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Book Review: ‘Hooked’ by Sutton Foster

Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life by Sutton Foster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Read more book reviews like this on my blog shelit.com

Hooked by Sutton Foster dives deep into the Broadway and TV star’s poignant moments punctuated by her love for crafting and how it helped her stay sane.

Known for her head-turning Broadway starring roles and her turn in sexy bookish TV series Younger where she plays a 40-something passing as a millennial, Sutton Foster has written a memoir about her rise in entertainment and how crocheting helped along the way. Growing up in the South then the Midwest, she moved often with her family that included her older brother Hunter, also a Broadway veteran; their agoraphobic mother, and their father who seemed to be under the thumb of his wife’s undiagnosed mental health condition. Though her mother doesn’t want to face society, Sutton and her brother are placed in youth theater to exercise their energy. They fall in love with the theater, and we go on the adventure of seeing Sutton evolve into a professional actor at seventeen. She goes on her first tour in her senior year of high school for a musical, where she grows homesick amid battling catty girls who despise her energy. After dropping out of Carnegie Mellon, she finds herself lost trying to figure out her next step, so she journals and crochets. She eventually returns to her theater work where her risk of being the understudy of the Broadway run of Thoroughly Modern Millie leads to her becoming the lead and winning her first Tony Award.

The crafting is threaded throughout her story. She describes some of her hardest moments and how crafting became therapy. A chunk of her latter story surrounds her fertility hardships. While deciding on adoption, she is honest about the anxiety of becoming her mother and not becoming a mother in case the birth mother decides to keep the baby. All those swirling emotions motivates her to sew a blanket for her potential daughter. She stops at one point when she hears a friend fails to secure the baby she intended to adopt; crocheting the blanket when her adoption is up in the air is too much to bear.

Another underlying theme of the memoir is Sutton’s relationship with her mother. She learns crafting from her mother, recalling a stitched Strawberry Shortcake bookmark she received.

That was during the peak of my obsession with the red-haired cartoon character. I had coloring books, figurines, and even a garbage pail, all store-bought. I find it so moving that my mother took the time to meticulously stitch that sweet girl in her poufy pink bonnet and white frilly apron into existence. She added my first and last name in red thread and a row of hearts in pink and green, then finished the piece with a calico border. I don’t recall my mother saying “I love you” often. But I do know that she poured her love for me into that bookmark.

The palpable pain jumps through the author’s voice and on the pages of the book of how she had a difficult relationship with her mother and how that impacted the entire family dynamic and followed her onstage. She talks about how her mother only saw her once on Broadway while her high school drama teacher flew to see her perform on several occasions. Her mother didn’t acknowledge her brother’s eventual wife or talk to her brother for years because the couple had lived together before marriage “in sin.” After her mother’s death, Sutton soon starts her own family in fear she will become the mother she had. She also witnesses her father coming out of his unintended shell and living the life he always wanted.

Overall, the crafty memoir hits the emotional nerve mostly with the author’s relationship with the stage and the family she loves. The crocheting adventures and recipes seem to be a bit detached from the story. This is really a story of following your dreams. Sutton even has a few run-ins with her idol, Broadway and TV actress Patti LuPone, and conducts an interview featured in the book. So while you may want to head to your local craft store and learn to crochet to reduce anxiety like the author, you’ll connect more with her inspirational backstory.

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what's lit

How ‘Younger’ Painted an Insanely Glamorous, Somewhat Diverse Publishing World

TV Land

Spoiler alert: The post below reveals storylines from the seventh season of Younger.

Literary industry cable series Younger wrapped up a successful seven seasons this summer. Though racial and ethnic diversity took a backseat to the storylines, the show still put diversity and inclusion in the forefront of an industry struggling to fulfill its promises.

Created by Sex and the City and Beverly Hills 90210 visionary Darren Star, Younger follows a 40-something White woman named Liza Miller, played by Broadway veteran Sutton Foster, who knocks her age down to 26 to get her foot back into the door of the publishing industry after raising her daughter and divorcing her husband. Based on Pamela Redmond Satran’s 2005 novel of the same name, the show started on TV Land in 2015 and moved to Paramount+ this year.

The show featured diversity markers, mainly with age and gender, in a fictional publishing scene made to look obscenely glamorous. Recent data from Lee & Low Books finds that the literary industry as a whole is 74% cisgender female, but when it comes to executive leadership positions, the number is down to 60%. On Younger, the main female characters are striving to retain and maintain leadership throughout the series to elevate works by women.

Amplifying younger voices

“Younger” Ep. 603 (Airs 6/26/19)

After lying about her age, Liza earns the coveted job of an editorial assistant at traditional publishing powerhouse Empirical. To make matters more complicated, Liza is paired up with actual 26-year-old Kelsey Peters, played by Hilary Duff, whose ambition oozes to make books more appealing to millennials.

This eventually leads to the two creating an imprint called Millennial, not only multiplying books by Gen Y authors but also taking a focus on female authors in the age group. As they are underestimated by Empirical and the industry at large, Liza and Kelsey build a behemoth of an imprint that in its final season begins suffering from hits by Empirical’s old White male investors.

This motivated the pair to create Inkubator, a spoken word event series featuring promising millennial authors ready to have their work published.

Women supporting women

“Younger” Ep. 501 (Airs 6/5/18)

Helping Liza and Kelsey on their literary adventures and misadventures are editor Diana Trout, known for her brusqueness and over-the-top statement necklaces, who is played by Miriam Shor who did not return for the final season; Lauren Heller, the carefree bisexual social media enthusiast played by Molly Bernard who replaces Diana’s presence in the Empirical office as an assistant; and Maggie Amato, the lesbian artist played by legend Debi Mazar who owns the fabulous loft they all seem to live in at one point in the series.

