Best Young Woman Job Book: A Memoir

by Emma Healey

A witty, soulful memoir about trying to make a living under the burden of unwelcome truths.

Emma Healey just wants to be a writer.
As a teenager, she is introduced by her actor/playwright mother to the role of "standardized patient," performing illness as a living training dummy for medical students. In university, she joins a creative writing program, cultivating a poet's interest in language while learning lessons about the literary world that have more to do with survival than art. Through her twenties, she writes software manuals for the world's leading producer of online pornography, masters search engine optimization for a marketing firm run out of a bedroom by two Phish-loving brothers, narrowly escapes death as a research assistant for a television drama, and works the night shift captioning daytime TV. Along the way, as she navigates dating apps, tumultuous relationships, and the evolution of a voice that she is slowly learning to trust, she begins writing personal essays for money--and finds herself embroiled in a content economy that blurs the boundaries between day job and art-making even further.
Through the stories of several very odd jobs, each related to--but also achingly far from--the job she really wants, poet and essayist Emma Healey creates a unique snapshot of the gig economy that is also a timeless meditation on identity, value and language.
For a writer trying to pay the bills, life can be a work in progress.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Canada, Audiobook, Book Club, Biography, Writing

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Emma^^Healey

EMMA HEALEY’s first book of poems, Begin with the End in Mind, was published by ARP Books in 2012. Her poems and essays have been featured in places like the Los Angeles Review of Books, the FADER, the Hairpin, Real Life, the National Post, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Walrus, Toronto Life, and Canadian Art. She was poetry critic at the Globe and Mail (2014–2016) and is a regular contributor to the music blog Said the Gramophone. She was the recipient of the Irving Layton Award for Creative Writing in both 2010 and 2013, a National Magazine Award nominee in 2015, and a finalist for the K.M. Hunter award in 2016.

Reviews

[Alanna Why · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plowed through this one really quickly. I really loved the honesty about money, which I find is often lacking in other artist memoirs. The intentional vagueness about naming specific people and locations worked for me at the start, but less so towards the end, although I can tell this was an intentional choice for the subject matter. I didn't realize the title was a joke about SEO until halfway through, but it made me laugh once I clued in! A compelling and honest read.

[Anna]

How do you review a book that you feel you’ve lived? For the first time ever, I understood every reference, knew every unnamed person and bar and office building in a book. Healey unpeels the layers of the connection between precarious work and existing as a woman looking for safety in life, yes, but particular in the insular sphere of the Canadian writing scene. And as we all know, me better than most, that safety is just as precious as the work we need to do to keep ourselves alive. Tender and ferocious and a mirror.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall there is something here, but it is buried underneath a lot of writing that feels like an unending thought. Could have been a strong compilation of short stories on this idea of different jobs but, instead, is a poorly built book full of tossed in thoughts/jabs/social commentary that goes nowhere.

[Alice Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some great prose, but overall I didn't enjoy this book much. I felt Healy's story ideas were more compelling than the actual vague memoir. It felt disjointed and missed the opportunity to say interesting things about work, sexism, our economy, etc.

[Maybel Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars! I would totally hang out with Emma. We’d get drunk and tell each other funny stories until the sun came up. We would laugh, we would cry, we would walk away better, more fulfilled people. What a great ride this book is.

[Averie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Filled with interesting remarks and yet mundane. I do feel like I know and understand the author albeit through untethered or unfinished thoughts? Or maybe that’s just how I feel upon finishing this book — untethered.

Even though I found it to be a bit mundane, it was a quick and overall enjoyable read because as many reviews mention, her story is very localized (the Easter eggs are what kept me going through some of the slower parts, getting to witness “my” cities through her lens), and I found it to be a great portrait of a young woman learning to untangle and navigate one’s career and identify and value. She’s just like me fr.

I hope Emma made a lot of money and that job was the last day job she ever took.

Also this felt like my Toronto initiation.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird and whimsical poetic essays about being a young woman in the modern world. Some really inspiring turns of phrase.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

i don’t think i could have read this book at a better time!

also a surprising companion piece to Ducks, which i read just a few weeks ago. capitalism sucks and it especially sucks for women

[Loriepaddock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Healey writes of a work world that as a retired person is behind me, and happily so; my parents' generation worked decades for the same company, my own generation would change jobs/upgrade strategically to 'advance' our careers, our children's generation - and more so, their children's work world - exists in a very different and fragmented and uncertain place. An illuminating and disquieting read.

[Dessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book feels like a triumph the way a day of good work feels like a triumph, like a con, like getting away with something. The triumph is secret and guarded and personal, and those who purchase your labour can never purchase your triumph.

