A new friend at work becomes a rival and the problem ultimately far bigger. You will need to suspend your disbelief at times but an entertaining read.

I did enjoy the pace of this book, slowly we meet the characters and are let into their world. There's an underlying uneasiness of something going on under the surface which makes a tense read in a good way - slowly events unfold and the reader puts the puzzle together. Those are my favourites because you don't see what's coming.
I will be honest, I didn't love the big twist but overall I would recommend this thriller.

Zakiya Dalila Harris, we don't know each other but still I ask of you... how could you? How could you write a book like this with a brilliant slow build, one that reveals its hand slowly, and then just when you think you've got your eye on it: the other hand punches you in the face? If you want to incredibly aggravated by an excellent book with a fascinating look at the world and compelling characters, read this book. Just, pack ice for the wound that you will be left with. I have no higher praise.

This had so much packed into the narrative that I loved. A highly tense working environment that brims with menace, manipulation and secrets, an important discussion on the black experience in the workplace and a plot that is full of insane twists and turns. It's a very hard book to categorise. And I think this is also where it's faults lie. It tries to take on too much, and ends up becoming too extreme to be realistic. It's also very slowly paced, which helps build up this feeling of underlying tension and threate, but just doesn't do enough to move the plot forward. I admit that I often found myself not wanting to pick this up as a result, and I couldn't find myself engaging with the story at all.

Don't go into this expecting something light and fluffy and funny. This is dark and gritty and intelligent. It's an insightful look at the extremes people will go to in order to fit in, and the social pressures put on black women within the high powered workplace. I just wish the pacing could have been a bit pacier to keep me entertained.

Nella is the only Black girl at Wagner Books, and is desperate for more Black girls to join to help bolster the diversity workshops she started (but that fell flat on their faces). That is, until Hazel arrives, another Black girl, at the same time she starts getting threatening notes to leave Wagner, and she starts to questions what being a Black girl means in publishing.

I want to preface this review by saying I am white, and this is obviously a book about the experience of being a Black girl, specifically in publishing but also in life in general, and there were many aspects of this book that were not aimed at me or my experience. Which is fine.

That's not why I didn't like this book.

The pacing is very slow, Very little happens throughout the first part of the book, and everything is told through Nella's point of view, who is not particularly interesting or a gripping protagonist. There are numerous times when the story goes on to give you some extraneous detail about someone or other who you never see again, or just goes off on a tangent in a really boring way.

When the action did pick up a little, I still wasn't hugely gripped. Instead I was more than a little bit confused about what was going on with the other, random point of view chapters that were slotted in featuring new characters I'd never heard of before.

And then the ending? I am so confused, but I care so little that I don't want to find out. No major spoilers but... I didn't understand the whole hair grease thing?? How did that... do anything? And Nella's personality seemed to suddenly switch 180 degrees in the face of one scene. There are so many unanswered questions about other characters but I wasn't even invested enough in this book to care now that it let me down so much at the end, which was hugely rushed compared to the slow pace of the rest of the book.

The Other Black Girl is more than worth the hype! This is a thriller that is smart and thought-provoking. The story will make you think. The description of "Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada" is right on the money. Highly recommended! Be sure to check out The Other Black Girl today!

This is one of the best books I've read in ages! Love the eyecatching cover design, and the writing was second to none. I found the storyline completely absorbing and really enjoyed reading it. I'll definitely be looking out for more from Zakiya Dalila Harris - amazing writer!

A smart, sophisticated thriller that takes a searing look at race, ambition and friendship and what happens when they intersect in the corporate world. At times it did feel like there were two or three stories competing for the reader's attention, but it's rewarding to see how everything ties together in the end. Important, thought-provoking and compelling.

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris.

This novel was a little too slow paced for my liking but it’s a decent debut with some really good writing and interesting ideas/social commentary.

Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me.

I found myself skimming a lot of the text as it felt very dense. Not enough happened early on to keep me interested.

However I enjoyed the writing and I thought the premise was great. For the right reader, this could be a fantastic book but unfortunately, that isn't me.

Thank you so much to the author & Bloomsbury for this eArc.

I really wanted to love this book as the premise seemed like something I would love, a thriller set in the publishing world, unfortunately the pacing and big reveal just didn't work for me.

(3.75/5) I did not know until reading this that I am terrified of the very concept of office politics. (There are more sinister things to worry about here than just that, though.) All the little indignities and injustices that Nella has to swallow down, force out, dance around, not knowing who to trust… You can really feel her exhaustion. To me that actually might be the most important part of the book to remember, especially if you’ve never experienced microaggressions or been/felt marginalised in your workplace.