They become this unbreakable group, along with one man—Liza’s millennial ex, Josh, played by Nico Tortorella, a tattoo artist entrepreneur with a heart of gold. Liza goes back and forth with Josh and Empirical’s editor in chief, Charles Brooks, the well-meaning head honcho who is age-appropriate for Liza played by Peter Hermann. Having sexual relations with the boss while editing his ex-wife’s novel is one of the situations that comes up with the ill-begotten romance between Liza and Charles. This novel leaped offscreen onto our bookshelves as Marriage Vacation reviewed by she lit.

With all the drama mostly involving Liza’s back-and-forth relationships, the girl group feeds on their mistakes with men and women. The girlboss-in-making Kelsey seems to be pick the men who want to compete with her success in one way or another, with one ill-fated relationship leading to a death by scaffolding (very NYC) and an evil twin (very soapy). As Liza and Kelsey lean on Maggie, Lauren, and Diana, they also support female writers with some of the most familiar scenes of the series occurring in the closed office session with a new writer who is revolutionizing the newer subgenres, e.g. sick lit, teen environmentalist memoir, and boomer erotica.

Shelving racial diversity

“Younger” Ep. 612 (Airs 9/04/19)

The show’s cast is all-White, which is normal on TV shows to have an entire cast of the same racial makeup, but it resonates with the real-life publishing industry, unfortunately. The show failed to right this diversity and inclusion oversight with its choice of guest stars in earlier seasons.

Charles Michael Davis, who played Kelsey’s frenemy lover Zane Anders for three seasons, added much-needed melanin as a regular cast member, but he and his character had to depart in the final season due to his commitment to NCIS: New Orleans. As his character left the script, the show featured two writer characters who contributed to Millennial’s next phase.

Dylan Park, played by Yeena Sung, appeared in “The F Word,” the episode that introduces Inkubator. She is a future author with a novel that Kelsey and Liza try to get published through Empirical since Millennial by this time has been absorbed into the publisher thanks to the investors’ wishes. But editor in chief Charles is not interested, so Kelsey and Liza have the novel published by a release of a chapter every week in The Cut. Though an Asian American millennial female author is brought into the storyline, she only makes one appearance, failing to become a substantive character while her book really becomes the character.

The final season then brings in another author of color, Azealia King, played by De’Adre Aziza, a Black woman who has won the National Book Award. She’s so impressive that Charles wants to publish her next book. Her character appears in the last two episodes, almost as if the writer’s room realized they didn’t have enough female authors of color featured throughout the series.

Out of an industry that is 74% cisgender female, publishing is 76% White, according to the Lee and Low Books’ report. Numbers for professionals of color are broken down by 7% Asian descent, 6% Latino/Latina, 5% African descent, and less than 1% Native American and Middle Eastern.

Despite the diversity successes and failures of imagining the cutthroat Manhattan book publishing scene into an addictive summer TV series, the show still gives feel-good vibes and is expertly written with relatable moments. Live or relive the half-hour series on Paramount+ and Hulu.

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what's lit

‘Younger’ Season Finale TV Review: Forever

"Younger" Ep. 612 (Airs 9/04/19)

The sixth season finale starts with Kelsey (Hilary Duff) cementing her resignation at Millennial with first telling Liza (Sutton Foster), who tries to intercept the letter to Charles, then taking the letter back to hand to Charles (Peter Hermann). After being the publisher’s CEO, Kelsey admits she couldn’t return to being an editor at a place where she was a boss.

Kelsey meets Zane (Charles Michael Davis) at a park and reveals to him she’s in the market to start her own publishing company. Since Zane had started Mercury with Charles, she wants his advice. But Mercury has been absorbed by Millennial, so Zane says it’s not a good idea for Kelsey to get into the book startup business. Zane actually tells Kelsey that she shouldn’t given up her job after the cleavage social media mishap.

While Kelsey’s resignation drama is going on, the crew is preparing for Diana (Miriam Shor)’s upcoming nuptial. And Diana and Liza are unsure about their first book pitch at Millennial without Kelsey.

Kelsey pitches her business, KLP Print, to Quinn (Laura Benanti), the horrid ex-investor for Millennial. Later, Quinn drops the bomb of she and Kelsey collaborating to Charles and Liza at a restaurant. Liza meets Kelsey at another restaurant that night, and Kelsey says she trusts Quinn enough since she made Kelsey CEO.

At Diana’s wedding, the sentiment sets in. Charles begs Kelsey to come back to her job since she’s “family.” Kelsey lets her walls down with Zane, and they hold hands in the pew. Then at the reception, Charles proposes to Liza! But, of course, a ringaround dance with too many guests to count separates them. No answer until next season.

The entire season showed an evolution with the company not only falling into Kelsey’s hands but also it falling out. Once she had the power, it was always threatened by investors and authors alike skeptical about her leadership skills because she was “younger.” And she’s a woman. Though the show revolves around Liza lying about her age, it flipped to focus on Kelsey and how being a millennial can be a handicap, too. Showing how women have to be careful about every step and constantly prove themselves in the boardroom was brillinatly executed at this fictional publisher trying to stay afloat amid financial hardship.

The season finale hit a high with 1.2 million viewers on TV Land, making the series the top original ad-supported cable sitcom for women in the age demographics between 18-49 and 25-54, according to the network. The seventh season premiere date has yet to be announced. The first five seasons can be found on Hulu with subscription.