[Yan Castaldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

really very good!! :)

only complaint i have (which isn’t really a complaint) is the book was written in an intentionally vague way, which made it really hard to situate. healey obviously intended this (it builds out the themes of disconnection and dissociation in a very visceral way) and she pulls it off well! just isn’t really my cup of tea in a memoir, i like a strong sense of place and the ability to connect closely to the author and their experiences—especially when they’re taking place in places i know well!!!

[Camille Jovanovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was true and beautiful - I loved it! Also so fun to recognize little slices of Toronto throughout.

[Paloma Hazel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply so good

[Desha]

Enjoyed!

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written book, compelling and not for the faint of heart.

[Katia]

literally tore through this. so good!

i'm biased to liking this because, like a lot of reviews mention, it feels like i did live this. and in many ways i did and didn't! Emma Healey does capture something very precious here. i spent a lot of time thinking about work and jobs and love and this was right up my wheelhouse. made me really remember the first summer i spent in montreal, the one month i lived in toronto, and then all the other times i've spent between those cities and everyone i've befriend and met and all the summers and apartments since.

i cried at the offhand mention of Bar Alexandraplatz. rip to a real one.

[Sukhpreet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite liked this memoir, especially for the first 100 or so pages. It lost a bit of something for me thereafter, but that may have been more me than the writing. I always appreciate books set in Canada (especially Toronto) that are actually good and not just more CanLit, and I liked the vagueness/slight mystery she created by not actually naming people/places (though I realize that may have just been due to legal advice, in some cases). I do have serious questions about the title and how it calls to mind the English of a non-native speaker, which has nothing to do with this memoir and strikes me as vaguely offensive, if not worse. [It was also exciting to have an ARC, for the very first time!]

[Judy Monchuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Troubling, sad memoir about surviving in the gig economy when trying to pursue a creative life -- looking at relationships and finding your way while following your dreams. A lot of this seems to be reflective of the realities facing too many young lives in the current world, and females in particular. It seemed too often to be scummy and predatory.
The cover heralded this as "comic" and I've read reviews praising this as witty and fun. It is witty and biting in parts. Other parts strike me as a modern day horror story that should be a wakeup call for a broader society.

[Isabel Archer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is anybody going to talk about the fact that the author completely omitted the fact that she is a literary nepo baby or will the gaslighting campaign slog relentlessly on?

I for one am at my limit! After another year of experiencing health scares from the ill effects of being unable to afford groceries, and being born into the kind of Ontario family that believes a university education is some kind of conspiracy by the Libs, so the pursuit of any sort of creative endeavour or immersion within a community of like-minded individuals was completely out of reach to me, yes even with grants and OSAP! The mind, it truly boggles at the gall it takes from girlypops to sell this as some kind of hardscrabble story about pluckily climbing ladders. For God’s sake, when you Google her one of the first results is an article about using grant money to hire an assistant when she was 22 and studying abroad.

This is not a person who did not come from privilege. The entire premise of this memoir is so profoundly dishonest.

It’s also, for a number of reasons other reviewers discussed here already - if you can find them between the myriad brainrotted reviews consisting of “OMG so relatable!!!” And “Hey I know that guy/that place!!!” - just not that good.

She had her entire life ahead of her to do something interesting with that privilege worthy of spilling ink over. At the very least, Healey could have reflected upon the privilege of being born into connections and opportunity in the first place. That’s a drastically more compelling story than actually being stuck in entry-level, precarious trenches, and it’s frankly weird of her to romanticize this.

Emma Healey is the Hilaria Baldwin of poverty.

(And yes! I had to make a new account to write this honest memoir. Like the mob, nepo babies are protected in ways us normies cannot fathom.)

[Larissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know Emma, but I happen to know that we're only one degree of separation apart (wait, is mutual friends one or two? whichever one it is, we're that), so this maybe shouldn't have struck me as such a surprise, but wow is this ever an incredibly clearly localised book. I bring up the degrees of separation because perhaps all memoirs are like this, but I'm only noticing it because her locality is my locality? And not just in terms of geography - we share a lot of the same demographics that probably make our experiences of these places more similar than they otherwise might be. Also perhaps noticing it because of the "intentional vagueness" a lot of other readers also describe. All of which is to say that reading this was like a fun little Easter egg hunt wherein I am 100% sure I could identify several of the unnamed people/places/things (e.g. the high school, the university, the teen soap and its stars, the specific gallery exhibit, the small city with the penitentiary, the violent Canadian radio personality...) and in some cases even have my own version of a life story that actively involves them (e.g. that budget bus company and its inexplicably located office/terminal, that porn company and the ubiquity of people with jobs there...). I listened to this as an audiobook and I think it was just about perfect that way. Emma is a really good reader - and I'm very picky about that - but also the text is very suited to that medium I think. I recommend!

