She's spent most of her life being an overachiever, driven by a father whose primary mechanism of communication and affection was coaching her to victory. She went to Princeton, excelled at every sport she played, and she even won gold at the American Yoga National Competition. But now she's tired of being treating like a slave by her bosses, working until 4:00 a.m. some days only to be right back at her desk before 9:00 a.m., and she's ready for it all to be over.
All she needs to do is be patient and wait for the year to come to an end. It appears, however, that won't be easy. She's just slept with a hot man from her yoga class—who is now her new boss on a major deal. She's also just met Skylar, one of her yoga idols, and she's taken a real interest in Allegra. The thing is, however, Skylar wants to help her begin to focus more on herself, become more centered and intentional about her goals and her yoga practice. That doesn't seem to reconcile itself with the hellish pace at which Allegra spends her workweek.
As Allegra tries to balance her daily responsibilities with following Skylar's advice, she finds she's successful at neither. And the results are spectacular—spectacularly bad, that is. If things keep up the way they're going, she might get fired before she gets her bonus, which, of course, will leave her nowhere. She's alienating her closest coworker and burning the candle at both ends is also taking its toll on her physically. What do you do if you fall asleep when you attempt meditation?
The closer Allegra gets to bonus day, the more confused she becomes about what path she should take. Should she follow Skylar or set her own path? Is she crazy to abandon a promising—if destructive—career in finance to pursue her dreams? And perhaps more importantly, what is her father going to say when she tells him she's quitting? It's enough to make even the most centered person feel completely off-kilter.
Breathe In, Cash Out is a humorous look at the cutthroat world of finance and the first-world problems of young people making six-figure salaries right out of college yet feel they are overworked and underappreciated. (Wow, I might have totally sounded like a grumpy old man just then.) It's also a fascinating look at how easy it can be to self-destruct when you're not 100 percent focused, and how sometimes it just takes one person's belief in you and your dreams to help you pull yourself together—however briefly.
Madeleine Henry worked for Goldman Sachs and then started her own yoga practice, so she definitely knows of what she writes. She has a breezy, funny writing style, and even though I didn't understand a lot of the terms her characters used when talking about the finance world, I found myself fully immersed in this story. The plot is a little bit predictable but Henry still created enough uncertainty in exactly how far Allegra might fall, or whether she'd decide to pursue her dream in the first place.
Things did get a little repetitive toward the middle, and there are times when I almost wanted to read the book with my hands over my eyes because I was waiting for everything to simply explode, but this was a tremendously fast and fun read. The marketing for the book compares it to The Devil Wears Prada, and while there may be a few similarities, this is an enjoyable book on its own.
Trust me: you'll see Breathe In, Cash Out in a lot of people's hands this summer and fall. I am just trying to think about who could play Allegra in the movie version.
NetGalley and Atria Books provided me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!
This book publishes July 9, 2019.
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