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what's lit

‘Younger’ TV Review: It’s All About The Money, Honey

"Younger" Ep. 609 (Airs 8/14/19)

The publishing imprint Millennial is on its last legs, and Liza (Sutton Foster), the newly revealed 40-something who had been lying about being millennial in the industry, and her boss Kelsey (Hilary Duff), the millennial boss, are trying to find ways to keep the imprint alive.

Liza is glamorously walking in New York City when she notices the Infinitely 21 ad campaign she modeled for in last week’s episode on behalf of Millennial. But the rooftop photoshoot had been altered. The campaign is everywhere of Liza getting a smooch on the cheek by her ex Josh (Nico Tortorella), a natural scene from the bar they met at with company staff.

While Liza freaks out about the ad, Kelsey and Charles (Peter Hermann) head to Chicago to meet with investors. They nail the pitch session and celebrate later that night where Liza surprises them at the hotel lounge. During the meeting, Kelsey had told the investors how essential social media is to the new Millennial. And this foreshadows what comes next when Kelsey drunkenly flashes way too much cleavage for a photo, yelling “It’s All About The Money, Honey,” meant for her on-and-off boo/colleague Zane (Charles Michael Davis) but instead becomes an Instagram story that unfortunately trends all night.

The social media slip-up is brought up at the morning meeting with the investors. Kelsey argues it was bad judgment, but Charles presents Kelsey’s social media presence as helpful to the publisher’s brand. But the investors are not convinced and want Kelsey out as CEO. Kelsey agrees to step aside to let Charles be in charge again.

In stereotypical millennial fashion, Kelsey is ousted from her CEO post because she over-shared on social media after a night of over-drinking. She spent the entire season trying to prove herself as a CEO of the troubled Millennial imprint that was a part of the failing Empirical publishing house owned by Charles’ family, and now she forfeits her hard work to save it.

And Charles has been sneaky all season, though he’s portrayed as that older man heartthrob innocently in love with Liza. But he may have been worming his way back to the publisher’s reins with saying he doesn’t want to take charge. He started the rival Mercury publisher secretly with Zane, then he went along with a merger. His actions seem more sinister now that he’s back in charge, especially when he set up the investor meeting.

Kelsey’s selfie debacle can also show Zane’s intentions since he could be upset about the turn of events or happy that his Mercury partner Charles is in charge. The last few episodes of the season look like they will show everyone’s true colors when it comes to keeping Millennial alive.

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‘Younger’ TV Review: Millennial’s Next Top Model

"Younger" Ep. 609 (Airs 8/14/19)

Younger‘s sixth season has finally revealed the secret that’s been the premise of the show since the first episode: Liza is 42, and not 28.

The age difference explodes on a volcanic level in last week’s episode at a literary event where Liza (Sutton Foster)’s imprint, Millennial, becomes the talk of the town. This week, Millennial loses a partnership with retailer Infinite 21 because of Liza’s lie. But Liza proclaims in a monologue how everyone in the publishing industry is altering their appearances to look younger and “millennial” is an attitude and not an age.

While playing cards with her current boyfriend and colleague Charles (Peter Hermann) and his daughters at a dessert shop, Liza gets a call from Infinite 21. The company wants to “unfreeze” the partnership and sell Millennial books in its stores.

Millennial’s boss Kelsey (Hilary Duff) phones her ex and current colleague, Zane (Charles Michael Davis). She hasn’t heard from him since Liza’s lie became public. She shows up that night at Zane’s apartment and brings a meal kit as a peace offering. They end up making out.

On the set of the Infinite 21 ad campaign starring Liza, Millennial’s main investor shows up. Quinn (Laura Benanti), the California senatorial candidate who’s also a Millennial author, tells Liza to join her on an interview for a NY1 report on corporate ageism.

While Kelsey is dealing with Zane, Liza is at a bar with the Infinite 21 brand manager when her ex, Josh (Nico Tortorella), walks in. She explains to the brand manager how Josh was the first person to know she was lying about her age. This sparks the constant reminder of Liza’s romantic relationship with Josh, which ended seasons ago, but keeps getting a revival this season.

At the interview, Liza tells the reporter behind the scenes that Quinn knew about Liza’s true age before investing in Millennial. The reporter brings it up during the interview. Quinn shakes her head no about knowing Liza’s true age. She evens adds Liza may have been confused about the off-the-record question.

Quinn later calls Kelsey to a bar over Liza’s mishap of telling the truth. She says Kelsey should’ve fired Liza before the lie destroyed Millennial’s reputation in the industry.

The next morning, Kelsey is talking to Charles about Quinn’s demands. Before they can resolve the problem, they learn authors’ advances and employees’ direct deposits are bouncing. Quinn had pulled her investment.

Age, which defines the show in the title, has wreaked havoc on Liza’s personal life at a slow pace with her friends and colleagues finding out about her lie. But now everyone knows she lied about her age to enter the publishing industry after raising her daughter and getting a divorce, so this issue is now affecting her employer. Even the adult daughter and divorce part hasn’t been revealed on a larger scale, so that has to become an issue thread at least for next season.

Also on a bookish note, a sneak preview of the latest book-related film Where’d You Go, Bernadette? highlighted a commercial break. The movie, starring Cate Blanchett, opens in theaters this Friday.

 

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‘Younger’ TV Review: The Debu-taunt

"Younger" Ep. 608 (Airs 8/07/19)

Finally everyone on Younger knows Liza’s real age—and of course, there’s major backlash.

For the past six seasons, book editor Liza (Sutton Foster) has been lying that she’s in her mid-20s. She did so to get a job in publishing and eventually started working for an imprint called Millennial. But she’s actually in her early 40s. One by one, characters learned Liza’s secret over the years, but some like her former boss and current colleague Diana (Miriam Shor) still was in the dark.