I had an issue with the jumps in POV and timeline; I found them often quite confusing, though some do pay off as the threads of conspiracy begin to glint into visibility quite satisfyingly. There were some incredibly shocking twists too. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t still feel befuddled by some elements of the mystery at the end, for example the point of the notes sent to Nella.

The antagonists and how they operated was sickeningly insidious and the revelation of their identity, their power and their motives was really disturbing (though artistically I appreciated the puns). It is clearly illustrated how twisted this perspective is, no matter how beguilingly it may pretend to come from a place of good intentions. ...Which leads me onto why the ending threw me off so much. It’s chilling for sure, but I felt so much like I’d just been left hanging with no real resolution to the story. Like…I read all of that, stuck with and became invested in the (at times, very frustrating) Nella, read through a lot of overlong exposition too, and…for what? It’s definitely an ending that sticks with you though!

Overall, I found this an intriguing and unexpected genre-crossing book, that felt at times horrifyingly surreal yet at others, depressingly plausible. It’s best to go into this without knowing too much, so I’d recommend resisting the urge to open any spoiler tags online (content warnings excluded, of course).

The Other Black Girl - Zakiya Dalila Harris


Nella works at her dream job at a publishing company. She never felt like she fit in as the only black employee on staff who wasn’t either in the mail room or one of the custodial team.

When Hazel arrives with her waist length locks and unmistakable black perspective, Nella is both excited and anxious. Excited that there is someone else who could share in her experiences, cultural touchstones and perspective in a way that her colleagues couldn’t. Anxious in that she might be a better ‘Black girl’ than she is.

Before too long, Hazel is acting strangely - intent on getting in to Nella's boss’ good books and reading her slush pile, providing opinions that Nella should be giving. She’s talking to people, authors, colleagues about topics above her role, and everyone loves her for it. She even knows about Nella’s white boyfriend, which she’s sure she never mentioned. Or is Nella just being paranoid and sabotaging what could be a great friendship?

While the blurb for this set the story as the new ‘Devil Wears Prada’, I found it to be much closer to ‘Get Out’, layering the code switching and pressure to conform to a society, to suppress Blackness and ‘other’ so you can fit in, in a society that treats you as less valuable, worthwhile and a commodity to be picked up tor sold whenever.

The narrative structure is interesting too, switching between characters and back and forth in time t build a picture of generations of Black women, intertwined and connected but not on the same side - although they may be striving for the same outcome.

I’d recommend this to people who liked Kiley Reid’s ‘Such a Fun Age’ <link> and Jordan Peele’s unsettling cinema, along with a hearty dose of thriller-mystery. Be warned - this is set up for a sequel so you may not get the resolution you’re expecting.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the DRC.

Really enjoyed this book.
I thought Nella was going a bit mad at first but then things start happening and wow the twist and turns just compell you to read.
I couldn’t put this down I read it one day.

⭐️⭐️ well I’ve had to dip in and out of this one as I found it very slow going.

The characters were annoying to me and it seemed after a very slow start, and a very long book, the last quarter was where it all picked up.

Disappointing sorry

I love a debut novel – there’s something incredibly rewarding and exciting about reading what is the author’s first publicly published work. However, I’m not sure this one hit the mark for me.

As an incredibly slow-burning commentary on the white world of publishing, the story follows Nella Rogers – the only Black employee at Wagner Books. In walks Hazel.

As tensions started to grow, I found myself questioning when something interesting was going to happen – when was it all going to boil over? While the book did address the various issues, including microaggressions, that Black people experience daily both at work and away from it, the build up took too long. It wasn’t until the last third of the book that the plot started to take a turn.

I think the concept of this book is exceptional and needs addressing on a daily basis, but the execution just wasn’t right.

We reviewed this one enthusiastically in The Book Club Review podcast episode #102 - great read and perfect for book club:

This is like Stepford Wives for the BLM generation.

I found this a thought provoking, eye opening read which had so much food for thought in every page. What would you do to get ahead when the odds are heavily stacked against you? That's the question posed in "The Other Black Girl" and the answers it provides are deeply disturbing.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

While I’m not really a huge reader of thrillers, The Other Black Girl’s premise sounded amazing. And I really enjoyed the first half of the book, but then things taken unexpectedly quite a turn, and unfortunately, the book has ended up not being my cup of tea. I think that The Other Black Girl sets up to discuss and investigate important topics, and I think it does in parts – especially in the first half of the book – but then loses its authenticity and importance midway. However, I liked the author’s voice so I may have look into their future projects.

Unfortunately, I‘m really disappointed by this novel. The synopsis was great „Devils wears Prada meets Get Out“, but that’s not what it turned out to be. It took about 60% until a bigger reveal occured, it was so slow with little to no moments of suspense.

Thank you NetGalley / Bloomsbury for providing me with this arc in exchange for an honest review.