Review: How Far She’s Come by Holly Brown

Title: How Far She’s Come by Holly Brown
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 416 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

From the highly acclaimed author of Don’t Try to Find Me and This is Not Over comes the unforgettable, harrowing story of a young broadcast journalist who discovers a mysterious diary from a female broadcaster in 1991 featuring startling—and frightening—parallels to her own life.

You might be wondering what a diary from 1991 has to do with you. You’re about to find out. Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it…

Twenty-four-year-old Cheyenne Florian has just received her dream job offer. On the strength of a few vlogs, she’s recruited to be the new correspondent on the recently hatched Independent News Network, INN.

With the slogan “Because independent thinking is the only way out,” INN has branded itself as innovative. Yet once Cheyenne joins the INN team, she finds age-old dynamics in play. Some of the female staff resent her meteoric rise, while a number of the men are only too happy to welcome her. Then there’s the diary left for her anonymously, written in 1991 by a female broadcaster named Elyse Rohrbach. The mysterious diary is accompanied by a note, urging Cheyenne to learn from the past. She wants to believe it’s intended as inspiration and friendly advice, or at most, a warning. But as disturbing—and increasingly dangerous—parallels begin to emerge, she starts to wonder if something more sinister is at work.

It’s almost as if someone is engineering the similarities in Cheyenne’s life to match those from Elyse’s past, like she’s a pawn in a very twisted game. But Cheyenne is determined to rewrite the rules and play her own game. Though they’re separated by more than twenty-five years, Elyse and Cheyenne are forced to learn the same lesson: Nothing is more threatening than a woman who doesn’t yet know her own power…

Review:

How Far She’s Come by Holly Brown is an intriguing novel with suspenseful elements.

Twenty-four year old recent college graduate Cheyenne Florian impulsively accepts a job as a newscaster at the up and coming Independent News Network (INN).  INN’s owner Edwin Gordon is proud of the fact his company does not rely on advertiser dollars which leaves them freedom to report the news stories that other news agencies will not touch. With no formal training as a journalist, Cheyenne’s only experience is as a vlogger who disappeared from the public eye after her controversial story went viral and she was stalked and targeted by cyberbullies. Not long after she begins working at INN, she begins receiving Elyse Rohrbach’s diary entries from 1991 which follow closely along the same path Cheyenne is now taking.  She begins to wonder if she made the right choice to accept Edwin’s offer after she becomes the target of sexual harassment by one of the male producers.  However, it is not until broadcast journalist Beth Linford disappears that Cheyenne tries to figure out who is sending her Elyse’s diary entries and exactly what is going on at INN.

Cheyenne is a little naive when accepting Edwin’s job offer but by the time she begins questioning whether or not she made the right choice, it is too late to do anything about it. Instead she must push aside her misgivings and allow herself to be exploited in order to grab ratings. Cheyenne also quickly figures out that not everyone at INN is warm and welcoming as she tries to decipher who is her friend and who is her foe at her new workplace. In the wake of the #MeToo movement,  she quickly discovers that sexual harassment is still all to prevalent and afraid of risking her job, Cheyenne has to decide whether or not to speak out about her experiences with one of the higher ups in the company.

Elyse’s  diary pages hit very close to home and Cheyenne is not certain whether or not the person sending them is trying to help her or threaten her.  Many of Elyse’s experiences in 1991 closely follow the same events that Cheyenne is grappling with in the present.  With only a vague idea of what happened to Elyse, Cheyenne is fascinated by the revelations in the diary, but it is not until after Beth’s disappearance that she begins researching exactly what happened to Elyse. The information she unearths leads to stunning information about what is occurring at INN, but what will Cheyenne do with these revelations?

Despite Beth’s disappearance and the suspense surrounding the diary entries, How Far She’s Come by Holly Brown is not a traditional mystery. The novel instead highlights the fact that even after the very public #MeToo movement, women still must contend with sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace. The plot is timely and Cheyenne eventually shows everyone what she is made of  as the novel comes a strong and satisfying conclusion.