The episode starts with Liza running into Pauline (Jennifer Westfeldt), the ex-wife of Liza’s boyfriend/another former boss and current colleague Charles (Peter Hermann), at Charles’ daughter’s elementary school while dropping off a book report. Liza had been the editor for Pauline’s best-selling novel, Marriage Vacation, but at the time she was hiding her affair with Charles. Now, Pauline and Charles are getting a divorce, and Charles just asked Liza to move into his townhouse.

During a work meeting, Millennial imprint heads, including Liza, Diana, and Charles, discuss which author they should choose for the Publishers Weekly debutante ball. The ball welcomes debut authors into literary society with their publishing mentors. Pauline’s name comes up as Millennial’s most successful author though the imprint lost her sophomore novel due to Charles divorcing her to be with Liza.

To cement the invitation, Liza meets with Pauline for lunch. Fresh from their awkward run-in at the school, Pauline says Liza was the best editor. She even adds she wished she had kept her second project with Millennial. Liza then asks Pauline to accompany her to the ball, and Pauline says yes.

After the lunch, Pauline returns to her daughter’s school, where she runs into the talkative secretary. The secretary overhears Pauline finishing up a call with Liza and commends Pauline for getting along with her ex’s girlfriend. Pauline makes a crack Charles running away with a millennial. The secretary laughs. She reveals that Liza is 42 since Liza had to leave a form of ID at the school.

“She’s been lying shamelessly about who she is for years,” Pauline announces on stage at the ball with Liza standing behind her.

Diana defends Liza in front of the audience as Liza admits she really is in her 40s, not in her 20s. In confusion, Diana stumbles outside in the middle of Times Square and suffers a panic attack. The group takes Diana to the hospital, where Charles gets a call from his lawyer that Pauline’s lawyer wants to revisit the custody battle over their two daughters.

The next day, Liza walks into the office and learns Diana is drafting Liza’s resignation letter. They have a heart-to-heart, and Liza stays in her job.

More secrets surrounding Liza’s age should come up in the next few weeks. Though fans felt this was the saddest outcome of Liza’s lie of a career, at least everyone stayed alive unlike when Kelsey (Hilary Duff)’s unlikeable fiance died seasons ago in that crane collapse where he confronted Liza about her age. And what happened to Liza’s college-age daughter?  There are still other factors that can add weight to the longtime lie.

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what's lit

‘Younger’ TV Review: Merger, She Wrote

"Younger" Ep. 509 (Airs 8/07/18)

Younger, preparing for a seventh season on TV Land, has its characters dealing with competition in the publishing industry.

Liza (Sutton Foster) is the main character who had been lying about her age to get into the industry, but most of the people close to her in and out of the office has known she’s over 40 and is not a millennial. She’s dating Charles (Peter Hermann), who still owns her imprint, Millennial, though he started a new venture, Mercury. Liza is telling her friend/roommate Maggie (Debi Mazar) about the dilemma, and Maggie suggests the imprints should have a merger.

At the office, Liza and her colleagues, Millennial CEO Kelsey (Hilary Duff) and editor Diana (Miriam Shor), are listening to a proposal for a book on microdosing. As they listen about how ingesting mushrooms in small amounts can reset your body, the author invites Liza to a medically supervised retreat.

With the promise of a book deal, the Millennial team moves onto finding someone to read the audiobook for their baby boomer erotica auditions for The Seasoned Slut. The auditions are not going well until Diana plays around with the words. Then she nabs the job, which puts a spotlight on a newer element of the publishing industry with audiobooks and finding the right voices for those books.

Later, Liza tells Charles to merge the two competing imprints. Charles doesn’t believe Mercury can merge with Millennial because Mercury hasn’t made money yet. Charles reminds Liza that she’s been invited to join Mercury to squash the competition. Liza says she has a retreat in the morning; Charles is going to the same microdosing retreat. Liza gets up to head home without sharing a cab ride with Charles.

At the retreat, Charles sees Liza at the reception desk and asks to share rooms. Liza says no after learning they’re still competing for the book deal. Josh (Nico Tortorella), Liza’s ex who’s still in the circle, soon appears, with the goal of meeting venture capitalists to expand his tattoo business.

During the audiobook recording sessions back in New York City, Kelsey and her competitive ex-lover/Mercury editor Zane (Charles Michael Davis) connect over believing the formerly accused serial killer who has a book deal with Mercury really was a killer as she puts too much emotion in her recording. Kelsey and Zane talk about the competition between Millennial and Mercury.

Meanwhile at the retreat, Liza is tripping. She keeps confusing Charles and Josh with even believing she’s making out with Josh when she’s with Charles. The trip continues until she sees a “nurse,” who tells her to dance it out. In her imagination, Liza is dancing between Charles and Josh on a Broadway stage when in actuality she’s dancing with a plant and taking selfies with it.

After the retreat, Charles visits the Millennial office with Kelsey, Diana, and Liza. Charles says he has a proposal. Kelsey asks if he’s closing Mercury, but Charles says he doesn’t want to fight with family and that he wants Millennial to buy into Mercury. He proposes one dollar and reminds them his grandfather had mortgaged everything to start the business. Charles says he would like to return as an editor, not to threaten Kelsey’s CEO status, and work alongside Liza, where their romantic relationship would not interfere with business.

Last year, TV Land said Younger would be ending its run on the channel and move to Paramount Network, but the show stayed on TV Land this season and now will see the seventh one next year. This season feels like storylines were being tied up together with Liza and Charles finally finding a way to be with each other while working in the industry. But with the show preparing for another run probably next summer, it would be interesting to see how the merger will pan out and affect the romantic and working relationship between Liza and Charles. They act like it’s an ideal situation, but it probably won’t be… again.