[Anna Fraser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was sweet, fun, and highly relatable for an artist type person living in Toronto of a similar age. You can tell the author is a poet based on her descriptions which are vivid and witty. I didn’t appreciate the title till she got her SEO job (which is a very fun section).

Because I am from Toronto and am a lover of uncovering secrets I have attempted to add clarity to the intentional vagueness of the book where I can. Please help so I can stop googling.

Spoilers below if you want to leave the novel as is.

City she goes to school in: Montreal
City she is from: Toronto
City the musician is from: Kingston
Neighborhood the author grows up in and moves back to: little Poland/Roncesvalles Village

Who is the musician/director couple?

[Ot · Rating 3 out of 5]

This brisk memoir has no happy, hopeful ending. Very little happiness or hopefulness at all, actually. Kind of the shock I needed as a young woman in Toronto who has long thought about the frivolous, sorta-selfish idea of writing for a living. It was wild how many of the Toronto locations she writes of I recognized. This books makes me want to do that residency at the Banff Centre one day, if only to experience the conversations she heard through my own ears. She and her experiences remind me a lot of me. We’re both stereo blind too. It is hard as hell being a young (blind, mentally ill) woman, where the only thing you’re sure about is that you love language. And yet the words are never enough coverup for the unsteadiness of your body or the mental plights of your brain.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

petered off a little towards the end but overall, i enjoyed this! interesting discussions around money, work, art, storytelling, memory.

some quotes: "... or just the reminder that your past never belongs to you alone."

"money is abstract, governed by forces completely outside your control or understanding. it is entirely disconnected from the amount of effort you put into making it or the real value of the finished thing you made. it is asynchronous with your life, your work, your value, and also it is the only thing you really need to live."

"with time, even the worst parts of your life can become just a story. all you have to do is tell it again and again."

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

As a new grad currently looking for her first Big Girl Job, this book both inspired and instilled a massive amount of fear in me. In the beginning, it felt like there was more of a natural flow from childhood -> college -> first job, etc, but as the book went on, I couldn't really find an overarching throughline anymore, other than a bunch of stories about different jobs. Like it started to feel less like a cohesive memoir.

But despite that, the writing is great, the humor is great, and I'm glad I read this. There's a lot of pages that are only half/a quarter filled, so the pacing feels pretty quick and you can knock this one out in a couple hours.

[Lauren Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book partly missed the mark for me because I have the great chance/luck/privilege of having had one real job in my post-university adult life, the job I still do now, a job that society mostly values, that people understand as a profession, without precarity. Healey’s vague style is fun, of a piece - though I found myself doing the Leo point meme and naming the person/place she was referring to in my mind. I thought a lot about her writing about sex and men though and, those parts hit.

[Marium Vahed · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intimate look at the life of a writer. Emma writes in fragments - like refined entries from a journal or diary, capturing pieces of her life. This book is about work, the monotonous, repetitive, disappointing, fluctuating nature of it. It’s beautifully written but, even despite knowing her eventual success, it’s a book that you walk away from feeling a little bit empty or sad. I’d recommend reading it but a caveat - as a vulnerable writer you might either see yourself in it or feel discouraged (even momentarily) from pursuing writing as a path. Well-written, frank, and worth picking up.

[Mel Eshaghbeigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book from a friend’s library after sharing my desire to become a writer. I absolutely love memoirs written by women; they often feel soulful and heartbreaking as the authors revisit their stories, their journeys, and their growth. This memoir is a fantastic coming-of-age story, as the author finds her footing in pursuit of her dreams of becoming a published poet and writer. The reflections on the men she encountered along the way—those who failed to help her become a writer but somehow made her journey all the more relatable—were especially poignant. Overall, Best Young Woman Job is a powerful and resonant memoir that beautifully captures the struggles and triumphs of a young woman chasing her dreams against all odds.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an interesting because the structure is really the message, so it takes a while to see beneath the slick exterior. Stylishly written, with pathos but zero self-indulgence. I also enjoyed the very specific local references -- so many crossed paths! It became a kind of game to try to identify the famous but unnamed characters. I'm still not sure, except for, of course "the most popular rapper on earth."

[Amanda Pickers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an easier read to start yet I’m a bit confused.
I felt as if it was too vague and just a lot of writing. I feel like it definitely has potential although I do like that it’s not written like a chapter book.
The way she talks about the musician and hers sex life is so sad.
Not gonna lie, the way Emma describes people is quite funny!
Took me a long time to read, I didn’t want to read it that much.

[Catherine Bryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this memoir. The scenes and chapters were scrappy, yet they worked well and pieced together a coherent story. I can easily relate to her experiences as a writer in Toronto with a series of odd jobs and relationships that didn’t pan out. I especially loved Healey’s writing style and prose. Beautiful but also not too embellished, fun and real. In the end, I hope Healey finds a job that not only pay the bills but is also fulfilling.