her productivity app (which, by the end of the book, I really wished I could try). I wish the romance storyline had been stronger, although I appreciated that this was a bit of a romance unicorn, with off-page sex (on-page was limited to kissing and hand-holding).

While I had some issues with this book, I still enjoyed it a lot and plan to try more of the author's works.

Extras:

Reading group guide, interview with the author, and blank templates of some of Gracie's various To Do list ideas.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

As I don't use audible, I didn't hear this in its first incarnation as an audiobook so I was pleased to find a physical copy at my local library (I'd also spotted it at _target, but as we know book acquisition and reading are two different hobbies and for the former I'm really evaluating whether or not I want to keep a copy on my shelf for rereads or lending).

This is a cute debut, very breezy for the most part (especially considering Gracie starts with a boss that sexually harasses her before she's fired- something that made me wonder if we were going to go into serious topic mode like a [a:Sonali Dev|7025918|Sonali Dev|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1397764249p2/7025918.jpg] romance). The end is a little too neat (though it does explain how this situation could work) and reminds me of [b:The Joy Luck Club|7763|The Joy Luck Club|Amy Tan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1304978653l/7763._SY75_.jpg|1955658]'s revelation that June has twin older sisters left behind in China.

I appreciated the specificity of Gracie's biracial identity and Toronto locations- feels like the author writing what she's familiar with. ( )