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what's lit

‘Younger’ TV Review: Stiff Competition

"Younger" Ep. 605 (Airs 7/17/19)

Younger revolves around Liza (Sutton Foster), a 40-something woman working in the publishing industry who had been lying about being in her late 20s for the past five seasons. The show, in its final season, now focuses on the Millennial imprint she helped create with Kelsey (Hilary Duff), an actual millennial, and how they’re trying to build the imprint as it becomes the top one for a longtime publisher.

The episode starts with Liza and Charles (Peter Hermann) going to a literati party. Liza even spots Colson Whitehead (not really there), but they later bump into Meg Wolitzer (really there), the author of The Female Persuasion and The Wife. It turns out both Liza and Charles set up interviews with her at a later date.

They learn Mercury is highlighted as a rising star in a New York Magazine profile. But the next day Kelsey notices she gets an awkward headshot crop at the bottom of the profile in the “low-brow” section.

“Charles is hot and I’m not!” Kelsey shrieks.

A Chip and Joanna Gaines copycat couple flipping homes in New York come into the Millennial office to pitch their couple relationship/do-it-yourself book, The Third Leg. Later that night, Charles surprises Liza with dinner—at a restaurant with the Gaines-like couple.

Of course, the couple had signed with Mercury, as they rave about Charles’ raving of his romantic relationship with Liza. They connected with that piece.

After dinner, Charles tells Liza that Mercury is doing well, but it’s all “smoking mirrors,” since they have zero sales so far.

The youngest conductor for the Brooklyn Philharmonic is the next target for Millennial as Liza pitches the musical prodigy as a potential memoirist. They soon attend a show where Liza talks to the conductor before the start to let her know she brought her team to discuss the memoir. As Liza leaves the backstage room, she bumps into Charles. She knows he’s there to sign the memoir, too, though she’s taken aback since she’d been in contact with the conductor for months. Charles sits down in his orchestra seat while Liza goes back to her nosebleed-ish seat where Kelsey and their colleague Diana (Miriam Shor) saw the couple talking near the stage.

Liza breaks the news that Charles is there for the same reason they are. Diana starts reading the conductor’s bio in the program and sees Charles’ illustrious family had funded her scholarship to Julliard. Game over.

Kelsey and Diana find themselves playing an ax game with beers. Still stressed out about losing current and potential authors, Kelsey brings up that she’s worried Liza may be helping Charles snatch the deals. Diana says the relationship between Liza and Charles isn’t compatible for the business. They soon leave, but Diana pees in the street right when a police car is driving by. So she gets caught for public urination while Kelsey, in angry mode, is raging against the officer with an ax. They both are booked in jail.

Meanwhile at the show, Charles is speaking with the conductor when Liza approaches them. The conductor says she’s still making a decision though Charles’ family has been very generous with their contributions to her success over the years. Liza stresses that Millennial is helmed by history-making women like the conductor.

Kelsey and Diana are bailed out of jail by Diana’s plumber boyfriend. They had contacted Liza, but she comes too late. Outside the jail, Kelsey asks Liza if she’s feeding information to Charles.

“Are you questioning my loyalty?” Liza asks. She then goes on a rant about how she wants everyone to be a winner.

“Stop being such a Pollyanna!” Kelsey yells. “There has to be losers.”

Charles later drops by Liza’s place that she shares with Maggie (Debi Mazar) and while her ex Josh (Nico Tortorella) is visiting with his baby Gemma. While Liza bonds with Gemma, Charles takes it as her bonding with Josh instead. Liza stops Charles outside where he tells her the good news: the conductor will sign with Millennial. Then Charles says he helped Millennial get the deal. And Liza says that’s the problem: her success can’t depend on Charles.

While the episode emphasized the downturn Millennial is taking mostly due to Mercury coming on the market, it looks like it’ll segue back to the whole Charles and Josh rivalry over Liza.

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what's lit

‘Younger’ TV Review: An Inside Glob

"Younger" Ep. 604 (Airs 7/10/19)

The publishing industry TV show that centers on a 40-something woman lying about her age to get a job has evolved into focusing on the imprint and her friend who runs it.

Liza (Sutton Foster) shares at the beginning of the episode with her friend Maggie (Debi Mazar) that her boyfriend Charles (Peter Hermann) may be funding a secret company, a competitor against Millennial, the imprint she works at. That secret company could be Mercury, an upstart by former Millennial associate Zane (Charles Michael Davis), that took a big book deal from Millennial.

One of the highlights of this show is the book titles it comes up. In this episode, it’s The Seasoned Slut by a longtime romance author, who’s been with the original Empirical that has now become Millennial. The author is concerned that the established Empirical became the youth-centric Millennial, when it doesn’t fit with her age and readership demographic.

Kelsey (Hilary Duff), the new CEO of Millennial and a former flame of Zane, decides to hunt down Mercury headquarters. Her GPS leads her to a crowded co-working space. Once she spots Zane, she accuses him of sleeping with Audrey, his new client, who was originally meeting with Millennial.

Liza discusses The Seasoned Slut Metrocycle marketing campaign with the author, who’s not buying the campaign. She says she built her career at Empirical when Kelsey was an assistant. She also adds that her readership doesn’t ride bikes. Her contract with Millennial is hanging on a thread.

At dinner, Charles arrives at Maggie’s apartment where Maggie’s new lover (Nicole Ari Parker! Not a lot of women of color guest stars), Kelsey, and Liza are sitting at a table full of food. Kelsey asks Charles if she heard about Mercury. Charles dodges the question.

