Book Review: "Lift Me Up" by Milly Johnson

For years, Tam did nearly everything to hold it all together at YorkMart, the grocery company where she worked. Most of her efforts went unseen or someone else took the credit, but better she stay out of the spotlight, right? Yet when her boss leaves she is temporarily promoted to the top spot, finally giving her the chance to prove herself.

She envisions the company’s board being so impressed that they offer her the job permanently. Instead, they bring in an outside expert named Jack, sending Tam back into her old role. She hears rumors that he’ll be bringing his own people in, and when Jack requests her presence at an important meeting with the board, she figures she’ll be given her farewell.

She winds up in the elevator with Jack. Somewhere between floors 13 and 14, the elevator gets stuck. Tam starts to panic, envisioning all the ways she will meet her end. To calm her down, Jack talks to her and gets her to let down her guard a bit. She figures that if he’s going to let her go anyway, does it matter what she says, if he asks for her advice?

But the thing is, Jack knows all the work she’s put in. He thinks she should have been hired permanently too. He thinks she’s exceptional. Which is something no one has ever told her—not her family, not her fiancé, no one. She’s just made herself smaller and smaller and taken the criticism or indifference.

In the acknowledgments of the book, Milly Johnson says that she often writes “…about women who are due a renaissance because there are too many who do not value themselves for all they do for others, for the wonderful selfless people they are.”

This book really captures that spirit, although Tam must endure a lot of criticism and indifference before she can see her worth. Is it really a choice between being vibrant and seen or nearly invisible and irrelevant?

This story will publish 5/1.