“Younger” Ep. 604 (Airs 7/10/19)

Liza approaches Charles about being the investor of Mercury. She said she knows what a liar looks like because of her lying about being 26 when she’s 40 for the past five seasons. Charles admits he’s behind Mercury since it’s his turn to build his own company since Empirical belonged to his father. Liza argues Charles can’t be on the board of Millennial while creating a competitor. So Charles asks Liza to keep the secret. And she does.

The next day, Kelsey is chasing the romance author at the restaurant to convince the author to not sign with Mercury. Liza tries to intercept. Kelsey tells the author that Zane is a former employer with a personal vendetta against Millennial. But the author says she doesn’t know Zane; she’s there to meet Charles. Cue Charles and Zane walking up to the table. (A lot of pivotal moments this season are happening at fancy restaurant tables).

Kelsey has a WTF moment, accusing Charles of funding Mercury. She yells about the back-stabbing and blames them for her newly diagnosed alopecia (yasss for awareness).

Onlookers’ smartphones capture Kelsey’s meltdown. The video makes the rounds on the digital literary circuit that same afternoon. Liza notifies Kelsey that three other authors have just jumped ship from Millennial to Mercury to have the “gray hair in the room,” code for older white man boss. Charles, that boss, had resigned from the board an hour earlier.

A fun note is Josh (Nico Tortorella) reading the author’s erotica to his newborn to quiet her. This episode shows how when publishers change, some authors might not see the change helping them succeed, such as the bike campaign for an older adult erotica book.

The stress of being the CEO of a flailing company is getting to Kelsey, who now has severe hair loss. Her leadership is questioned in different ways each week, but the chain of events has hit the fan and is affecting her body. Next episode should show the fallout over the competing publishers and bring up another aspect of female bosshood.

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‘Younger’ TV Review: The Unusual Suspect

"Younger" Ep. 603 (Airs 6/26/19)

The overarching theme of the season is Kelsey (Hilary Duff) taking over the publishing house as a millennial woman and picking up the pieces of the financially strapped company.

The episode starts with Liza (Sutton Foster) and Charles (Peter Hermann) acting in a true crime fantasy at an art museum according to the story on the popular Exonerated podcast.

From last week’s episode, investor Quinn (Laura Benanti) has been experiencing best-seller list bliss for the past three weeks to Kelsey’s dismay after the Lean In-like book, Claw, failed to reach audiences during a pre-sale experiment. Quinn notifies Kelsey about the book trending on Twitter and her plans to be interviewed for The Cut. She then requests Kelsey to interview her.

“How does the book everyone hated made it debut at No. 10 on the best-seller list and continues to rise?” Kelsey poses the question to Liza and Diana (Miriam Shor) after Quinn leaves her office. An smh moment.

They go into a meeting with Audrey Colbert (Willa Fitzgerald), the alleged murderess in the Exonerated podcast. Diana skips the meeting out of fear. “Do you think I did it?” Audrey asks an anxious Kelsey and Liza. She emphasizes she needs a publisher who trusts her and doesn’t think she committed the murders since she’s now an international supervillain. The book can clear her name. After the awkward meeting, Kelsey and Liza learn later that they weren’t the only ones being pitched Audrey’s book, but so was half the major publishers.

Audrey’s agent, the nosy Redmond (Michael Urie), later tells Kelsey that Claw has suspicious sales with bulk purchases and Chinese bots inserting the title all over social media. He lets them know that’s the real gossip on the street.

Kelsey and Liza approach Quinn at the fancy Ardmore Club, disbeliving she’s being blamed for phony sales. When they tell her they have evidence from their peers, Quinn admits she faked the best-selling novel for her senatorial campaign since that shiny New York Times best-selling sticker will be on every cover of her book. Kelsey says this will ruin the business while Quinn argues the book will pump millions into the company. Quinn then threatens Kelsey about showing up at The Cut event for the book.

“No one will work with us if we throw an author under the bus,” Liza says.

When Liza gets home, she finds papers on the dining room table listing prices for the home. She asks Charles why he’s moving money around, and he says he just needs to with his unemployment. Like in the previous two episodes, it seems like Charles and Kelsey’s sometimes beau Zane (Charles Michael Davis) are in cahoots as if they’ll create their own rival publishing house.

At The Cut event, everything seems to be going smoothly until the Q&A part of the fireside chat. One woman tells Kelsey and Quinn about the dagger next to Quinn’s best-selling status, and the dagger means suspicious bulk sales. Quinn laughingly says it’s due to colleges and universities requesting the book to use for syllabi, then she moves the spotlight to Kelsey.

Kelsey maintains her composure. She admits to the bulk sales, but they’re also due to forthcoming events as Quinn plans to throw her hat in the California Senate race. It sparks applause, when Quinn and Kelsey faux hug where Quinn threatens Kelsey about what she’s done since that type of announcement is reserved on a stage of higher magnitude. Kelsey just tells her to enjoy the applause.

The next day, Kelsey, Liza, and Diana learn Mercury nabbed the Audrey Colbert deal. They never heard of this competitor until Redmond lets them know Zane is the publisher of Mercury and the deal stands at $800,000. Their men were in cahoots building their own company! Then the episode ends with Liza’s eyes popping open because she knows Charles had something to do with it. Her boyfriend whom she got hooked onto Exonerated.

Yes, Kelsey’s and Liza’s love lives got more complicated with the clandestine creation of competitor Mercury by their men. An extra episode highlight is Nicole Ari Parker guest starring as a post-childbirth vagina support group leader who Maggie (Debi Mazar) meets after being traumatized by Josh’s (Nico Tortorella) green card wife having a baby in their Uber.

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‘Younger’ TV Review: Flush with Love

"Younger" Ep. 602 (Airs 6/19/19)

How much should an investor on a publisher’s board get involved in the business when she wants her book to be published? That’s the question highlighting the season’s second episode.

Quinn (guest star Laura Benanti), the chief financial officer-type from last week’s episode, turns out to be an investor on the board. She wants her book to be the first release of the revamped publisher. In the beginning of the episode, Diana (Miriam Shor) asks why is the company now looking at focus groups for their books. It turns out Kelsey (Hilary Duff) wants to ensure the success of her first book release as CEO.

The focus group loathes the book with a passion. One woman asks why is the author being given a voice while another is crying about how she wants to un-read it. Liza (Sutton Foster) says her edits weren’t taken seriously therefore didn’t happen, so the book may stay rough and unlikable.

At lunch, Kelsey and Liza invite Quinn to a fancy restaurant where Quinn gifts them with gold-plated business card holders. Then Kelsey suggests holding Quinn’s self-help empowerment book Claw for the spring since it needs more edits when at the moment it’s coming off as “anti-woman.”

Quinn brushes it off and emphasizes how her vote brought Kelsey to her CEO role.

“If a writer doesn’t want to take notes, they might as well self-publish,” Liza hints aloud.

Yet Quinn, determined, remains steadfast that her book is fine. She then starts slamming the table with a cheer: “Guess who wrote a masterpiece? It will be our first release!” The rumble gets louder with diners looking their way at the commotion. Kelsey is confused while Quinn says the cheer rhythm is from her 1998 cheer competition, which Liza brings up the incessant mentions of high school in the book. Quinn keeps going with the cheer until Kelsey and Liza join her to stop it. After lunch, Kelsey asks what happened. Liza interjects it from Chapter 3 of Claw called “Charm and Disarm.”

Now working to save the company from not publishing Quinn’s book first during her new stint as CEO, Kelsey has been in talks with Reese Witherspoon about a screenplay she calls “sexy, millennial and set in the fashion world.” The screenwriter can produce a novel in a month after submitting a test chapter. Liza is uncertain about the quick change of events, but Kelsey is convinced that the simple mention of Reese Witherspoon will force Quinn out of the way.

Later on, Liza drops that she told her current boo/former publisher Charles about the work drama with Quinn. Kelsey doesn’t like the sound of this. She takes it as her actions being scrutinized for her not being prepared to be a CEO since she’s 28. She tells Liza to schedule a dinner with her and Quinn alone.

At the dinner, Quinn reveals she can’t have her book pushed to the spring because she plans to jump-start her senatorial campaign in California. Her book will help her become the “strong, independent voice.” But Kelsey resists.

“Every book that comes out of Millennial has to be the best it can be,” Kelsey pushes. Then she adds, “Board members don’t tell publishers what to do.”

Quinn dares Kelsey to publish Claw or she’ll never hear from her again. Kelsey puts a ballpoint pen in front of Quinn because she wants that in writing.

Other storylines include Josh (Nico Tortorella) becoming a father after a balloon mishap at the gender reveal party and Diana writing a magazine article about how much she loves her plumber boyfriend who usually gets the independent woman burn from her.

The last season, similar to the turn of events in last week’s premiere, show the series emphasizing the book pitches coming to the the publishing house will somehow relate to businesswomen empowerment with Kelsey as a millennial CEO. The series, again with its title, surrounds Liza lying about her age to compete in the publishing industry but also shows how younger people like Kelsey and her competitive boo Zane (Charles Michael Davis) are taking the helm with their pure diligence and ambition. Zane and Charles also seem to be secretly building their own publishing company, so hopefully that storyline turns out to be true in a future episode and cause even more havoc in their career goals and romantic lives.

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‘Younger’ TV Review: Big Day

"Younger" Ep. 601 (Airs 6/12/19)

The sixth and final season of Younger started with Millennial Imprint boss Kelsey taking the helm as the youngest publisher in New York City from longtime editor Charles, who gave his career up for his perpetually age-lying girlfriend Liza. The episode returns to Kelsey taking over as CEO and how her struggle may be reflected in the books the company will publish.

Younger centers around 42-year-old Liza (Sutton Foster) lying about her age with subtracting almost 25 years off to make it in the publishing world when she had taken time off to raise her now-college-aged daughter. She works with Kelsey (Hilary Duff), an actual 28-year-old taking the publishing world by storm, especially in this season with taking over their storied publishing house.

After Liza gets emotional seeing a facility worker unscrewing Charles’ (Peter Hermann) name plaque from his office and placing one with Kelsey’s name, she and Kelsey learn from their chief financial officer that Page Six plans to expose why Charles abandoned the company. It says he left for a 28-year-old whom he was having an affair with (he’s in his 40s with an estranged wife), which they all knew could be interpreted as Kelsey, diminishing her meteoric rise to CEO. Liza yells to the entire office that she’s the one Charles is dating. This rubs her former boss Diana (Miriam Shor) the wrong way, as she doesn’t know Liza’s secret of her real age and sees her as an opportunity-stealing millennial. And with Kelsey now being the boss also doesn’t sit well with Diana.

Later in the day, Kelsey learns the company’s finances are in trouble with revenue slipping away every day. After that meeting, she meets with a potential author, surprisingly a black woman since the diversity in the cast reflects the real publishing industry, who pitches her book, The Glass Cliff. It focuses on boss women and how they’re set up not to win. She gives the example of women usually inheriting the CEO role of distressed companies. Kelsey gulps at the mention of this, knowing she’s living that life.

Other plots pop up in the episode with Diana threatening to quit but being lured out of the decision with a Dolly Parton 9 to 5 karaoke stint, Charles buying a bed for Liza and him now that they’re more official, and Josh (Nico Tortorella) finding out he’s going to be a father to the Irish woman he had green card marriage with. But the overarching theme focused on Kelsey and how rising to the top is not what it’s cracked up to be. This will even extend in their book decisions like with The Glass Cliff and next week’s episode preview showing Kelsey trying to explain to her CFO that her book pitch sucks.

Like other shows, Younger produced a novel, Marriage Vacation, and the book review is available.

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‘Younger’ TV Review: #LizaToo

TV Land

TV Land’s literary dramedy Younger returned tonight to kick off its fifth season, and finally goals have been reached and secrets have been spilled with the #MeToo movement looming in the background.

Younger is about a 40-something woman posing as a millennial at a publishing house after becoming a divorced empty nester. So her life is a lie.

The episode starts with the Empirical Press’ knockoff George R.R. Martin character Edward L.L. Moore having a soon-to-be-released series surrounding a scantily clad “Game of Thrones”-like princess. But it turns out he directed a sexually charged comment to a female fan in his made-up language at an event. When Liza realizes she would have to dress up again like the princess for Comic-Con, she remembers the author had made some crude remarks to her in the past as well. 

Meanwhile, the Millennial imprint gets snubbed on the “Marriage Vacation” novel with an Empirical badge on the spine. The novel is written by the estranged wife of Charles, the senior editor at Empirical, who Liza is clandestinely in love with though Liza worked with his wife on the book. And the novel is real complete with the fictional author’s name on the cover. 

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TV Land

Amid the book announcements, the company has to undergo sexual harassment training. Before the session, Liza, like in many episodes, runs into someone who knows her as a suburban New Jersey mother. It turns out to be her daughter’s roommate’s father. At the salad restaurant near her office. So it’s no surprise when the father shows up as the lawyer conducting the training back at her office. She hides under the desk and crawls out to the restroom. 

At Comic-Con dressed as Princess Pam-Pam, Liza receives another crude remark from L.L. Moore. As she assembles other women dressed in the same outfit who were previous princess performers, she asks the group if they heard any off-color comments from the legendary wheelchair-bound 60-something author. They say yes. So Liza breaks the news to Charles, and since it doubles down on the earlier accusations, he postpones the book in front of the fans upset by the turn of events. 

Though the princess series is canceled, Liza finds a way to alter the three-month Times Square advertisement to promote “Marriage Vacation” instead. But L.L. Moore, busy with his legal team, does an investigation on his accusers and presents evidence to Charles. With Liza’s birth and marriage certificates in hand, Charles can’t believe the millennial publishing assistant he’s fallen in love with is actually an age-appropriate liar. 

Liza’s secret is revealed! 

To Charles, the boss she’s in love with! But, of course, the episode ends, so Liza’s reaction to be continued. 

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‘Younger’ TV Review: The Gift of the Maggie

TV Land

Though this week’s episode of Younger — the TV Land series surrounding a 41-year-old woman lying about her age to enter the publishing industry — was about main character Liza’s artist roommate Maggie slashing a millennial rival’s interpretation of her artwork, it really put a spotlight on the romance genre.

The episode started at a photoshoot for models posing for a romance book cover for a famed romance novelist who unexpectedly died in the previous episode. Then the conversation turned to finding her successor, or a ghostwriter to continue her stories under her moniker. Interviews ensue with all the wrong candidates until one walks in — a Columbia professor with kids heading to college — who expresses her wish to kill the HEA aka “happily ever after.”

At the art show where Maggie slashes her repurposed art, Liza runs into her ex-boyfriend Josh and asks that he stay in her life (even though she cheated on him last season). It inspired her to tell her boss Charles that readers need HEA. 

But does HEA need to be in every romance novel? 

Many argue yes. It’s a part of the formula of creating a romance story. With my next idea entering that genre, I came up with a new plan that would incorporate HEA, which has been nonexistent in my other stories. So it was a sign to start the romance novel sooner than later. 

Also, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books got a shoutout, so not only did viewers get insight on romance, they also learned about a new blog/podcast. 

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‘Younger’ TV Review: Post Truth

Younger / TV Land

TV Land’s Younger is a sophisticated dramedy about a 40-year-old recently divorced single mom who returns to the workforce to realize entry-level book publishing jobs are going to millennials, so she becomes one — by docking 14 years to become 26. This week was the summer series’ fourth season, and Liza has been lying about her age all this time but finally ’fessed up to her boss, 26-year-old Kelsey, as they head the Millennial imprint. But now that Liza is technically not a millennial, they have to collaborate amid the drama to make the public believe Liza can represent the brand.

The takeaway from the episode is the self-branding. Though Liza is not a writer, more of a writer hunter, she has to be attractive online for writers to find her. Her imprint signs millennial writers, so after one who’s an entertainment reporter discovered last season that Liza wasn’t honest about her age, she threatened to blackmail her — with forcing Liza to buy her novel told from the point-of-view of her labradoodle. Yeah, Kelsey turned that one down, but Liza saw her dream job slipping if her secret got out.

To throw other millennial writer sleuths off their trail of fabrication, Kelsey concocted a plan to create Liza’s online brand. She didn’t have one, which wouldn’t sit right with the average millennial. 

It’s the same way for writers to find book publishers and agents. We have to up our social media game in our obsessively connected world to find each other and get a feel for a personality through a screen. As Liza’s secret unravels, it’ll be interesting this season to see how it will impact the Empirical publishing house as a whole and the budding imprint for youngish writers. And if any self-branding mishaps ensue, writers should take note.